The Economist.

Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the event shaping your world.

I bet you've used an online review recently, maybe to pick where to eat on holiday, what to watch, or which toaster to buy.

Question is, who writes them, why, and should we trust them? Amazingly, people have actually done academic research on this.

And we gobble millions of turkeys at Christmas,

and apparently some of us like to get to know a bird before we devour it,

or at least get to know the farmer who reared it.

Our correspondent assures us that no foul play was involved.

First up, though.

To say that there's been quite a lot going on in the past four years is a bit of an understatement.

Health Organization officially announced that this is a global pandemic.

In a televised address at around 6am in Moscow, President Putin announced what he called a special military

operation in the eastern Donbass region. And he said...

...on that subject. President Trump, by the way, now saying we are in a trade war with Beijing.

How does that differ from previous...

Wars, trade wars, banking crises, pandemic. These are normally a few of our

favourite things to spark a downturn. And yet, the global economy has kept growing. Unemployment

in most rich countries is near historic lows and company profits are increasing fast. But there are people who still find something to worry about.

Is it a problem if there's a recession in recessions?

So from 1300 to 1800, economic historians reckon that England and then Britain was in recession

for about half the time.

...