The HBR reports this is the first recession ever with recorded decline in household debt

What it also means is people are digging out all those forgotten subscriptions and cancelling. And companies that rely on the monthly transfer are starting to see it dry up.

While we’ve been digging around for trend intelligence like this we’ve also been undertaking our own pilot study using web comment as our primary data source.

Results to date are starting to firm up….. yes, we note that people are not just paying down debt. They are especially focused on paying down credit card debt. And we are logging a revealing structure in the way people make points of view online.

For example we are seeing people interpret recession and recovery much more in terms of personality than in terms of institutions – ie they talk people not banks. We see people in the USA and UK take quite different views of what needs to be done.

In the UK the preference for fundamental change in the economy is strong; in the US not so.

Now we’re back from holiday, time to start cranking out the stats.