While this article is focused on Great Britian, I think, too, that a general "belt-tightening" might just WAKE some sleeping, delusional hard-working middle-class citizens that it is past time to take more than a passing interest into what is "not just going to go away and things will go back to the way they were...those days when gasoline could fill your car's tank easily, barely a consideration in the tallying of the monthly budget." Those days have passed and are not coming back. In order to proceed (and progress, hopefully) into the 21st century is going to require a complete revamping of minds everywhere. Unpleasant, but necessary before we all sink into an abyss of slavish thinking, morality issuing brigades and; the encroaching doomsday consortioms.

A good thing? Which people, which segments of the population suffer most in recession?

the one I'm in, have always been in.
good for you!
we all must speak up, move out of our little safe zones in order to keep the current stagnation in thinking from festering into more and divisive extreme examples of what can now only be examined in the petrie dish of human toil, paid for in human tolls.
Keep your gun powder dry!!!! Your thinking sharp!

australia it seems in in a boom, dollar is strong (against the US), China is buying all our resources, lots of jobs (mind you most are in services) and the interest rates keep going up to stop us from spending- pun ishing us for spending?