Be Excellent To Each Other

There's lots of flap lately about the impending DOOM of recession, but I'm rather wondering how this is supposed to manifest in our daily lives. Aside from the untold evils of petrol prices going up (which might force me to cut back on starbars to compensate), I'm unsure how this is supposed to crush my wallet.

Are bills supposed to go up? I could absord an increase in bills. Not happily, but easily. I wouldn't have to cut back. If I did have to cut back it wouldn't be too hard to go pretty hardcore. How else might I be affected? My wages won't go down. Why is recession bad? I feel like I've missed the point.

I can only assume there's a highly vulnerable area of the working ecnomy to which I'm not exposed? *rubs chin*. I'm pretty sure I was too young to appreciate the last economic downturn, so I'm rather interested in what it's supposed to be like.

Well, you could lose your job, for one thing.

Ah, well, little risk of that, being in the comfy bosom of public-sector education.

And if house prices fall, you could find yourself in a negative equity situation, which is potentially disastrous if you lose your job. Imagine, having your house reposessed through not being able to pay the mortgage, and then ending up in five figures of debt with nothing to show for it because the sale didn't cover what you owed...

It doesn't take much to affect the economy. although you can cover it, there is a lot of people, especially after the recent upturn which allowed (idiotic) people 5x mortgages and the like, to stretch themselves, who are close to the edge and could be affected. Which means that they may (for example) shop less, which means that the shops are getting less money, which means they have to lay staff off, who can't afford to eat, so they shop less, etc. Then the shops buy less, so affects other industries, etc. And then there is banking.

I'm an idiotic 5x mortgage person

I'm up this year, but that could easily turn around.

The problem is that there hasn't been a recession for ages and they are not the end of the world. The Darling quote at the weekend was bloody stupid as no way will we hit the kind of lows we had in the 70's with 40% inflation and a bankrupt country. But people don't remember what a recession is like. Yes they are painful but not everyone suffers equally.

In many ways the dot com crash was a recession confined to one industry and lots of people survived that. What tends to happen is that the weaker companies fall by the wayside and the stronger ones suffer but survive.

What we are seeing is the usual ending of a Labour government. They've pissed away all their cash and will hang on to the election. Then we'll get lumbered with the Tories.

FTFY.

This is why I'm a mite confused, as the apparent effects are non-specific and vague.

I spotted this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/p ... 586866.stm

And wondered to myself, how much of this is tangibly accountable to the state of the economy, of how much of it is people being people: Mathematically retarded and financially unwise?

'I've got all these unpaid bills and credit cards'. Awesome, is that because you've been irrevokably pushed into it by 'the economy', or are you just a feckless cunt who'd like an excuse for being shit with money?

Says the person who took out a salary stretching mortgage at historically low interest rates...

Will you be able to afford it at 15% interest, because last time we got them.

And if you can't, were YOU shit with money to have bought the place?

Our business is actually booming at the moment, and we're recruiting quite a lot, which is really weird. But then again, companies still have to buy from and sell to each other even if they're making people redundant, so they'll still need contracts written.

*shrugs*

Anyway - we're not in a recession, by the strict definition of one, but we may as well be. This is bad for all the people losing their jobs. Which will get worse, too. As the housing business slows down, it's not just the house builders and estate agents that will feel the lack of transactions and start shedding jobs- house purchases spur a lot of the economy (just think of all the stuff you buy when you buy a new house...).

I wish the pound would stop going down the toilet.

The cost of my wedding in Vegas has increased by so much in the last two weeks as we've gone from about 1.98 dollars to the pound to 1.77... that's certainly one of the quickest drops in value I've seen for a while.

*hiss*

Not in the least. If my mortgage interest rate suddenly doubled (which it can't for the remaining 3 years of my fixed rate deal), I could still afford to live. That's why I've been overpaying my mortgage for the last two years which has resulted in my minimum mandatory payment being much less a month. With the gf moving out, I've had to tighten some things up, but I'm still overpaying slightly. What I don't do though is spend an unnecessary titload on credit cards and then fail to pay them, and bemoan 'the economy' as the cause.

Obviously not allpeople are idiotic! I was think particularly of someone I was talking to at a party, where her and her friend had bought a house in south London (New Cross) together at 5.75 x their combined salary. With no deposit. Obviously depending on what you do, ie you are expecting a huge bonus, this could work, but that has to be pretty rare.

The company I work for thinks that this might actually help us gain new customers. Companies are less likely to be willing to take the risk in getting a custom made system, and investing in all the stuff that goes with it, and so are more likely to get an off-the-shelf one like the service we provide instead. Cheaper and quicker, but possibly not exactly what you wanted.

Exactly.

I'm in the same situation with the mortgage - from the word 'go', I overpaid to get the monthly interest bill down. I'm now in a position where I can comfortably absorb an interest rate increase by reducing my capital repayments until things get better. Don't want to, but can.

In any case, I'd certainly have a lot more sympathy with someone who stretched themselves with a mortgate than lived beyond their means on a credit card, especially if they're down south where prices are insane. Everyone needs somewhere to live, but nobody needs to upgrade their CRT gogglebox to the latest HD plasma model.

Its a perfect time for me to be entering the job market.

Debt collection agencies are probably hiring...

Oh yeah, it's a boom time for collection agencies, a golden age that will never end.

Hmmm...don't think I could be threatening enough:

'Excuse me, kind sir, but it really would be nice if you could possibly find someway of handing over the minor matter of the £30,000 outstanding. Hate to be a pain about this but...'

I really need to clear my debts, but I'm terrible with money. Just as soon as I've gotten back from Barbados I'm going to make a concerted effort to clean up my act.

Oh I don't know Gaz why do you say that?



Ah thats why.

Yeah, that was the joke

//edit: Although, in my defense, when I booked the holiday I wasn't in anywhere near as bad debt as I am now, that's what happens when you take a risk and drop your working week from 5 days solid pay to 3 days solid pay with 2 days of performance-reliant pay.

Well, if I don't invite you and your other half, that's gonna save me a few quid!

Who do you get your gas and electric with, CG?

Most suppliers just jumped 20%+

Atlantic, just after they'd done their price rise and were looking to be cheaper than competitors after their rise. Also did it via uswitch.com and got 12 free bottles of wine c/o Virgin Wines.

But don't listen to me, look at moneysavingexpert.com who will tell you if its even worth switching atm.

Running for the hills now FTFY.

I would imagine that being a debt collector is a very difficult job for anyone of a remotely caring disposition. Most people you deal with will probably be desperate and miserable people, often infirm and/or mentally ill. Plenty would just be plain abusive (sometimes justifiably, though that's no consolation if you're just doing your job), some would be deceitful weasels, and others would just be ... sad. And of course, that's just the debtors - you may well end up working alongside some utter cunt who gives the rest of the collectors a bad name.

I'd imagine it'd be exactly like in the film "Repo Man".

I meant "performance-reliant" as in I get paid per website, as opposed to per hour

And, coincidentally (bringing everything back on track) the reason that my pay has been lower than I expected is precisely because of this recession stopping small businesses from wanting to invest in new websites. When we're busy, the graphic designers can't chuck out the web designs quick enough to keep me busy

Rather a debt-collector than a car salesman. At least debt collectors are honest about wanting every penny in your pocket.

It's partly why i chose to do full time course this year, rather than a part time, so I can not worry about finding work in the beginnings of the 'drop'.

There are to many web design companies. There will certainly be a "thinning out" in that industry for sure.

Cheers, I'll take a look at this myself.

I'm fortunate in having gotten a much-better paying job than my previous one just as this was all kicking off.

The missus, meanwhile, has just been made redundant (though this apparently was coming well before the downturn, I think) so it'll be interesting times ahead to see how we cope, and how hard it is for her to find a new job.