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Did you score a bargain in Woolworths?
Meet someone nice in the queue to withdraw your 10p from Northern Rock?
Get made redundant from the job you hated enough to spend all day on b3ta?
How has the credit crunch affected you?
( , Thu 22 Jan 2009, 12:19)
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I deliberately pitched my post as a sort of worst-case scenario. I'm not saying that's what WILL happen, I'm just saying that people need to entertain the possibility. This isn't what I go around saying in general, I just wanted some sort of riposte to the 'I'm alright Jack' attitude that I disagree with.
(btw: it is now a recession, two successive quarters of negative growth according to the ONS, who I'm pretty sure wouldn't call it a recession unless they absolutely had to)
I was trying to make the point that this is not about personal borrowing. I completely agree that the people who borrowed stupid amounts to buy status symbols acted stupidly. But can you honestly expect any different of a culture where we're constantly bombarded with messages to BUY BUY BUY, a consumerist society where more possessions = being better, and banks that happily gave out credit to anyone, without asking what it was for, until the gravy train ran off the rails.
There will always be the sensible ones such as yourself, but you can't expect everyone to be able to manage their money sensibly when credit, and things to buy with it, are so aggressively marketed!
But that's by the by; as I said, and as PJM has pointed out, the problem is not with personal borrowing. It's the amount the government, and the country (which effectively counts us as part of it) are in hock. There isn't enough money in the world to pay all the debts in the world - how the fuck does that work? There's the historical fact that Britain has always punched above its weight, and been a more important country than its size, population and economy would suggest. So many people were happy to lend us money. As I said above, what happens if those debts start being called in? The banks will call in all their loans to finance it.
And having no mortgage on your house and years of being sensible isn't really going to help you when all the shops shut, we can't afford to import any oil - or anything in fact (the UK is a net importer of just about everything)
Unchecked and largely unregulated globalisation means that all the houses of cards are built on each other, inextricably linked, and it will probably take less than you think to make the whole thing topple. And it might not even be caused by anything in this country.
I'm not trying to be some sort of prophet as I said, I was just pointing out that people need to take a wider view than the fact they've paid off their mortgage, because that won't matter a damn if the whole country goes down the tube.
Oh - and something else we haven't really touched upon, for which there is quite a lot of historical precedent. We have to consider the increased likelihood of World War 3. And I fucking hope it doesn't go that far.
(This is a bit quick and probably slightly incoherent as I'm typing it in a rush before I go to lunch, so apologies. More after lunch!!)
( , Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:53, 1 reply)
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On the recession point, the f'ing website didn't have those details when I checked, so yup, we all recession shaped now!
To be honest I can't find anything I disagree with in this post. I still feel that if the whole house of cards drops there are ways out, but overall I do agree with you in principle.
More after a sarnie run!
ps: I think the World War 3 bit is a tad extreme though - I think the likelyhood of this is pretty low these days, certainly lower than it was in the 80's. Now that the warmongering trigger happy xenophobic horrendous spaz-brained little turd hole Bush is gone, I feel much better about it.
( , Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:59, closed)
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