The economy going tits up ...did you see it coming?
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audiotech
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Urbans comedy turn mentioned the figure 'five' and not 'fifteen'.
rekil
to menny cranks
Nothing clever about being a child abusing twat tbf.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
It needs to be borne in mind that Blair too is a "Scottish cunt".
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
well duh, boom and bust is capitalism for you
audiotech
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A friend who is a glorified day-trader and who used to head up the FX division of a merchant bank told me 2 years ago that our banks where fucked and that it was going to impact badly to the extent of bankrupting some countries.
I dismissed it at the time as scare-mongering. How wrong I was.
In my defence I did believe that the basics rules of supply and demand would still matter but I did not comprehend just how much of an impact a 'credit crunch' would have. I can only liken it to a situation where by a restaurant has the staff willing to cook meals and a client base willing to buy them but nobody willing to supply the food.
Luckily my own business has very low over-heads and a guaranteed monthly income due to management fees but its bloody scary at the moment. Never known it this quiet in 20 years.
I dismissed it at the time as scare-mongering. How wrong I was.
In my defence I did believe that the basics rules of supply and demand would still matter but I did not comprehend just how much of an impact a 'credit crunch' would have. I can only liken it to a situation where by a restaurant has the staff willing to cook meals and a client base willing to buy them but nobody willing to supply the food.
Luckily my own business has very low over-heads and a guaranteed monthly income due to management fees but its bloody scary at the moment. Never known it this quiet in 20 years.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I saw it coming a mile off, unfortunately I didn't see gordon browns 10p tax rate thing coming, or how much that would affect the bulk of the people who were coming to my club nights to the point that our numbers dropped off massively pretty much exactly when that happened as people who'd go clubbing 3-4 times a month were reduced to 1-2 times a month...
IMO that 10p tax rate thing had a lot more impact on tipping us over the edge than anyone I've seen has given credit to. People most affected by it were generally people who'd spend every last penny every month, and just about get by servicing their credit card debts and stuff. Essentially all the money the government gained from that 10p tax rate thing was money taken straight out of the real economy, tipped a lot of people into defaulting on credit card debts etc as well, and began the downward spiral of consumer confidence as they realised they no longer had the spending power they'd had, and shops / clubs / stuff people spent their disposable income on noticed sudden drops in spending from this major section of their market.
can't believe that tit brown has apparently got away with his ruse of blaming the US for this recession, when his policies led directly to it.
IMO that 10p tax rate thing had a lot more impact on tipping us over the edge than anyone I've seen has given credit to. People most affected by it were generally people who'd spend every last penny every month, and just about get by servicing their credit card debts and stuff. Essentially all the money the government gained from that 10p tax rate thing was money taken straight out of the real economy, tipped a lot of people into defaulting on credit card debts etc as well, and began the downward spiral of consumer confidence as they realised they no longer had the spending power they'd had, and shops / clubs / stuff people spent their disposable income on noticed sudden drops in spending from this major section of their market.
can't believe that tit brown has apparently got away with his ruse of blaming the US for this recession, when his policies led directly to it.
pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
I didn't see it coming but my trade has been up shit creek for three years now, so the recession is old news - we were all struggling because the EU imposed anti-dumping duty on any leather footwear imports from China, wiping out any little profit to be made. Ex factory prices in China skyrocketed because of the price of oil - many of them use oil to run generators because they can't rely on local electricity supply (it's only on for half the week).
The idea behind this duty is to force us to return to manufacturing in Europe, but that idea has become less and less viable, we just cannot afford to do it as the ex factory cost is more than what the customer wants to pay at retail! The nail in the coffin (and the reason so many footwear retailers have gone bust in the last month) was the collapse of the pound against the dollar and the Euro, pushing footwear imports from China into a loss and making it just impossible to manufacture in Europe. Rents are astronomical which goes a long way to explaining why etail has took off so much. Retailers are paying boom time rents but are in recession and landlords won't back down.
We've also been hurt by deflation - people won't pay £60 for shoes anymore, they want to pay £20 and in the meantime everything has gone up, the price at the factory, rent, duty all of it.
I think this all had to happen didn't it? I'm pleased that the likes of Madoff and Standford are being found out, but I'm also very angry how this was all allowed to happen in the meantime.
I've been very busy since last August though, depsite losing a client (when they all got made redundant). I know I'm lucky though as most freelancers I know have lost alot of long term contracts.
The idea behind this duty is to force us to return to manufacturing in Europe, but that idea has become less and less viable, we just cannot afford to do it as the ex factory cost is more than what the customer wants to pay at retail! The nail in the coffin (and the reason so many footwear retailers have gone bust in the last month) was the collapse of the pound against the dollar and the Euro, pushing footwear imports from China into a loss and making it just impossible to manufacture in Europe. Rents are astronomical which goes a long way to explaining why etail has took off so much. Retailers are paying boom time rents but are in recession and landlords won't back down.
We've also been hurt by deflation - people won't pay £60 for shoes anymore, they want to pay £20 and in the meantime everything has gone up, the price at the factory, rent, duty all of it.
I think this all had to happen didn't it? I'm pleased that the likes of Madoff and Standford are being found out, but I'm also very angry how this was all allowed to happen in the meantime.
I've been very busy since last August though, depsite losing a client (when they all got made redundant). I know I'm lucky though as most freelancers I know have lost alot of long term contracts.
Traders only want to know if they know enough about when and how the feces hits the fan to profit from betting on it. Partygoers don't want to talk about hangovers the night before.
Scenario planners in the civil service have probably considered the possibility, I doubt many of them could know much more than the rest of us, tho
Scenario planners in the civil service have probably considered the possibility, I doubt many of them could know much more than the rest of us, tho
Kameron
Kamoceratops
True but it isn't just the traders is it. You see those traders are mostly not trading with a few rich peoples money, their are trading with yours and mine, if you pay trade union subs, into a pension plan or into an ISA, you name it and even if it isn't you personally then your employer needs a return on some investment at some stage, if you save then your money is getting traded and you expect to be able to retire, you to get that return so you will have a secure future. We all want that, it is that collective pressure that drives the traders targets and their behaviour.
I've seen the insides of some these things and certainly seen more than a few cunts but it was just the same as everywhere else, some good some bad, all just human - may be the money makes a more financially validated existence but there really is no other metric for knowing if you are doing a good job. I just don't believe there is a us and them, it is all of us collectively that makes it come out the way it is.
It is a strange thing that the sum of some many good intentions is such a total failure.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Saw it coming years ago, sadly. Awaiting the inevitable has not been a pleasant experience. No specific policies propted the view, but a house of sand economy of minimal industry propped up with masses of unsecured personal debt and credit was doomed.
I never expected some dodgy mortgages in the USA to kick things off though!
I never expected some dodgy mortgages in the USA to kick things off though!
pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
It has made me realise what a bollocks idea capitalism actually is - it's not possible to make the earth bigger, so how the hell did we think that growth could just go on and on? Sometimes when I see the idiotic ideas we have, I can't help thinking 'monkeys with cars'.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Is perpetual growth essential to capitalism? I often see it said around here, but I don't see why it's so. Not only will new fields emerge (like the internet), but present companies go bust if faced with effective competition, and are replaced. Even if there were little or no growth, there's potential for profit in a closed system.
This financial mess is evidence that poorly-regulated capitalism is a recipe for disaster, but I don't see how it condemns economic free exchange wholesale.
nightbreed
Im Bored
Iraq was the clearest indication that they didn't!
Exactly. I thought peak oil would eventually push crapitalism over on its arse, but never sussed that the economic "miracle" of the Bliar / Bush era was just a house of (credit) cards, primed for collapse.
The root of the problem is the fractional-reserve banking system, which meant that perpetual growth is required as people attempt to pay off the interest. This system is obviously unsustainable and inherently unstable.
The whole financial system is basically a scam run by fraudsters and parasites.
Once natural limits to growth have been reached, the only way the economy can grow is like building a Jenga tower, using up blocks which form the foundations - with the inevitable result:
Batboy
Trumpeting is good for you...
You forgot to say:
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!! So ner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funny enough I'm more angry about it than glib
. As the poll suggests the majority of people saw it coming OK the exact trigger points were a little surprising or difficult to see (But then again with hindsight they probably are not).
A couple of political points in regards to Brown and Blair, firstly Blair has in my view got away with it walking not only into the sunset but out into the lucrative jobs/speech arenas.
The Tories in my view knew what lay ahead and I don't think actually wanted to win the last General Election as they didn't want to be the Captain of the ship when it went down preferring to be the lifeboat that comes and 'rescues' us. They would have known what lay ahead surely?
I remember back in 1997 a guy I know who develops and trades in property and a typical Tory rubbed his hands with glee when Labour came into power citing that he always made more money out of a Labour government than a Tory one.
When Gordon Brown was being feted by the city as being a great chancellor etc I was gob smacked and it took a while for it to sink in that the reason they were so enamoured with Mr Browns/New labour policies and handling of the economy is that they all had the heads in the trough and were raking it in. There is huge irony in all of this and I rather suspect the political fallout will result in more disaffected voters with the two main parties and the rise of extremists in both the right and left camps, especially if we tip into a 'Depression' similar to that of the 1930's.
starfish2000
Well-Known Member
I was at a dinner party in 2003, where I was asked why I hadn't bought a house yet by some smug middle class cunt.
My reply was as Derby has one of the lowest average salaries per head in the UK (something less than £18K pa if I remember rightly) nobody could actually really afford to buy a small 2 bed house at £140k and aside from Toyota (who are now fucked) and Rolls Royce (who will be fucked soon enough), most jobs in Derby are call centre jobs at £12-14k. So to me those prices were unsustainable.
I basically told them at some point it would come crashing down and they all laughed at me. I don't want to feel smug cos its not nice for people loosing jobs/homes etc. But only a twat couldn't see this coming. Outside of the South East, incomes are generally low. So when property prices tripled in my area I just thought, I'll buy when they come down.
My job is relatively safe for now and I'm saving, but I'm not convinced I'll ever own my own home.
But the real issue of this is the fact that the CBI have effectively frozen workers wages for 15 years which has actively pushed people into debt. Not everyone in the shit has had 4 holidays a year and a big car and plasma. Lotsof people got into debt to get by, which is the cruellest trick the government, bankers, media and freemasons have played on all of us.
My reply was as Derby has one of the lowest average salaries per head in the UK (something less than £18K pa if I remember rightly) nobody could actually really afford to buy a small 2 bed house at £140k and aside from Toyota (who are now fucked) and Rolls Royce (who will be fucked soon enough), most jobs in Derby are call centre jobs at £12-14k. So to me those prices were unsustainable.
I basically told them at some point it would come crashing down and they all laughed at me. I don't want to feel smug cos its not nice for people loosing jobs/homes etc. But only a twat couldn't see this coming. Outside of the South East, incomes are generally low. So when property prices tripled in my area I just thought, I'll buy when they come down.
My job is relatively safe for now and I'm saving, but I'm not convinced I'll ever own my own home.
But the real issue of this is the fact that the CBI have effectively frozen workers wages for 15 years which has actively pushed people into debt. Not everyone in the shit has had 4 holidays a year and a big car and plasma. Lotsof people got into debt to get by, which is the cruellest trick the government, bankers, media and freemasons have played on all of us.
Dissident Junk
picking oakum
Yes.
Yes.
I give a shit. In fact, I gave such a shit, I've been banging on about it for a long time wherever I could -- and have been called a doommonger, a Chicken Little (though mostly on other boards)....
[Urban 18-08-2006, 20:44]
Dissident Junk said:
Now, I am going to make another set of predictions that will make everyone think I am still a nutty Chicken Little.
Be prepared for .... serious civil unrest, massive cuts in public spending, crippling tax rises, no jobs, front line services being slashed, strike action, massive wealth destruction for ordinary people, serious declines in the standard of living, power service problems, increase in the suicide rate, serious tensions with the Euro, maybe the breakup of the Euro zone.
We will also see new populist parties rise to take up the space left by Labour, which will be eradicated as a party post the May 2010 GE. There will be left and right leaning nascent parties -- the most coherent one will win through (it will be fiscally conservative) and, best case scenerio, we will end up with a Neo-Thatcher figure; worst case scenerio we end up with a reformed version of the BNP. The welfare state as we know it now will no longer exist.
America will largely collapse, and there will be a taxpayers revolt over there. Obama will be helpless to do anything about it -- and it will damage the democrats as a serious political force.
Also in ten years, we could be looking at war in Europe as protectionist trade measures impoverish large parts of the continent.
On a positive note, I suspect there won't be any Islamist terrorism. As the oil price plunges due to lack of demand, ME money funding these acts, alongside the expense of flights etc, will mean the financial artery of religiously-inspired terrorist acts will disappear. Already Saudi Arabia is moving to counteract the effects of a significant decline in oil revenues by reforming its political structure and removing key firebrand clerics from cultural and social posts.
My advice? Move out of cities, get access to growing land, live somewhere where you can utilise a solid fuel stove, pay down your debts and always keep a month's food plus in your cupboards, and make up a first aid kit complete with everyday medicines. Learn to cook from scratch, and, for goodness sake, get fit.
And prepare yourself for an alternative economy and the rise of the black market.
I hope I am bloody wrong, by the way. But it will be far worse than the 70s, and probably globally worse than the Great Depression. And government will not be able to afford to feed us all and keep everything going. It will be a massive shock as everything implodes.
Think of taking a pin to a massive overblown balloon. Hear the decibels of noise as it bursts? The energy released? The sharp painful shocks in the face as bits of plastic whip your skin?
It will be like that, but worse
Probably already been said but there you (pronking) go....
I saw it coming some time ago but this is possibly because my role was/is linked to the property and finance sectors. It was plain for me (C grade GCSE) that the boom would not last. There are clever than me on these boards regarding economics so will not attempt to analyze it too deeply.
What I did think/hope was that this boom would be properly predicted and 'eased' into but then I am an idealist.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Yes, altho predicting that capitalism will have recessions is like predicting the sun will come up - obvious and pointless.
I predicted the Credit Crunch about 2.5 years ago, and spent my time emailing news editors, leading economists and political figures.They are ignored my emails, the incompetent cunts...!
Seriously: Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession. Etc...
Seriously: Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession, Boom, Bubble, Recession. Etc...
Dissident Junk
picking oakum
Anyone up for the Kondratiev wave?
Anyone?
Anyone?
In about 10 yrs I reckon there will be a boom, preceeded by a time of moderate growth, and before that, a bust.
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