Well
Seeing as a few others are doing their best Nelson "HA HA!" impression, ill join the bandwagon and say what credit crunch? I read all this scaremongering in the paper, yet find it incredibly easy to get credit even with only a short credit history. Ive got more money coming in from the job (6 years at the current one) than ever, and they are not laying people off or downsizing. In fact, we had 35% growth in 2008 and a projected 15% growth in 2009.

I often wonder if all of this scaremongering wasnt in the papers and on TV, how much would consumer spending be shaken?? Would things have deteriorated as rapidly?

Mind you, i dont have any mortgage payments and my outgoing are some 30% of my monthly income. I should probably open a savings account instead of pissing it all up the wall each month. And from reading all the stories here, I now feel quite lucky.

*edit* oh yes, apparently new cars are cheap as chips if you haggle well. i got 5 grand off the list price of a brand new Subaru WRX this month.
(shamen Geekius Maximus, Sun 25 Jan 2009, 17:39, 3 replies)

I think it's mostly affected
the services sector.

As Douglas Adams once wrote, "How can you have an economy when no-one actually makes anything?!"

Those who actually create things haven't been affected too much directly (that I've seen)- it's mainly been the knock-on effect from that that's caused the problems. And the lack of large-scale credit to fund the larger projects.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 11:18, closed)

I'd go with this
I'm a printer.... and we're really, really busy! This is the busiest January so far that we've had for five years!
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 19:07, closed)

yeah, buying cars is fun...
As someone with decent credit ratings and a reasonably high income, car dealers practically throw themselves at me the minute I show an interest at the moment. It's been great - dicks that would have looked down their nose at me have been wheedling round me, trying to ply me with nasty machine coffee for the last few months.

I just got a low mileage Jag for an absolute steal - four grand under book value, in immaculate condition and with a five year RAC warranty... not only that, but my insurance went down and the tax is lower than my old car, too! W00t!

Having said that, I was about an hour away from buying a Porsche until my wife bounced in with the little stick that had turned blue and blew any idea of a two-seat convertible out of the water...bless her! :-)
(Chad, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 16:11, closed)