September crunch
Times are hard. There can surely be no mistake about that. The squeeze on borrowers has been concealed by the reluctance of the banks, whether they be clearing banks or what is left of the fringe banks, to test by forced sale the worth of the securities they have taken in. One of those dull, bespectacled, forever talkative and impractical men without a breath of constructive thought that have traditionally risen to the top in the BBC on the strength of a modest success in possibly an arts paper a decade or two ago was saying that the stock market and credit would be tested when the tax gathering season started in January and corporate and bank liquidity were tested. An acquaintance who will recognise himself if I say that he is neat and practical and small (so small indeed that a snapshot in my possession shows his wife, a lady of nineteen and the usual height and not statuesque, crouching low as she gets out from a helicopter while my old friend strides safely head erect under the whirling blades of the little machine), will also bear with me if I say that he is a man to be reckoned with. The BBC man, tall and tanned, is used to being the centre of attention at such places as political conferences and garden parties but who is better with a script than on his own. He was silenced by the earthy wisdom of my friend. The crunch will come not in January (though there will be troubles enough for those that are still left then), but in September when straying debtors return from over-extended holidays across the Channel and summon up the courage once more to meet their impatient bankers.
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