Con text green shoots

Where?Over there. Can't you see them? Peeping out from the dirt?

All I can see is a vast, unbroken post-financial apocalypse wasteland. Look there, past the rotting remains of our credit rating, and right next to the discarded fragments of our hopes and dreams.

I think I can see something there. It's . . . it's just an old Green Black's chocolate wrapper.No, a bit more to the left. I'm certain I can see a couple of tiny green shoots trying to find purchase in this barren financial landscape.

Listen, it would be easier to grow redwoods on the Moon than to grow anything in this credit crunch climate. I'm not the only one who reckons they can see the first stirrings of a new springtime for the world's economy. US federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has seen the green shoots too, and he's not a guy usually given to wild imaginings. In an interview with US current affairs programme 60 Minutes in March, Bernanke reckoned he could see green shoots sprouting right across the market, and made the bold prediction that the economic crisis could come to an end by Christmas.

Nice to see some people still believe in Santa.He's not the only one who has detected a green lining behind the financial storm clouds. In the UK, minister for business Baroness Shriti Vadera told the BBC that she, too, had witnessed these elusive green shoots, and proceeded to mash up her nature metaphors: "Is this a positive straw in the wind, or should we say one swallow does not make a summer? It's too early to say."

It sounds a bit cuckoo to me.This past week, more and more sightings of green shoots have been recorded, suggesting that (a) recovery has begun or (b) there's an outbreak of mass hallucination. Now that the idea of green shoots has taken root in the public consciousness, talk has turned to nurturing these little bonsais of hope until they blossom into a full-blown recovery.

Maybe we should call in Alan Titchmarsh and Diarmaid Gavin and put them in charge of this new economic Garden of Eden.In the past couple of months, stock markets have rallied, leading many to believe these "green shoots" may not be a collective mirage. Irish markets gained by nearly 20 per cent in April and European markets went up by a lucky 13 per cent, while bank shares surged, too. But many naysayers (some might call them realists) reckon that the so-called green shoots are set to be crushed by "dead cat bounce". The market has hit rock bottom, they say, and this is simply a bear market rally, not a full-on recovery.

Are you suggesting that there might be a bit of self-delusion going on here?In the US, green shoots seem to have sprouted up everywhere – in the corridors of Congress, in news reports and analyses, and in speeches by politicians. Despite the reality that the US economy continues to plummet, people everywhere are seeing green, and are ignoring the blinking red light that indicates America is running on empty. Even Barack Obama has been touched by the jolly green giant, believing that his strategy to attack the crisis on all fronts is showing definite results. But US markets have yet to bear out Obama's optimism.

We'll just have to make the best of what we've got, then. Amazing what you can do with a few dead twigs and some old hedge funds.There's a growing school of thought that says, 'Okay, maybe these green shoots are an illusion, but let's not burst anyone's bubble just yet'. Many people felt that the crisis was accelerated by people "talking down" the economy; now, they're applying a similar logic, figuring that if they start bigging up the financial situation, then recovery will follow like spring follows winter.

Try at work:Okay, next person who mentions "seeds of recovery" or "green-finger thinking" gets this garden spade across the head.

Try at home:Green shoots? Listen, I'd need a bloody rainforest to pay off my debts.