Ragnarok

I came here to quietly sit out the death agonies of the 'new economy' and sit them out I will.

When I graduated in 1989 the last of the really big downturns was just about to gain real momentum. In the past I have referred to a 'lost generation' of top graduates from that and the following couple of years that failed to land those dream jobs and went into a kind of limbo from which many had to extract themselves by resorting to an entrepreneurialism that perhaps wasn't in their fundamental mental make-up.

I wouldn't want to have graduated in 2008 - the current crop of grads will be carrying significant debt and the City will be much harder hit this time round.

The system shuddered quite severely back in 2001 but crucially the financial castle in the air didn't itself come crashing down, and subsequently western governments went out of their way to make sure that it continued to elevate. The current mess can't be blamed entirely on a bunch of city spivs.