[Serjames]

I'm budgeting a big loss on the bottom line this year...

Euro has killed me - as I import most of my stuff

We lost 5 guys monday last - you might say I'm working my tush off ! (well not NOW obviously!)

SJ

[booforty]

Its bloody doom and gloom this thread

[willhollin]

Knock Knock

[jjbirch]

i just keep playing the lotto bound to win soon lol

[NFS]

Originally Posted by booforty

Its bloody doom and gloom this thread

Now is the winter of our discontent

[SixDegrees]

Originally Posted by booforty

Its bloody doom and gloom this thread

Very true.............. lets hear some good news in peoples lives!


I'l start... my 2yr fixed deal ends in a few weeks and my payments are going to drop by about £60 pcm when I go onto the STR.

[_KG_]

Originally Posted by Serjames

Euro has killed me - as I import most of my stuff

Know where you're coming from on that one...

We're alright for this year, but the current uncertainty in Motorsport is not ideal...a lot of my business comes from F1 - we don't need any more Honda situations.

[MattOz]

Haven't got much more to add, but this is "interesting". There's no coincidence that the Labour part looks like a pair of tits!



Matt

[FieldingMellish]

Originally Posted by MattOz

There's no coincidence that the Labour part looks like a pair of tits!



Matt

Or that, even at its lowest (in between those 2 t1ts), it was still higher than at any time during the Thatcher or Major years.

Why do people on this forum so relentlesly seek to blame (New) Labour for everything? Are you seriously suggesting that Cameron would be better? Surely you jest?

Don't get me wrong - I have no love for Blair or Brown. But the economic policies which caused the current crisis are Tory ones. That these free market policies were largely continued by the Blair/Brown govt(s) is regrettable, and it is a reason to be angry with Blair/Brown, but it doesn't obscure the fact that the economic policies favoured by the Tories are the very same policies which got us where we are today....

[dxb335d]

Originally Posted by NFS

I entirely agree with you, but I think we also have to remember that people entering the property market more recently have much reduced options.

I took no risks when it came to buying my house. Salary multiple is low and I had lots of equity (at purchase price). But, I still ended up paying about £50k more than I though the house was really worth, because of the rising market.

For those people who bought just a few years after me, there were no options other than overstretching. For a first time buyer it was either overstretch and gamble on a rising market / salary or rent for ever.

That will not work around my area. Average UK salary 30k, so even if you earn 50k you still cant get f**k all here with 4 x salary.

[Mark II]

Originally Posted by NFS

Now is the winter of our discontent

To counter all the gloom and doom - there's always an upside:

Now is the Winter for discount tents,
Made glorious summer by cheap Asda pork;
And all the crowds that pour upon our house,
Shall feast well on roll-mop herring.
Now our cupboards are heavy with bargain meats,
Pur’chased from Lidl this very week.

Sorry, just 'dick'ing around

[NFS]

Originally Posted by Mark II

To counter all the gloom and doom - there's always an upside:

Now is the Winter for discount tents,
Made glorious summer by cheap Asda pork;
And all the crowds that pour upon our house,
Shall feast well on roll-mop herring.
Now our cupboards are heavy with bargain meats,
Pur’chased from Lidl this very week.

Sorry, just 'dick'ing around

When the glorious summer comes we'll all feel better.

It's nearly spring already

[dxb335d]

Originally Posted by NFS

When the glorious summer comes we'll all feel better.

It's nearly spring already

what when people cant afford to go on holidays

[Mark II]

Originally Posted by dxb335d

what when people cant afford to go on holidays

Come on Carl, lighten up a bit mate....it's pants (I know) but we're British, so let's complain about the weather and smile in the face of adversity.

[Porscha!]

LOL You've picked the right day to complain about the weather

[NFS]

Originally Posted by dxb335d

what when people cant afford to go on holidays

We don't need expensive holidays Carl. Come the summer, most people will be pleased to have a job, a home and the sun on their back.

[dxb335d]

Originally Posted by NFS

We don't need expensive holidays Carl. Come the summer, most people will be pleased to have a job, a home and the sun on their back.

Yes if they/we all have.

[NFS]

Originally Posted by dxb335d

Yes if they/we all have.

Some people won't have jobs and some will lose their homes, but most of us will be OK.

When we cheer up a bit and relax, the economy WILL recover. So the best thing we can do for all of those people in the mire, is to spend some money and have a good time.

[RockIt]

Carl, just to put some things into perspective.

When I was in my late teens to mid-20s I couldn't afford a car, let alone one like the one you drive. I left school at 18, after A Levels and couldn't get a job, due to the fact that men twice my age had been put out of work and were desperately trying for any job that was going, quite often holding down 3 or 4 low paid, part-time jobs. On the streets of Yorkshire towns the miners were begging for money to keep their families fed.

I was able to claim Income Support at the time and thankfully my family allowed me to live at home rent free. This was in contrast to acquaintances of mine, who actually ended up squatting in a semi-derelict house because they'd been thrown out.

At 20 I finally got a full time job in the Civil Service. At 22 I went to Uni. My first car i bought at 25 and it was an ancient MK1 Escort that I struggled to keep on the road. Most student friends of mine didn't own cars at all. When I started my first teaching job at 26, I went without a car as it was a stark choice between car or rental on a house.

At no time was I particularly miserable, or down hearted about the situation. It was just real life and you got on and dealt with it.

I consider myself to be very fortunate to now be in the position I'm in. As I posted earlier, I deal with families who live in abject poverty on a daily basis. I mean real, genuine poverty that shouldn't exist in this country in the 21st Century.

You are a very fortunate young man to own the car that you own and have the financial freedom to enjoy your life with trips to the Ring etc. Sure things could be better and some people will no doubt suffer as a result of the current economic situation, but your constant doom and gloom and self absorbed pessimism is getting tiresome. Is your job under threat? have you lost your house or are you likely to? Do you need to sell the car to make ends meet?

Life is pretty good for most of us on this forum. If you choose to believe that something is really bad, then the chances are it will be. Lighten up mate!

[Geoffo]

Originally Posted by Porscha!

From what I can make out and have been told we are the worse hit in Europe overall, anyone else think it's anything to do with our 'relationship' with America?

Britain is America's 'lap dog'

[Geoffo]

Originally Posted by RockIt

Carl, just to put some things into perspective.

When I was in my late teens to mid-20s I couldn't afford a car, let alone one like the one you drive. I left school at 18, after A Levels and couldn't get a job, due to the fact that men twice my age had been put out of work and were desperately trying for any job that was going, quite often holding down 3 or 4 low paid, part-time jobs. On the streets of Yorkshire towns the miners were begging for money to keep their families fed.

I was able to claim Income Support at the time and thankfully my family allowed me to live at home rent free. This was in contrast to acquaintances of mine, who actually ended up squatting in a semi-derelict house because they'd been thrown out.

At 20 I finally got a full time job in the Civil Service. At 22 I went to Uni. My first car i bought at 25 and it was an ancient MK1 Escort that I struggled to keep on the road. Most student friends of mine didn't own cars at all. When I started my first teaching job at 26, I went without a car as it was a stark choice between car or rental on a house.

At no time was I particularly miserable, or down hearted about the situation. It was just real life and you got on and dealt with it.

I consider myself to be very fortunate to now be in the position I'm in. As I posted earlier, I deal with families who live in abject poverty on a daily basis. I mean real, genuine poverty that shouldn't exist in this country in the 21st Century.

You are a very fortunate young man to own the car that you own and have the financial freedom to enjoy your life with trips to the Ring etc. Sure things could be better and some people will no doubt suffer as a result of the current economic situation, but your constant doom and gloom and self absorbed pessimism is getting tiresome. Is your job under threat? have you lost your house or are you likely to? Do you need to sell the car to make ends meet?

Life is pretty good for most of us on this forum. If you choose to believe that something is really bad, then the chances are it will be. Lighten up mate!

Very well put Rockit. We should be happy with what we've still got.

[SteveC]

Here's why it happened.

At the start of New Labour's term in office, one of the first decisions Gordon Brown made as Chancellor was to make the Bank of England responsible for managing interest rates and gave the BoE Governor a target of 2% inflation.

At the same time Gordon legislated a new method for calculating inflation, that ignored property prices.

Indirect tax increases were introduced that gradually eroded people's spending power, with the result that people tended to spend less. This was reflected in a very low inflation rate. In order to 'stimulate' the economy, the BoE reduced interest rates, which should have reduced mortgage repayments and allowed people to spend more. Unfortunately, a shortage of houses meant that people were competing with one another to buy properties and typically offered above the asking price. This caused house prices to rise, but due to the fact that interest were coming down, mortgage payments remained flat.

Although house prices were inflating dramatically, the Chancellor had removed its impact from the inflation calculation and the BoE continued to see a relatively low inflation rtate, allowing them to continue decreasing interest rates, which continued to fuel house prices.
We now had a situation where house prices were increasing by 20 - 30% per annum and money was costing 3%
The Chancellor announced that he had abolished boom and bust and the people, including the bankers believed him.
With boom and bust abolished, people assumed that 3% interest and 20% growth in the value of property was here to stay.
Banks offered people loans of 100 - 125% of the value of properties based on their believe that prices would comtinue to rise. People with existing properties who saw their mortgage repayments going down while their property doubled in value within 5 years were encouraged to release equity in their homes in order to raise cash for cars, holidays, extentions etc.
Low interest rates and increased borrowing fuelled the economy, which continued to grow, without showing any signs of overheating (inflation)

The buy-to-let market was born on the basis that you could borrow 100% of the finance needed, pay back nothing (interest only mortgages), wait 2 years then resell the property with a 40 to 50% profit. Banks sought cheap finance from other banks and bent bover backwards to find customers to lend it to.
Propertyy prices climbed so high that first time buyers were priced completely out of the market.

The whole market was now completely dependant on cheap loans and booming property prices.

Of course, this can only go on for a limited time. With house prices more than doubling in 5 years and with people borrowing more and more money, inflation finally began to edge up and the BoE began slowly to raise interest rates.
Unfortunately a lot of people had borrowed everything they could afford, based on unrealistically low rates of interest. A 1% interest rate rise increased their repayments by 33% on a 3% mortgage. The rate of inflation of house prices started to slow and few people began to default on their loans

The BoE continued to increase rates and house prices prices really started to cool.

At exactly this time, the World heard the expression sub-prime loans for the first time, as America discovered that the Banks had been lending money to huge numbers of people who were unable to bear even the smallest of interest rate rises. As rates increased, an increasing number of people defaulted on their loans. Property prices began to tumble. Loans guarantedd on the basis of high property prices suddenly looked very insecure. Banks began to wonder how much of this bad debt they had on their books. Suddenly banks who'd been willing to lend 100 or 125% of a property's value became far more cautious and refused to finance more than 80% of its value. Property prices continued to fall and experts agreed that 30% falls were quite likely. Banks pulled in their horns yet further and refused to lend more than 70% of a property's value. Now people who'd borrowed 100% or more were unable to refinance their homes and faced reposession. Banks realised that they had to recover their losses, so increased their interest rates. Confidence in the market dropped and bad debt increased. Banks became even more afraid of loaning to other banks in case the bank they lent to could not repay the loan due to its having too much bad debt on its books.
Builders found that they could not sell properties and that the value of the land they held for future building projects was suddenly devalued by 40 or 50%. With no demand, their work forces were far too large so mass redundancies began. With people worrying about their own jobs, and with credit almost impossible to get, demand for capital goods dropped across the board. Companies like Woolworths, with weak business models went to the wall and car manufacturers for their inventory not moving. Short work weeks were introduced, more workers laid off and salaries cut in an effort to align costs with income. The UK economy found itself in a downward spiral. Normally what fuells recovery is an increase in demand but the UK population is so heaviliy in debt and over taxed, that that is unlikely to happen in the near future.

Is there a lesson to be learned?. In my opinion there is. If you want an economy to run well, remain healthy and grow steadily, don't put a couple of lawyers in charge.