When will the Big Money Crisis start?

[cymtriks]

We keep being told about financial doom on the horizon.

The dire consequences of:

• state debt
• a house price crash
• inflaton
• the IMF having to come to the rescue
• bank failure
• quantitative easing
• personal debt

plus a few more that get mentioned and are all, apparently, going to ruin us tomorrow.

So when will it, as in the Big Money Crisis that keeps being predicted, actually happen for the ordinary bloke, how, and what will the actual consequences be?

Or will it all just be inflated away or the debts written off so we can start again?

[Bing o]

I would assume when he tries to buy a new car, or a TV, or realises that a week in Lanzagrotty will cost him 5 months wages...

[Fittster]

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

[Bing o]

Fittster said:

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

Yep, try buying two pints of Pure Blond and a bottle of Hoegarden - SGD45.

Or about GBP22!!

[Dakkon]

Bing o said:

Fittster said:

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

Yep, try buying two pints of Pure Blond and a bottle of Hoegarden - SGD45.

Or about GBP22!!

A small beer in Dam square is 7 euros...ouch....

[dangerousB]

Dakkon said:

Bing o said:

Fittster said:

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

Yep, try buying two pints of Pure Blond and a bottle of Hoegarden - SGD45.

Or about GBP22!!

A small beer in Dam square is 7 euros...ouch....

Yeah, I had the misfortune to be in the seat for 5 pints in Dam Square last week . . . €55

[payner2008]

dangerousB said:

Dakkon said:

Bing o said:

Fittster said:

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

Yep, try buying two pints of Pure Blond and a bottle of Hoegarden - SGD45.

Or about GBP22!!

A small beer in Dam square is 7 euros...ouch....

Yeah, I had the misfortune to be in the seat for 5 pints in Dam Square last week . . . €55

i spent a weekend in Amsterdam last month on a stag do, and did about £1100 over there. Most expensive beer i bought was 11 euro. It really was painfull

[Maxf]

How does the normal person mitigate against this? Move assets over to non UK investment funds? But then could we see UK inflation erroding any gains from diversifying further afield?

Christ this is a worrying time. I've saved a decent chunk of cash from working hard and being shrewd and am, frankly, worried to death that it will be erroded into buttons through no fault of mine!

[Plotloss]

Dakkon said:

Bing o said:

Fittster said:

I take it the OP hasn't been abroad recently. If he had he would have felt the impact of the devaluation of the pound.

Yep, try buying two pints of Pure Blond and a bottle of Hoegarden - SGD45.

Or about GBP22!!

A small beer in Dam square is 7 euros...ouch....

WHAT!

That's gone up a bit since I was last out there.

It's always been pricey but that's absurd.

[Scooby72]

Credit loosened back up a bit - and to be fair, some of it was the right thing to do. I disagree with what they actually abused QE for, but in principle, it was right - and I think everyone now agrees with that.


[/quote]

I don't !!

[Yeast Lord]

Maxf said:

How does the normal person mitigate against this? Move assets over to non UK investment funds? But then could we see UK inflation erroding any gains from diversifying further afield?

Christ this is a worrying time. I've saved a decent chunk of cash from working hard and being shrewd and am, frankly, worried to death that it will be erroded into buttons through no fault of mine!

Lol winky has stolen so much cash from you. When the liberals or the liars set up the tobin tax etc after the election, their be gunning for you again lol. The worst is you have all this cash you've worked hard for, your taking risks to preserve it - when you make a gain they tax you and when you make a loss that you can't offset you don't get no bailout.

A friend of mine moved to Canada set up an immigrant trust last year and at the time I thought he was bonkers, now not so much lol.

[JRM]

When the generation currently in their 30's and 40's retire and realise they have no pension to live

[JRM]

musclecarmad said:

JRM said:

When the generation currently in their 30's and 40's retire and realise they have no pension to live

I deal with reasonably well off people mainly lawyers and so many people have no pension. People aged about thirty and under get their state pension at age 68. This country is a massive massive ticking timebomb. So many have no pension and so many even in their forties have next to nothing in savings. Everyone is relying on property.

I know, I'm just staggered by it, I panic about my situation but at least I'm trying to keep a fairly decent pension going.

Those relying on property I just think are crazy, so thwey sell up and move somewhere cheaper - but that's what everyone is going to have to do, so there won't be anywhere that's cheaper.
Beside who is going to buy their expensive house, as the upcoming generations can't afford them as they aren't on the housing ladder yet.

Argh, it really worries me.

[Engineer1]

The reason some 30somethings don't have pensions is that it takes years to pay off your student debt, years to save for a deposit, quite a lot of an average wage to fuel and run a car, go on holiday, then the company you are working for doesn't do inflation pay rises, or lays you off and what little savings you have go and any pension being paid into by your household potentially stops getting paid into as you need the cash to cover the lack of wages/ pay rises. Don't forget this crisis came from nowhere as far as the general public are concerned, it wasn't just the shopfloor that suffered.

[Maxf]

My old age worries me, and it seems I'm in a much better position than many my age (33).

Most of my friends are relying on house prices rising forever, and perhaps a twist of fate allowing them to buy another house as well (obviously at the only point in the next 35 years that house prices drop to bargain levels). I think many are also relying on inheritence - but wouldnt admit to it.

My worry is that I squirrel money away only to not be in the sector of society which can do anything fancy with it when taxes or regulations change and one government or another tried to steal it from me!

[Engineer1]

Inflation, currency devaluation means that the lifestyle your parents could achieve on one good wage are only really achievable on two wages and then only if you are prepared to compromise on certain aspects. The danger is that anything that rectifies any problems will result in serious financial problems for the population, if I struggle to repay my credit card it's my problem, if millions struggle then the credit card company starts to have a problem, same with the banks and if they aren't careful they will trigger a second round of bad credit being traded with defaults that could impact banks and the high street again.

[B17NNS]

Have a read over here.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.h...

Many, many people in a bad way.

[s2art]

cymtriks said:

We keep being told about financial doom on the horizon.

The dire consequences of:

• state debt
• a house price crash
• inflaton
• the IMF having to come to the rescue
• bank failure
• quantitative easing
• personal debt

plus a few more that get mentioned and are all, apparently, going to ruin us tomorrow.

So when will it, as in the Big Money Crisis that keeps being predicted, actually happen for the ordinary bloke, how, and what will the actual consequences be?

Or will it all just be inflated away or the debts written off so we can start again?

The big worry is the funding gap. And that is happening now. Basically government borrowing is hoovering up all the available money, leaving little for business loans, mortgages etc.
This means that any recovery will be slow and feeble. What is worse, the government will have to pay higher and higher interest rates to fund its borrowing. Its like a death spiral.
The only long term solution is savage cuts in public spending. The best short term solution may be further quantitative easing, or an IMF loan at better rates than the government can get (currently over 4% I think).

In other words we are screwed, and it gets a lot worse from here on in.

[JRM]

musclecarmad said:

I saw a girl the other day newly qualified solicitor on about £50,000 (so a 40% taxpayer) and she could join a Group Personal Pension to which she could pay 5% and her employer matched it. So, it would cost her £2500 per year GROSS so a net payment of about £1500 per year and £5,000 would go into her pot. She didn't want to join as she spends all her money on clothes and holidays and then said I was trying to sell her it. Obviously there is nothing in it for me recommending she joins her company's pension offering but you would think this is rare but I see it every day of my life. This is also a supposedly switched on solicitor.

Frightening isn't, how can people be so naive. I'm terrified of my old age and not having enough money, but I have at least always maxed out my company pension contributions, so that's a start.
Mind you I fall into the vitually no savings camp, but can't do much about that when I've got v young kids and want my wife at home to raise them. It is SERIOUSLY expensive, but that is something that I think is worthwhile doing.

Just got to keep climbing the work ladder and hope to do well there, nothing drives me more than the thought of not being able to afford to live in my own home when I retire

[anonymous-user]

cymtriks said:

will it all just be inflated away or the debts written off so we can start again?

national debt is 800bn, 200bn of which is index linked
public sector pension liabilites are roughly 1000bn, all of which is index linked

tricky to inflate index linked debt away

JRM said:

Frightening isn't, how can people be so naive.

not just naivety. i'm 35 and have no traditional pension. every company ive worked for has had a minimum age, had to have been at the firm 1 to 2 years before joining, one even took back all their contributions when i quit!. these days i take the view that cash is king, over the next 10-30 years uk taxes are only going up to pay for the last 10 years incompetence, so after pathetic returns from some 3rd rate pension fund youl end up being taxed into the ground on it... fk that.

Edited by fbrs on Thursday 22 April 17:07