Original version

BBC World Service Online

Business Daily

Factual: Money

The daily drama of money and work from the BBC.

Business Daily: How confidence works

13/11/2009

How confidence works

BBC World Service - Business Daily, How confidence works

We look at the anatomy of confidence. If you think the economy's on the mend, it will be.

Stock markets have risen, but is the world economy really on the road toward a healthy recovery? Michael Blastland says each investor is still guessing how everyone else feels about the economy.

How does confidence work? The question that's on everyone's minds is whether the world economy is really on the road toward a healthy recovery. Maybe it is, as long as we THINK it is.  Human beings always want to see evidence that backs up their hopes. So every new piece of economic or corporate data is pored over in search of clues. Take the extensive reporting there's been of the profits of big companies.  Stock markets around the world have taken heart. Michael Blastland, who specialises in looking at what lies behind statistics, explains that investors have to assess what other investors are thinking.  He says there's a cycle of secondary impressions about other people's beliefs in the state of the economy. 

And the BBC's Ed Butler interviews Guinea's Mines Minister, Mahmoud Thiam, on the government's attempts to revolutionise its potentially lucrative mining sector. 

And Robert Weissman, president of the US pressure group, Public Citizen ponders on the Glass Steagall Act, an American law scrapped ten years ago, which he thinks would benefit today's global banking industry.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Business Daily

How confidence works

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service