Recession.

[dicktimber]

It was an interesting post from Mr Jones about Axminster, and although I thought it should have been stopped earlier we should all remember that companies like this give us all a quick effective way of ordering tools and consumables overnight.
We have all sat up in bed with the latest issue and our cocoa!!
With the down turn in the economy, and the recession taking hold we should all wish companies like this, good luck for the next couple of years.
Be in no doubt, that companies must make a profit, pay wages, tax, rent, and cover overhead costs, for them to survive.
It is in our interest to support such companies for our hobbies/ profession, because once they fall on bad times, more people loose their jobs and the companies end up in administration.
When they go they are never replaced, and it is the consumer who suffers.
With 15 large retailers reported to be in crisis by yesterdays papers, and the pound making imports more expensive on a daily basis, we should all be hoping that our favorite supplier isn't one of them.
Let's just hope they are in a position to bounce back when this sorry financial situation is over.

Good reading all the comments this year and Happy Christmas to you all.

Mike

 

[eggflan]

Well on radio two during J Vine show there was a chap saying that we are not yet in a recesion , they are waiting for this months growth (or lack of growth) figures to come out , i still belive this downturn could have been avoided if the media had not blown it all out of proportion with thier "were all doomed" broadcasting :roll:

 

[harryc]

[color=#0066FF i still belive this downturn could have been avoided if the media had not blown it all out of proportion with thier "were all doomed" broadcasting
[/color]

Do you really think the media is responsible for the recession, I would recommend you get out and and see how he real economy works.

Harry

 

[maltrout512]

Ah that word is rearing its head not before time. We have been in a "Recession" back in the early part of this year. The government diploid to the media that it's a "credit crunch". My bl..y a..e if I had an a..e (operation back in late 1999). Change of the name so that it would not startle the working people. Their working for us by the way!!. As for stats / polls, this government have been quite happy working the stats and polls even with third parties to what you would like to hear. Can't be a recession because growth rate over bull minus more bull AH look no move can't be there yet need to go through another quarter (of what!!!!)and move down just 0.05 of a point (of what!!!) and YES it is official. YES it is M..ure heads it has been for months.

 

[eggflan]

[color=#0066FF i still belive this downturn could have been avoided if the media had not blown it all out of proportion with thier "were all doomed" broadcasting
[/color]

Do you really think the media is responsible for the recession, I would recommend you get out and and see how he real economy works.

Harry

I know all to well how the real economy works thanks very much , no i dont think the media are solely responsible for this downturn , but i do belive that they have blown it up so much that mr general public is hanging on to all his pennies and not spending it , every single radio / tv broadcast for the last 6 months or so has been doom and gloom so the wise man saves his money for a rainy day , just incase they are right and this snowballs into the high street not getting punters through the door so they put on a sale , then joe public thinks hang on they are having a sale but i will wait until the new year because they will have a better sale in january ,.
If the media had not started talking about the credit crunch constantly im sure things would not be as bad as they are now , im not saying that we would be all well off if the media had not got hold of this , the main reason we are in it up to our necks is because financial institutions were too keen to loan to folk who do not have the means to pay it back , over the last few years the junk mail through my front door offering loans has been unbeleveable not a week went by without someone offering this or that rate of loan , so where are the creditors now ? thats right they are asking the taxpayer to bail them out because they loaned out too much cash to people who cant pay it back , bet they still have thier DB9s etc shame they cant afford to run them anymore .
My point is that the banks who offered daft rate loans are partly responsible for this mess and then the media who ran with the story stuck the nail in the coffin
:roll:

 

[dicktimber]

You just don't get it do you?

The media have been responsible for preventing panick, by not reporting the full extent of this situation.


Mike

 

[MIGNAL]

It's a recession. It's obvious. Well if the media are partly responsible for the recession, they are also partly responsible for credit that was far too easy to get hold of and a booming economy with house prices shooting through the proverbial roof.
Then again it could just be a recession. Just like the economic cycles that every government wants to avoid, except that they never do.

 

[Rich]

Nobody was FORCED to borrow beyond their means.

Rich.

 

[Woody Alan]

Nobody was FORCED to borrow beyond their means

Normally when this sort of post is made I reflect and say more fodder for the trolls. Clearly you have no feeling or empathy for anyone at this time of year .
There are many young people who have left home and travelled in the hope of a new job, a new life and been lulled along on the merry go round of recent times and who haven't had the experiences we've had. I see you as one of the "old gits" "Nah bleeding kids serves em right". Good god man have you no soul, no wonder the youth of today despair.
I can see my rapidly reduced time here is diminishing by the day nay the hour. I see a future for my kids as being difficult enough and if and they have the misfortune to meet short sighted inward selfish jealous looking individuals like yourself then I have little hope for them.

Expect no further input Alan

Alan

 

[Rich]

Nobody was FORCED to borrow beyond their means

Normally when this sort of post is made I reflect and say more fodder for the trolls. Clearly you have no feeling or empathy for anyone at this time of year .
There are many young people who have left home and travelled in the hope of a new job, a new life and been lulled along on the merry go round of recent times and who haven't had the experiences we've had. I see you as one of the "old gits" "Nah bleeding kids serves em right". Good god man have you no soul, no wonder the youth of today despair.
I can see my rapidly reduced time here is diminishing by the day nay the hour. I see a future for my kids as being difficult enough and if and they have the misfortune to meet short sighted inward selfish jealous looking individuals like yourself then I have little hope for them.

Expect no further input Alan

Alan

Sometimes one has to be cruel to be kind, the sooner that one learns that you cannot spend what you don't have the better.

Thanks to greedy bankers and the largesse of the present government, MY two boys will be saddled with a very large tax burden for most of their working lives, if that is'nt making life difficult for tomorrows youngsters then I don't know what is, it's thanks to liberal minded wooly thinkers and do gooders who do not look at the long term implications of their acts that we are where we are, and this is just the start, things are about to become very difficult for a lot of families and realities have to be faced up to, I am sorry if my comments have offended you but I make no apologies for telling the truth.

Rich.

 

[Digit]

According to my reading one of the major causes of the Mexican Revolution was the fact that debts accrued by a peon were inherited by his children.
According to the IMF we are developing the same idea.

Roy.

 

[dicktimber]

Fact.

The DTI have had an increase of telephone calls asking for help from small companies inthe last 6 months.
A small company employs from 200 people downward.
The help asked for hasn't been how should we plan, what should we do for the down turn, but,'the receivers are in ,' and 'the banks have foreclosed on the business.
The DTI have employed more staff to cope, with the number of calls for help, and these have risen to 2000 per month.

Which part of the UK am I speaking about?
Yorkshire, Lancashire, the midlands?

No, this is only Surrey.....so god only knows what it's like in the other counties.

mike

 

[CWatters]

In the past we have talked ourselves into a recession but I don't think we could have avoided it this time. The credit crunch killed off the housing market and that drives confidence in the UK.

I have some contacts in the investment banking industry and the inside story is (or rather was) a lot worse than reported. At one point some banks could only borrow at 13-14% and lend at 7-8%. No wonder they didn't want to lend to anyone - they would make 40% losses.

 

[Digit]

Strangely, apart from Woolies, no business locally has, yet, gone to the wall.
Two Jewsons branches have closed, out of three, but no job losses. In fact ground breaking is just starting on a new hospital, medical centre, super store complex on the outskirts of the town.

Roy.

 

[Grinding One]

All you need to do is what Germany did after the WW11 .It cost a million marks for a pack of cigarettes then....they made the money worthless and printed new money that had new backing....Maybe we should too,make all current money null and void and all government debt cancelled and start fresh.I`m all for it I never had that much folding stuff around anyway Wonder who would be hurt by this Idea??

 

[the_g_ster]

I agree alot with some of the opinions expressed here. Expectations are a very important thing in how any economy works, and the effects of expectations have an effect on all of us if we like to admit it or not.

The effect of the press spreading doom and gloom every day can't be ignored, but oddly, and perhaps it is slightly out of order to say so, there has been a great absence of other bad news. You see it has been mooted and is very likely that other world events in the news have sometimes helped us, in playing down the significance of events.

Today all of us have spent the last ten years with an obsession about our personal wealth, real or not, via house/building etc tv shows that have spurned a nation of property hungry people backed up by an ability to pay for a house "at that time". The very nature of the press headline in the Credit Crunch is indeed our own self fulfilled downfall. And we we continue to dwell on this being something bad, but our attitude to lending has skewed vastly from what it was in the 70's and 80's. That massive skew and acceleration in the economy spawned by cheap money can't be ignored as a the fundamental caus eof our issues now. You can't continue in a state of paying fot today another day without something giving.

So yes, the press have added to some of this, but they have also mis-reported some of this too. We face a very real challenge now in overcoming whatever people want to classify the time we are now. That is largely academic however, as all of us our seeing our house values decline, and our pensions and investments eroded which will make us all more cautious in future.

The lesson to be learned from this is a look at how we view our attitude to money today, and our outright desire for riches as almost a right. That seems to have been forgotten, and we are suffering as a result. The fact too that pension funds have invested heavily in banks and they have required a return as lead to failure in corporate responsibilty of behalf of financial institutions. We have all realised that expection, as shareholders we expect a return and an increasing one at that, so something had to give. The banks now have balance sheets that I don't believe they even fully understand, and no mechanism exists in regulations, FSA or accounting wise to illistrate these risks, or people would know that on their loan books they securitised that they had sold a great deal of high risk debt.

If we don't learn anything else from this we must remember that the only known is that we don't know, we have been in an unprecedented period of stability that wasn't sustainable, and now we will be moving towards the next period of stability, whatever that may be. But it is our expectations that help realise this, and it is the press way things are reported that govern the behaviour of us all, and our spending attitudes.

I am off for another beer now, happy boxmas.

 

[dicktimber]

What happened to all these 30 to 35 ish year old couples who have been complaining that they couldn't get on the housing ladder?

Had they been saving up through the good times they could easily afford a home now in this falling market.

Instead this generation will be known as the binge drink and STD generation....was that our fault too?

is it not time members of society started taking responsibility for their own actions?
Mike

 

[Corset]

Seems a bit harsh. If you have only seen a period of growth/ stability you can hardly be expected to be prepared in the same as other older wiser people. Its not till it happens that you learn. We rarely seem to learn from other mistakes.
One of the other issues we have to deal with is the older generation living longer and the finance and care not being in place to cope. I think the fact we in the 30's will probably die before we retire Is enough to drive us to *** and drink.
Speaking as one in negative equity I am a bit baffled. To buy a house i needed cheap money but if i buy now when its cheap there are no mortgages. It seems only the rich or those with rich parents benefit from sensible lending in housing. I would rather have a bigger debt and own my house than rent for the next 10 years while i save up my 20% deposit.
Shame all this mess has happened but i expect it will happen again for different reasons in the not to distant future.
Owen

 

[dicktimber]

Can't disagree with that at all......

Mike

 

[Jake]

To get to the bottom of a recession, you have to hit idiotic heights of dispair which are as far from reality as the idiocy of exuberance in a boom. You can't tell either without the benefit of hindsight obviously, but I am mildly encouraged by this thread.

On the other hand, we are still talking ourselves into this, wholesale.