Just how bad will things get?

[redoxide]

I hate to be a bit of a negative person but i just wonder if mr average really has any idea about how bad things might get in this recession or should i say "credit crunch" as the government likes to call it.
After watching the spending frenzy of this Christmas and the almost mad crazed looting of my local Woolworth's i'm just not sure if folk actually realise how bad things could get.
I myself had the wonderfull Christmas present from my employer of having my employment contract terminated along with over a hundred other contract employees on the 23rd of dec. although we were given a hint that some of us might be kept on at the end of our four week notice period depending on how things go!
I have been a contractor for this company for four years now, i didn't want to be a contractor but it is the only way this company (a major motor manufacturer) employ people, via employment aggencies thus resolving them of any responsabilty to the employee.
So now i go back to work after christmas with a 'you might have a job you might not' but what do we care! promise from my employer. Not the best of starts to a year but im sure there are many others in just the same sittuation across the UK. I am now certainly worried about how things are going to pan out over the next year or so, like how the hell i am going to pay my mortgage ect.
Yet i speak to many who are oblivious to how bad things realy are, because at the moment they have not been affected directly.

I have just watched this about the American national debt
_http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo
Its 30 mins long but worth watching, it paints quite a scary picture and i wonder how close it also reflects the UK situation? ok so i know the UK national debt isnt as large but then again neither is our economy.
I would just be interested on other peoples take on the sittuation and would like to know their oppinons.

Sorry if i sound a bit of a doom and gloom merchant folk's

Red

[waqasahmed]

That vid was very interesting and confirmed my belief that the western world will go into depression when the oil runs out(2040) I know this had nothing to do with oil, but I did predict a depression for 2040/2050. However, the eastern countries are richer now and a lot of the debt is because of Bush and we owe some money to the USA. All Gordon Brown has to do is pay our debts back to the USA, and the USA pay off their debts as well to other countries(still making the east richer) but the problem would be pretty much solved. As the clip said, the forefathers of America were worried when debt became too high and paid them off quickly. If we paid off our debts to the US and manufacturer's HQ's were in the UK and not the US, then we would not have to be part of any american wars, not have to pay them any money and our leaders would not be mindless puppets. Our number one problem is our leader. Today, our Prime Minister (or President in the USA) dont care about the country, but money. They're getting loads of money, so they're not paying too much attention.They know that even in the poorest of countries like Zimbabwe, the leader is very rich. The problem lies where we have lots of corrupt politicians, and banks, who only care for themselves and not the country.

One day, the people in the east will be complaining about immigrants because the US presidents will have made people so poor, that they are forced to work abroad. Thats one of the reasons, I wouldnt mind working in Dubai, China or Hong Kong as the east will be the richer countries IF the american debt keeps going up.

EDIT: Work in the east and import Eurovoxes here to you guys!(if you're all not poor)

[redoxide]

another good watch for anybody interested in the economy is Chris Martenson's Crash course.

_http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Again it does concentrate on the us economy but it does directly relate to ours as well, spend a little time and watch the presentation its quite interesting
Other good videos (for those really interested) include money as debt.

_http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&ei=UVphSeH-ApP2iAKnkonUDg&q=money+as+debt+by+paul+grignon&hl= en

And one of the best eye openers of all - The money masters,

_http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&ei=CFxhSd2IKJ-QiQL_8eTdCA&q=the+money+masters&hl=en

This one though is over three hours long but well worth the watch if you have the patience. you will never look at banks in the same way again though believe me. It dates from the 90's so is a bit old but do your self a favour and take the time to watch it.


Red

[wasp11]

Im in the sh1t already mate, lets hope for better future

[Macabre]

Originally Posted by wasp11

Im in the sh1t already mate, lets hope for better future

Get rid of the wife and the civic and things will look a whole lot better m8

[wasp11]

wife works thank god

[Caravan72]

I'm funded by my local authority which is 50m in debt and making cuts every where, I might be lucky as I deal with fuel poverty and its never out of the news, but if not I've recently done a course to survey for Energy permance certificates for the private and rented sectors.
My wife is my boss so too many eggs in one basket as she's the bigger earner.

Happy new year to everyone and good luck til the next upturn.

[fj1200]

Energy performance certificates. BER's (building energy rating) in Ireland. €300 for the test. €25 for assessor to submit results to relevant body. I just love these mandatory EU money grabing bullsh!t certificates. Anyone for a light bulb?

[kimigonzales]

The thing with this recession is that everything is slowly pulling back towards a 'gold standard' - this is something that the West should never had moved away from, from the beginning. There's no way any economy can survive where the value of everything is based on money - at the end of the day, money is just paper. The eason why the Middle-East is thriving right now is that their economies are based on valuable assets (like oil and gold etc). This provides a long-term strategy for economic success. Add this to the application of the principle of prudence (which is an absolute fundamental for any entity within the financial industry) and you will achieve great success.

The West on the other hand, seems to have forgotten this principle and are now having to sell valuable assets in order to make up the shortfalls for the lack of a prudent approach resulting in astronomical levels of debt. This in turn, will push the value of everything down over the next few years. As long as the Western World deploys a new more stringent approach to lending over the next few years, we will ride out this recession and things will slowly improve over the next 18-24 months. There will be no 'quick fix' to this though!

[waqasahmed]

And they can't exactly just change back to dealing in physical gold, rather than paper, in one night. Someone told me that if you went to the bank and had £10000 in there, and you take out £5000, you can actually take that amount out back in gold! But if everyone did it, the banking system would be in a worse state that it is in now