Despite the spin from the media of green shoots the real economy continues to decline.

The small gain of the stock market has almost been eroded by 4 weeks of decline.

Unemployment continues to rise at record levels and small businesses especially in retail are going under at an ever quickening rate.

The only winners are the rich bankers - so no wonder they are happy and see green shoots with trillions of taxpayers money paying their million pound salaries.

Leisure spending is collapsing. The West End and Camden are the quietest I have ever seen them. Even in the 80s recession there was alot of life in the summer. At the moment many restaurants and some venues are not even full on Saturday nights.

We keep being told that the economy is stabilising - but if you are watching BLOOMBERG today this is not the case. In the USA it looks very bleak because despite the Government rescue of GM it seems that they cant plug the gaps elsewhere - real estate and many other industries are now collapsing.

This will have a knock on effect for our economy in a few months time to add to an already bleak picture.

I am glad I have no money in investments or stock markets because I can only see them going down further .

At least oil has stopped its silly rise ( it was 70$ a barrel a couple of weeks ago - now it is 59$ a barrell) so pump prices should come down again. Cheap transport costs would help the economy.

I would suggest that BROWN knocks 10p off a litre of DIESEL to help the lorrys and coach operators. It would hopefully take more cars off the road ( Green ) and it would cheapen goods in the shops helping everyone.

I cant see a single green shoot except the banks are loaning to big companies at the moment again - it may trickle down to the real economy but not for 12 - 18 months. 2011 for the rebound I reckon unless a currency or big bank or company goes under........