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Fear is 'prolonging the recession'
Sri Carmichael14 Apr 2009
BRITONS are becoming increasingly fearful and anxious, making the economic crisis worse, health experts said today.
Figures show about 800,000 more people now suffer from anxiety disorders than in 1993. A spokesman for the Mental Health Foundation, which produced the report, said fear was partly driving the crisis.
He said: "Individuals and institutions - keen to protect themselves - are now too afraid to lend, spend and invest, despite the fact that these actions could assist in ending the recession."
Charity Anxiety UK reported a doubling of calls to its telephone helpline in the first two months of this year.
The report notes that people with anxiety are at increased risk of health problems, including coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and chronic respiratory disorders such as asthma.
Reader views (10)
Is it fear or is it anger caused by a feeling of powerlessness? We watch politicians huffing & puffing & decrying everyone else whilst themselves revealing 'snouts in troughs' over & over again. The rest of us are 3 pay cheques away from poverty whilst the powerful continue to feather their own nests.
- Susannah, Essex, 15/04/2009 11:56
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Fear is dragging this problem on and on and on and on...
- Jb Hove, hove sussex uk, 15/04/2009 11:12
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There are other reasons for people being fearful apart from the economy. We watch policemen beating a newspaper salesman on his way home, having previously listened to their blanket denials of the fact. We are constantly told that we are under threat from terrorists, which is largely because our government took us into an illegal war by lying to parliament and everyone else. This same government now routinely spies on us. It records every phone call, e-mail, web-browse, the location of every mobile, the DNA of anyone arrested (whether charged and convicted or not). It imposes massive fines whenever we break one of a million petty rules and regulations it has introduced. It wants to store every detail of our lives (and everyone's DNA) in a national ID database, which is certain to be available to organised crime within a few years. The USA has sunk to detention without trial and legalized torture, and our government has been complicit in that. The government is doing nothing about the coming energy and environmental crises, while getting the country deeper and deeper into debt, while paying million-pound bonuses to incompetent bankers, and similar "expenses" and platinum-plated pensions to MPs.
Once, we were citizens. Now, we are clearly subjects. Am I the only person to wonder if I'll feel a pressing need (or an opressing need) to emigrate, two or three more governments down this road? And will there be anywhere left that's any better?
- Nigel, London, 14/04/2009 17:48
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People are fearful for the future and are not spending. Hardly a surprise, given that the so-called danger of deflation appears to be producing a very lively inflation in day to day commodities in the shops; that people have no income from any savings they might have: that they are getting incoherent messages from Government that barely last a few days before requiring amendment; that the excesses of so many MPs in fleecing the public purse continues unabated and is not considered worthy of his attention by the Prime Minister; that a top level Downing Street has been spending time concocting unfounded ,lurid stories about political opponents; and on and on. Perhaps it is not so much fearfulness as sheer nihilism setting in so badly is the country being run. Give us a solid reason to be confident in the future and we may begin to see light at the end of this wretched Brownite tunnel.
- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK, 14/04/2009 17:36
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Institutions keen to protect themselves are now too afraid to lend?
Barclays Bank will not stop throwing credit at me. I keep receiving preprinted cheques but at an incredible interest rate of 10%?!! Their highest savings account is only 2%. It is corporate robbery and the greedy banking machine roles on.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 14/04/2009 14:22
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Keith Price of Luton, doesn't your latest 'revelation' that the recession is caused by 'the Tories' a bit contradictory to your other messages that it's a global problem started in America? Global Tories? Just as beliveable as Browns other stuff isn't it.
Or are you claiming like Brown that your enemies are everywhere. If thats the case you may need a Psychiatrist. May I refer you to Dolly Draper he claims to be a trick cyclist, educated at the Berkley California Branch of McBurger University and I gather he may have lots of spare time on his hands fairly soon.....
He must be good having done his five year course in a little over three years.
- Ethan, UK, 14/04/2009 13:43
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As FDR told the American people during the great depression, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". let's hope for a sunny summer which might go some way to make people feel happier and more secure and hopefully we will then spend a bit more to boost the economy.
- Mark, London, 14/04/2009 12:26
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We have nothing to fear; but fear it’s self.
Personally speaking; I do not fear anything; because I depend on myself, not others.
We enter this world with nothing; and we will leave this world with nothing; so why waste your life gathering things and possessions for just a short moment in time.
This recession is just a word to me; and not a new word at all; if I have no money; I don’t buy; if I have money, I do buy; it is that simple.
Many of us have lived through far harder times than today; we never feared it then; so why fear it now?
If you have nothing; you have nothing to lose; the more possessions you have; the more you become slaves to them.
Wise up; live your lives free, you need less than you think you need.
Let the Government and the bosses worry about money, and selling you stuff you do not need at all.
- Mickyinlondon, london, 14/04/2009 12:25
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Retail sales are already rising and house prices will go up again later this year. It is the fear of the Tories that is holding us back
- Keith Price, Luton, England, 14/04/2009 11:38
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Fear? Or the pragmatism of the many over the few, who keep telling us incorrectly, that things will get better within 12 months, then when it is obvious that they were wrong, extend it another 12 months?
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, 14/04/2009 10:34
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