Is it me or is the ecomony totally b*99*d
Discussion
The reason I say this is for various reasons.
I work for an ISA, PEP administrator and every day I get about 50 calls from people who's ISA's are now worth half of what they were 2 years ago, because the stock market is so low.
For quite a lot of the old customers it is the only money they have.
When I worked for the Woolwich 3 years ago one of the advisors was pestering me to see her for investment advice.
Luckily I didn't, I decided to save in a deposit account and buy a TVR instead. I've probably lost the same amount of money, but I have something to show for it.
Of course a couple of years ago there was the same problem with endowments and shortfalls on mortgages.
Mortgages and house prices are really p*%%ing me off.
I still live with the parents (at the age of 28) as I can't afford to buy a property.
To buy a house for example I would need to be on about £30k a year, double my salary, and that is to buy a house in an area such as Harold Hill, which is recognised as a deprived area by the Single Regeneration Budget.
Ex council houses are going for around £120k-£150k, I saw a property in Rush Green for around the £200k mark.
What I can't understand is what is going to happen if house prices continue to rise.
Key workers will not be able to afford to live, i.e, shop staff, teachers, bank staff/managers, road sweepers, Nurses, Ambulancemen.
The other problem I see is if the interest rates shoot up in the next few years, there are going to be a lot of people stuffed when they come out of their fixed rate mortages.
It has been said that because there is a housing shortage that house prices won't fall like they did in the late 80's, which why if there is a shortage are we letting thousands of Asylum seekers in every year.
I read in the paper that there is pressure to cut the base rate again, because of falling manufacturing, which will probably fuel the housing maket more.
If you are on the ladder you are o.k, if you aren't, unless you are on mega money, you are stuffed.
And what is going to happen to pensions in the long term??
Sometimes I feel like leaving the country.
Rant over.
I work for an ISA, PEP administrator and every day I get about 50 calls from people who's ISA's are now worth half of what they were 2 years ago, because the stock market is so low.
For quite a lot of the old customers it is the only money they have.
When I worked for the Woolwich 3 years ago one of the advisors was pestering me to see her for investment advice.
Luckily I didn't, I decided to save in a deposit account and buy a TVR instead. I've probably lost the same amount of money, but I have something to show for it.
Of course a couple of years ago there was the same problem with endowments and shortfalls on mortgages.
Mortgages and house prices are really p*%%ing me off.
I still live with the parents (at the age of 28) as I can't afford to buy a property.
To buy a house for example I would need to be on about £30k a year, double my salary, and that is to buy a house in an area such as Harold Hill, which is recognised as a deprived area by the Single Regeneration Budget.
Ex council houses are going for around £120k-£150k, I saw a property in Rush Green for around the £200k mark.
What I can't understand is what is going to happen if house prices continue to rise.
Key workers will not be able to afford to live, i.e, shop staff, teachers, bank staff/managers, road sweepers, Nurses, Ambulancemen.
The other problem I see is if the interest rates shoot up in the next few years, there are going to be a lot of people stuffed when they come out of their fixed rate mortages.
It has been said that because there is a housing shortage that house prices won't fall like they did in the late 80's, which why if there is a shortage are we letting thousands of Asylum seekers in every year.
I read in the paper that there is pressure to cut the base rate again, because of falling manufacturing, which will probably fuel the housing maket more.
If you are on the ladder you are o.k, if you aren't, unless you are on mega money, you are stuffed.
And what is going to happen to pensions in the long term??
Sometimes I feel like leaving the country.
Rant over.
You are not wrong, mate.
The economy is not in a good way. What surprises me is that NO ONE SEEMS WILLING TO ADMIT IT! The media are playing it down.
Our shares are worth shag all. Luckily we kept a chunk of our money in regular deposit accounts - and are now (although we were ADVISED that we were making a poor investment!) are happily still with a reasonable nest egg behind us. If it had all been in shares we'd have been stuffed.
If you don't own a property I have no idea how to get on the ladder...as you say.
Pensions aren't worth s**t. Its better to put the money under the mattress! (Well..ok...in a "safe" bank account!). The tax break you get on pension payments isn't worth it once you realise that their value is falling and the people who run them are people from whom you would not buy a loaf of bread if you knew who they were.
I am often AMAZED at how the current situation is portrayed. Yes it IS fcuking bad. Beware any placatory comments from the Finance Industry. It is not in their interest for you to decide you are no longer going to throw good money after bad into financial products....so of course they won't say its all gone tits up.
But it has...
The economy is not in a good way. What surprises me is that NO ONE SEEMS WILLING TO ADMIT IT! The media are playing it down.
Our shares are worth shag all. Luckily we kept a chunk of our money in regular deposit accounts - and are now (although we were ADVISED that we were making a poor investment!) are happily still with a reasonable nest egg behind us. If it had all been in shares we'd have been stuffed.
If you don't own a property I have no idea how to get on the ladder...as you say.
Pensions aren't worth s**t. Its better to put the money under the mattress! (Well..ok...in a "safe" bank account!). The tax break you get on pension payments isn't worth it once you realise that their value is falling and the people who run them are people from whom you would not buy a loaf of bread if you knew who they were.
I am often AMAZED at how the current situation is portrayed. Yes it IS fcuking bad. Beware any placatory comments from the Finance Industry. It is not in their interest for you to decide you are no longer going to throw good money after bad into financial products....so of course they won't say its all gone tits up.
But it has...
Maybe the reason house prices are daft is because people pay them? 150 grand for an ex-council house? Where I am that will buy you a mansion in the country, and I shit you not.
My house cost 6 grand new in 1976, I paid over 40 for it a year ago. It's still made from the same cack they built it from, nothing's changed.
Ian
My house cost 6 grand new in 1976, I paid over 40 for it a year ago. It's still made from the same cack they built it from, nothing's changed.
Ian
My real worry is that there are THOUSDANS of people, of whom quite a few are PHers judigng by various threads, thatare nbot currently employed, often from the IT industry. The point is my impresion is that NONE of us jobseekers are registering in any way as unemployed - knowing what the response would be and the pointlessness of alerting the useless, parasitical bureaucracy that is social secrity here. So the actual jobless total is actually massive and we can all go on so long before we suddenly start losing our homes and turniong to the state OR starting riots!!!
I don't think the ecomony is in trouble yet, just on the edge especially employment / unemployment. Stocks and shares go up and down, they haven't gone down by that much to be a longer term concern (if you look at historical rises and falls). As for the housing market, the prices are set by supply and demand. The only answer for anyone is to get on the housing ladder as soon as they can so they are exposed to the rises and falls. If that means buying a flat rather than the large 5 bed estate at first so be it. I know a number of people over the last 15 years who "are just waiting for house prices to collapse" or "don't want to buy at the peak" before getting in and never do. Trouble is they have missed out (house prices are back above the pre-90s collapse peak) and they have been paying dead money in rent all those years. You'll soon find in 5 years time you can trade up if you don't spend all your money on cars.
Cheers,
Andy.
P.S. This is my own opinion and should not be taken as financial advice in any form!
Cheers,
Andy.
P.S. This is my own opinion and should not be taken as financial advice in any form!
Big_M said: What pi55es me off is some of these so called 'Fund Managers' are still getting big money. OK I know that a lot of companies are laying their staff off - but if my investments are going tits up then why should we still be paying out vast sums in commission and bonuses.
Absolutely spot on. These jokers win whether the market is up and down. Cheers to the guys at the Invesco GT European fund who turned my 14k into about 6. I will never buy a "managed" fund again. All these guys want is big bonuses and all your IFA wants is his commission. All my so called "managed" peps and ISA's have performed worse than the market although they nearly all claim to be in the 1st or 2nd quartile. My tracker (no spread, tiny fees, no "managers") has done much better, although my IFA pleaded with me not to buy it (no commission either).
I'm not sure whether the economy per se is as totally shagged as we're saying; there are areas of relative bouyancy and others in decline but this flux has been the way of things for at least 25 years now.
From a purely macro economic view, the 'stop-go' policies of (broadly Keynsian versus Monetrarist) left and then right wing administrations have led to a variation on the boom then bust then boom scenario for many individuals and their respective industries.
What broadly tends to lead me to a less optimistic overall appraisal, however, are two key factors.
First, our chronic overpopulation: whether you're in IT, accountancy, law, manufacturing or retailing, the natural, long term economic cycle has seen a general increase in competition (and indeed strangulatory EC-derived anti-capitalist/pro-proletariat red tape) that has squeezed profitability in many areas to frankly unworkable levels.
This is caused by the simple action of too many people seeking incomes from too few markets which are too small to support them all. For want of better phreaseology, supply is quite simply outstripping demand.
With the exception of the big FMCG, predominantly food-based supermarket chains - who have the politicians in their back pockets anyway - many industries are facing unconscionable strains on their ability to charge fair and reasonable profit producing prices whilst simultaneously battling against equally damaging forces from a cost base aspect - witness BAE Systems latest problems in the Nimrod project.
Second, the actual quality of our people. I see it on the streets all the time; hosts of layabouts with nothing better to do than exist on a purely state sponsored benefit level...not entirely their fault as such, merely a demonstration of the reality that without a certain demand for let's just say more low skilled pursuits (such as tilling the plough in pastures new, or rowing 'neath deck at ramming speed), the economy is left with an increasing strata of what seem to be unemployable bodies...
Heavy industry and mass labour related industrial production is no more, end of story; there has been no wholescale agrarian system for 200 years and not everyone can be a blood sucking brief of computer programmer - so what to do?
Frankly, a degree of recolonisation is what we need, both for the benefit of our mother land and the betterment of some of the strife-ridden areas our abscence has not aided.
We are the masters of modern democracy and it's high time Britannia once more donned it's Imperial Chariot.
Chin, chin.
From a purely macro economic view, the 'stop-go' policies of (broadly Keynsian versus Monetrarist) left and then right wing administrations have led to a variation on the boom then bust then boom scenario for many individuals and their respective industries.
What broadly tends to lead me to a less optimistic overall appraisal, however, are two key factors.
First, our chronic overpopulation: whether you're in IT, accountancy, law, manufacturing or retailing, the natural, long term economic cycle has seen a general increase in competition (and indeed strangulatory EC-derived anti-capitalist/pro-proletariat red tape) that has squeezed profitability in many areas to frankly unworkable levels.
This is caused by the simple action of too many people seeking incomes from too few markets which are too small to support them all. For want of better phreaseology, supply is quite simply outstripping demand.
With the exception of the big FMCG, predominantly food-based supermarket chains - who have the politicians in their back pockets anyway - many industries are facing unconscionable strains on their ability to charge fair and reasonable profit producing prices whilst simultaneously battling against equally damaging forces from a cost base aspect - witness BAE Systems latest problems in the Nimrod project.
Second, the actual quality of our people. I see it on the streets all the time; hosts of layabouts with nothing better to do than exist on a purely state sponsored benefit level...not entirely their fault as such, merely a demonstration of the reality that without a certain demand for let's just say more low skilled pursuits (such as tilling the plough in pastures new, or rowing 'neath deck at ramming speed), the economy is left with an increasing strata of what seem to be unemployable bodies...
Heavy industry and mass labour related industrial production is no more, end of story; there has been no wholescale agrarian system for 200 years and not everyone can be a blood sucking brief of computer programmer - so what to do?
Frankly, a degree of recolonisation is what we need, both for the benefit of our mother land and the betterment of some of the strife-ridden areas our abscence has not aided.
We are the masters of modern democracy and it's high time Britannia once more donned it's Imperial Chariot.
Chin, chin.
Why thankyou, Steve!
There really are far too many pitiful apologists these days: I know the media likes to pretend many people object to America's stance on a variety of issues these days but I can't help admiring their sheer self-belief and overall economic prowess, since, well, the year dot!
I just want to see Britain a little less benevolent and a little more belligerent in the self conviction stakes.
Apologising for our former colonial misdeeds, for example: pah!
I just want to be unashamedly proud of this great nation.
There really are far too many pitiful apologists these days: I know the media likes to pretend many people object to America's stance on a variety of issues these days but I can't help admiring their sheer self-belief and overall economic prowess, since, well, the year dot!
I just want to see Britain a little less benevolent and a little more belligerent in the self conviction stakes.
Apologising for our former colonial misdeeds, for example: pah!
I just want to be unashamedly proud of this great nation.
First, our chronic overpopulation: whether you're in IT, accountancy, law, manufacturing or retailing, the natural, long term economic cycle has seen a general increase in competition (and indeed strangulatory EC-derived anti-capitalist/pro-proletariat red tape) that has squeezed profitability in many areas to frankly unworkable levels.
This is caused by the simple action of too many people seeking incomes from too few markets which are too small to support them all. For want of better phreaseology, supply is quite simply outstripping demand.
quote]
Interestingly there is actualy a decline in competition in alot of Skilled manual trades i.e carpenters / plumbers / electricians etc due largly IMO to the social belief that these areas are of insignificant value = nobody is or wants to train in these areas, thus the remaining decent craftsman (not leggit & co.) are actually in demand and making more (in some cases) than alot of 'PROFFESIONAL' careers people.
Pete, my most sincere commiserations, mate.
For too many years of late, the political classes have been putting the interests of non-subjects first.
Gents of your fine calibre should be astride a thunderous steed, charging o'er the landscape, ensuring an adequate yield at the hands of an effectively employed neo-fuedalist serfdom, rather than suffering at the hands of a system caused by milk-livered policies which delude the national pysche into misguided notions of individual equivalence when clearly, such meritocratic notions have no use for the natural peasant classes that exist - and may well always.
Then again, look at the protozoan nature of European politicians since the demise of Magwold?
I'll raise a glass in your general direction this evening, Pete, in the hope and, I'm sure, surefire knowledge that you'll get sorted ASAP: your conviction is inspiring in this unfortunate time.
Your friend & ally,
DeR.
For too many years of late, the political classes have been putting the interests of non-subjects first.
Gents of your fine calibre should be astride a thunderous steed, charging o'er the landscape, ensuring an adequate yield at the hands of an effectively employed neo-fuedalist serfdom, rather than suffering at the hands of a system caused by milk-livered policies which delude the national pysche into misguided notions of individual equivalence when clearly, such meritocratic notions have no use for the natural peasant classes that exist - and may well always.
Then again, look at the protozoan nature of European politicians since the demise of Magwold?
I'll raise a glass in your general direction this evening, Pete, in the hope and, I'm sure, surefire knowledge that you'll get sorted ASAP: your conviction is inspiring in this unfortunate time.
Your friend & ally,
DeR.
Big_M said: What pi55es me off is some of these so called 'Fund Managers' are still getting big money. OK I know that a lot of companies are laying their staff off - but if my investments are going tits up then why should we still be paying out vast sums in commission and bonuses.
lol, I'm actually a Fund Manager in the city. within our company 4 people got a pay rise for last year (out of 200). Oh and over the last 6months 93 of the staff were made redundant, taking headcount from around 200 to barely over 100. Personally a lot of my pay comes from my bonus (I got no payrise or bonus this year, and my basic salary isn't great).
The economy is screwed, no 2 ways about it, I won't go into technicals.
The general mood in the city is poor. Equities just keep falling.
BTW I should qualify, I'm the biggest sinic (spelling?) going, I've become increasingly disillusioned with the ability for Fund Managers to consistently out-perform the market. I simply don't think it can be done. I'd like to do something else, but when the money is good, the money is very good. Oh and don't ever ever trust investment advice from Fund Managers/IFA's etc, they all talk their own book either intentionally or not, most or on commission/bonus of some sort for selling the funds.
I had a flat in London, I sold it in February last year, bit too early. Been renting since, the oversupply of rental property in London (due to buy to let fashion) has resulted in my actually forcing my landlord to lower the rent by £250/month (about 15%).
I'd love to buy, but in my area, you need £300k at least for a decent 1/2bed flat, so 10% deposit is £30k cash, and u need to be on a fair wack basic salary to afford the mortgage.
I got rid of all my loans/debts about a year ago, it's not worth the risk in this environment. Our co. is on the point of do or die, if we can't make a profit over the next 2 years, the co. will close entirely, they can't cut headcount anymore than they already have.
Just my 2p.
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