Two articles bring home how chilling events are at the moment. Will Web2 activities and behaviours help us combat them ? Let us hope so.

The Chartered Institute for Public Finance Accountants writes here about how Britain may lose its AAA status in the bond markets.

I agree with their critique and summary that politicians are generally sleep-walking on this one and seemingly in denial. It is appeasement on the credit crunch.

Someoneaid the other day that the governing classes appeared to be checking the type of wood that the deckchairs are made of, and not even moving the deckchairs yet !

The train is coming, but they are pretending it is not there because it is round a corner rather than straight in front of them.

A CIPFA extract

A ratings downgrade could be devastating for the UK. A loss of creditworthiness would imply the government was unable to borrow to finance its budget deficit or would have to pay much higher interest rates. Overall, this suggests that there could be really stormy waters ahead, with the possibility of major real-terms cuts in public spending, unprecedented in modern times. This would pose huge problems for services and it is self-evident that decisions about public spending will be painful.

The Economist Intelligence Unit is quoted

Popular anger around the world is growing as a result of rising unemployment, pay cuts and freezes, bailouts for banks, and falls in house prices and the value of savings and pension funds,” said the EIU paper, entitled Manning the Barricades.

“As people lose confidence in the ability of governments to restore stability, protests look increasingly likely. A spate of incidents in recent months shows that the global economic downturn is already having political repercussions.

“This is being seen as a harbinger of worse to come. There is growing concern about a possible global pandemic of unrest.”

You did not read it here first, because I think Vince Cable was the one to suggest unemployment in the UK will go above 4 million.

Are you re-aligning your business to manage this, or can web2 help to reduce the impact of the recession by transforming processes in public services and ensuring public value is maximised ?