The US economy shrank by 0.5% last month. The UK, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan are officially in recession. Australia is teetering. The OECD forecast was gloomy, predicting severe downturn and slow recovery for European countries. Of the BRIC countries China is seeing large scale factory shutdowns with rising unemployment and the possibility of social unrest. So it is pumping in over $500 billion into infrastructure projects to pump prime its economy. The outlook for Brazil is pessimistic and a severe recession is being predicted. Russia is struggling because of the sudden sharp fall in commodity prices. It would find it difficult to cut oil production along with OPEC because that would cut its foreign earnings still further. What of the I in BRIC. According to politicians everything is fine and growth will be over 8%. Meanwhile the textile sector has already lost half a million jobs and will lose another half mill. The diamond polishing industry has lost a million jobs already and other industries like auto ancillaries are likely to follow suit. The free loading press repeats every rubbish that lying politicians put out like brain dead parrots. With elections coming how long will they hide the fact that the emperor has no clothes.