Looming recession

[Dominic M]

I have already heard of a low cost industrial type unit being bulldosed !

 

Just gone two'o'clock and I haven't taken a penny today , third zero day in two weeks . Although January is generally quiet in my business in thirty years I have never known it be this quiet. Thankfully we are busy with repairs and alterations but shop sales are not happening.

The bulldozing has already happened.

 

Out interest, what is your business - a shop selling...............?

Edited January 28, 2009 by Dominic M

[LEO]

Best to look at property as somewhere to live!

 

Now you have hit the nail on the head!! very few people do that - most people look upon it as the ' Bank of 22 Accacia Avenue' or where ever they chose to live, and we know what happens to banks when they lend money willy nilly.

 

Not sure if I remember the Banks being bailed out in the last recession - that's why this one could last longer.

 

Happy days, suggest we all taken an apprenticeship* as a Locksmith - they generally make lots of 'boodle' in a recession.

 

Leo

 

* Apprentice - a term not often used these days - when you learned your trade from people who had some business ethics. I did my 5 years but nowadays days we all become experts from day 1 and training not really needed - because as a nation we don't make anything on an exportable scale.

[Athy]

Machpoint, we are looking at property as somewhere to live - but we already have one for us to live in, so we're seeking one where someone else can live!

I did see a reference to young people starting apprenticeshipe recently on TV, forgotten which trade it was, but the word caught my attention as you so rarely hear it these days - it was almost as if the presenter had said "gadzooks".

[alexandra]

We have a small Jewellery business, my husband also doing his five years ( many years ago) He is a silver & goldsmith . Not to be confused with someone doing a "Jewellery Course" He is a freeman of the city of London and a freeman of the goldsmiths company. I'm just his long suffering significant self taught other half whos slightly miffed at the recession poping up just when I had got him to agree to buy a boat !!

Typical of my luck !!

[Lady Muck]

Im just relieved I bought a boat, instead of buying a flat at the top of the market. My poor mate bought a house for £125k, its now worth £90k - it was a 100% mortgage and now shes been made redundant. Know so many people in this position. I'd rather have a boat than a flat, I know that now! Although I think I might buy a flat incase we decide that the boat is a bit much when we retire (long time away!)

[Dominic M]

Machpoint, we are looking at property as somewhere to live - but we already have one for us to live in, so we're seeking one where someone else can live!

I did see a reference to young people starting apprenticeshipe recently on TV, forgotten which trade it was, but the word caught my attention as you so rarely hear it these days - it was almost as if the presenter had said "gadzooks".

Banking?

[Machpoint005]

Banking?

Who said you could use rhyming slang here?

[LEO]

Who said you could use rhyming slang here?

 

That famous film maker - the one that banged the big gong!

 

Leo.

[gaggle]

http://www.pugh-company.co.uk/auctions/lis...mp;v=manchester

 

The likes of the above will be glad to add you onto their email list free of charge.

Around the country must have similar companies.

[Dominic M]

Who said you could use rhyming slang here?

A friend of mine who happens to be a trucker.

[chris w]

I'm not sure I agree with the "engineered" bit. I'd definitely agree the "smart money" was out of UK property and shares in 2007 and is probably now stored in some offshore safe haven waiting for the good time to roll again.

 

I just wish I was that smart!

That's incredible naivity if you don't think that a lot of this is engineered. Investors love people like you. Many of us could see this coming two years ago and dumped our stock massively at exactly the right time, weakening the share price and accelerating the fall.

 

Now the stock price has tumbled, I am able to buy them all back at rock bottom, make a killing from the original sale and still own everything I did before the crash. I did the same with property, selling just before the downturn and now able to have an even bigger portfolio from repos etc while still having made huge profits on the sales of property at the beginning of last year. Within a couple of years, property will start rising again and so the merry-go-round starts again.

 

Property is still falling because you are being told that it WILL fall so you hang back from buying and, lo and behold, the property price falls. The more it falls, the bigger the killing that cash-rich people make. This is not short-term gain, this is the investment for the next 10 years in property and shares. Then, after another 15 years, it'll all get engineered to fall again. Why do you never hear any optimistic forecasts at the moment? Because investors believe that prices can be forced down even more yet and even larger gains made therefrom. The fact that a lot of people get hurt in the process does not come into investors' equations.

 

This government has so badly mishandled the economy. There may well be a "global recession" but if all things were equal, exchange rates would stay more or less at the same levels for developed countries. Yet the pound had slumped really badly; this is because investors know that Britain is badly placed to come out of this well and they invest elsewhere. Gordon Brown never answers that one, he just keeps harping on about its being a global problem.

 

Chris

[carlt]

Can't see anything in Chris' post that I disagree with.

 

The government's incompetence is bred from their wish to join the money-go-round but having no idea how to do it.

 

They have got away with their pseudo-toryism for too long and it's all turned pear-shaped.

 

They need to make up their minds which side of the fence they're on and, hopefully, when they've picked the right side and left the Torys to do what they're good at, start looking at some practical Socialist solutions to the problems, rather than shore up the system, until the rich boys get back on board.

[WJM]

I know many people have strong feelings about sovereignty and identity but this really is a time to take a fresh look at entering the Euro.

 

The best reason I ever heard for going into the Euro was this - "It stops the idiots messing".

 

What this means is, currently gordon Brown can use a whole raft of fiscal manipulations to make short term popularity gains, at the expense of the long term. Value of Sterling and UK interest rates are two of these. I think we can now accept that all governments see re-election as their first priority and the well-being of the country as their second. By taking these two control elements away from them (which is what entering the Euro means) you give control of them, not to Germany, or France or whoever the tabloids have told you to hate, but instead to a heavy high-inertial body that cannot be manipulated for short term gain. The result is a much more stable framework.

 

Being outside of the Euro is one of the biggest problems with confidence in the British economy. Outside investors worry what the bumbling grey twit will do next in his desperate fight to get re-elected. He is too powerful. Power in the hands of a fool is very dangerous.

[MoominPapa]

I know many people have strong feelings about sovereignty and identity but this really is a time to take a fresh look at entering the Euro.

 

The best reason I ever heard for going into the Euro was this - "It stops the idiots messing".

 

What this means is, currently gordon Brown can use a whole raft of fiscal manipulations to make short term popularity gains, at the expense of the long term. Value of Sterling and UK interest rates are two of these. I think we can now accept that all governments see re-election as their first priority and the well-being of the country as their second. By taking these two control elements away from them (which is what entering the Euro means) you give control of them, not to Germany, or France or whoever the tabloids have told you to hate, but instead to a heavy high-inertial body that cannot be manipulated for short term gain. The result is a much more stable framework.

 

Being outside of the Euro is one of the biggest problems with confidence in the British economy. Outside investors worry what the bumbling grey twit will do next in his desperate fight to get re-elected. He is too powerful. Power in the hands of a fool is very dangerous.

 

An excellent argument, but too late. We should have joined when the Euro was created, but we didn't. Now will be many, many years before the British economy fulfills the entrance criteria. I read in the FT today the the extra government borrowing will cost £20bn a year for the next 20 years. The only way we will get into the Euro now is on terms which are massively to our disdvantage; it''s the story of our joining the EEC all over again.

 

MP.

[chris w]

Being outside of the Euro is one of the biggest problems with confidence in the British economy.

 

......and if we were able to join now, at what exchange rate do you think we would be let in?? !!! We would be massively disadvantaged.

 

Chris

[NB Alnwick]

......and if we were able to join now, at what exchange rate do you think we would be let in?? !!! We would be massively disadvantaged.

 

The weak Pound is an advantage to some British companies - especially those who source their labour and materials within this country and are able to export their products. As an example, I understand that Brompton, the folding bicycle people have full order books with around 70% of their production destined for overseas markets. The good news is that they are working on ways of increasing production by a further 25% to cope with demand.

[Machpoint005]

An excellent argument, but too late. We should have joined when the Euro was created, but we didn't.

Couldn't agree more. And I've been saying it for more than 15 years (as has MP, probably).

[Neil TNC]

The weak Pound is an advantage to some British companies - especially those who source their labour and materials within this country and are able to export their products. As an example, I understand that Brompton, the folding bicycle people have full order books with around 70% of their production destined for overseas markets. The good news is that they are working on ways of increasing production by a further 25% to cope with demand.

 

Haven't they always had full order books?

They are brilliant, TNC have not managed to break ours (yet)

I had to get my own as Mrs TNC would not let me take hers to Ireland...my best e-bay bargain ever, brand new, just the spec I wanted and half price!

[chris w]

The weak Pound is an advantage to some British companies - especially those who source their labour and materials within this country and are able to export their products. As an example, I understand that Brompton, the folding bicycle people have full order books with around 70% of their production destined for overseas markets. The good news is that they are working on ways of increasing production by a further 25% to cope with demand.

But you have to look holistically. Our manufacturing base has been destroyed. We are a net importer of goods and a low pound damages us greatly. The "it's good news for exporters" story, while partially true, is a smoke-screen the government uses to cover the devastating increase in the cost of imports for the rest of us. Most of the remaining exporters use imported goods in their manufacturing process and therefore cannot get a real benefit overall.

 

Chris

[NB Alnwick]

But you have to look holistically. Our manufacturing base has been destroyed. We are a net importer of goods and a low pound damages us greatly. The "it's good news for exporters" story, while partially true, is a smoke-screen the government uses to cover the devastating increase in the cost of imports for the rest of us. Most of the remaining exporters use imported goods in their manufacturing process and therefore cannot get a real benefit overall.

 

Exactly! We have had it too easy for too long and its high time, that as a nation, we got off our backsides and started making things ourselves instead of expecting everyone else to do it for us.

 

There are still many areas where Britain and British designers/workers can excel - we may not always need to go back to our historical manufacturing roots if we are prepared to exploit our skills in new fields.

 

On the subject of fields, despite a vast increase in our population, the nation's farmers are now producing a much higher percentage of our daily food requirements than they were in the 1930s.

[WJM]

So the sterling pound is good for exporters.

 

Pre-Euro, my father used to import components from the UK, sometimes a million pounds worth in one order. He learned to live with fluctuating exchange rates which sometimes ravaged the profitability of a deal. Then along came the Euro and he began to enjoy the stability of dealing with his non-UK foreign suppliers who also worked in Euro. Realising that the British supplier sourced some of their components from the Netherlands, he approached the UK supplier and asked if they could keep this part of the deal in Euro, ie: ship direct to him from Holland but keep the UK company in the deal. "Oh no, we are a British company, we deal only in the Queen's Sovereign Pound" he was told. So he went to a trade show in Germany, found new Euro suppliers and never bought another Sterling Pound product ever again. The British supplier went bust a few years later. The British disease.

[LEO]

On the subject of fields, despite a vast increase in our population, the nation's farmers are now producing a much higher percentage of our daily food requirements than they were in the 1930s.

 

Farmers used to do a lot better- but now have hands tied by regulations from the EU.

 

For example a friend who has been breeding pigs for years has been forced out of business by Tesco (wanting the cheapest deal and taking the longest time to pay).

 

He keeps a few pigs for a hobby. One died last week and regulations stipulate the body must be collected by a licenced deadstock collector and taken to a nominated crematorium.

 

Pig died in North Bucks, Collected by someone in South Bucks, taken to Canterbury for incineration cost to the farmer £200, value of pig if sold for slaughter and butchering - £60.

 

Leo.

[Ex- Member]

That's incredible naivity if you don't think that a lot of this is engineered. Investors love people like you. Many of us could see this coming two years ago and dumped our stock massively at exactly the right time, weakening the share price and accelerating the fall.

 

Have to agree also. I've been doing some research in to investing on the stock market. A good friend of mine has been trading for a couple of years now and has done very well making a good living at it whilst increasing his portfolio. Having someone in the know explaining how the stock market works is very enlightening and i'm in no doubt that manipulation of the market exists with the big players. So much so I have now decided to invest what little cash I have left on the stock market. (If you can't beat them join them) I've set up an account with an internet broker today in fact, and arranging for my ISA's to be transferred to stocks and shares ISA's so I can control myself, what stocks I want to invest in. I do know this is no dead cert way of making money, but neither is my current businesses LOL or leaving it in the bank with little interest, so I actually consider this move a better bet than using my money to prop up my business. Hopefully if I do ok it could be a good way of making a living when living on the boat. According to sourses stockmarket hasn't bottomed out yet, so I'm preparing to buy in when i think that time arrives which shouldn't be Long. Although there are some shares I will be buying shortly depending on the next 3 days trading. The way I look at is the money I'm prepared to invest now would disappear quickly anyway as the recession deepens over the next few months, so i'm prepared to possibly take some losses now rather than lose the lot later with no hope of any gain at all

 

Wish me luck .

[Machpoint005]

Have to agree also. I've been doing some research in to investing on the stock market. A good friend of mine has been trading for a couple of years now and has done very well making a good living at it whilst increasing his portfolio. Having someone in the know explaining how the stock market works is very enlightening and i'm in no doubt that manipulation of the market exists with the big players. So much so I have now decided to invest what little cash I have left on the stock market. (If you can't beat them join them) I've set up an account with an internet broker today in fact, and arranging for my ISA's to be transferred to stocks and shares ISA's so I can control myself, what stocks I want to invest in. I do know this is no dead cert way of making money, but neither is my current businesses LOL or leaving it in the bank with little interest, so I actually consider this move a better bet than using my money to prop up my business. Hopefully if I do ok it could be a good way of making a living when living on the boat. According to sourses stockmarket hasn't bottomed out yet, so I'm preparing to buy in when i think that time arrives which shouldn't be Long. Although there are some shares I will be buying shortly depending on the next 3 days trading. The way I look at is the money I'm prepared to invest now would disappear quickly anyway as the recession deepens over the next few months, so i'm prepared to possibly take some losses now rather than lose the lot later with no hope of any gain at all

 

Wish me luck .

 

I wish you skill!

[WJM]

"Wish me luck"

 

Wouldn't taking it to the bookies be more dignified?