Fake Recession?

Recession is a word that has filtered through the lips of many this year. Putting the MP expenses scandal to one side the economic failure of present day UK is due to the sheer greed of banks, thanks to the exposure of ludicrous staff and managerial bonuses. But who is the recession affecting? Is it actually affecting everybody or is it just a particular sector, or class?

My interest in this subject stems from recent news of sales increases from Marks and Spencer, a store that tends to gear more towards the upper classes and least towards working classes and after studying the recession effect it seems that the smaller businesses are the ones that are suffering, not the store chains aimed at the higher class of clientele.

For this report I would like to include the current state of shopping within the city of Bristol which for me is an almost perfect case study for the point in question. In fact the reason why this city is a good example is simply due to the fact that on the one hand we have the Mall, once known as the Galleries which caters more for working class people and Cabot Circus, which opened last year to bring a more high class west end style of shopping to the city.

In effect then you would think that in these times of recession Cabot Circus stores would be the ones that are suffering the most from the situation as they are offering goods more expensively but taking a trip to the Mall it was shocking to note that almost half of the complex comprised of derelict units while Cabot Circus remains in the most part strong and virtually full of stores.

This now goes to serve as further proof that the recession is a fake event to the ‘big boys’ out there and that the smaller companies are actually the ones that are suffering. Does this mean that the recession is only affecting working class people and that there is little to no impact on the upper classes? It would seem so with this and other cases placed under the proverbial knife.