Future in UK?

[jtbo]

I have been reading bit worrying news from UK, I don't know how much is hype and what is real, however what I understand is that there seem to be quite severe cuts being made for costs, latest one I heard were possibility of free university going under the axe, sounds quite severe

Don't know if this paper is any good, but there is the claim that national debt would rise to 3.8trillion, which would be over 300% more than GNP, that might cause some problems if allowed to happen.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 25979.html

Also earlier I did read that there would be some shortage of jobs for young people. Those things are quite dangerous combination, even alone each is perhaps manageable.

If all those things are true, then future might be quite different from what it seemed to be for example year ago, there is not much what one can do about those things. How it is for you that be there, is it so severe or is papers just trying to draw in readers?

[Ride_on]

The problem is I don't think anyone actually knows, the deficit and trade balance are extremely bad, but what the economy is really doing is anyone's guess.

Personally I am a bit of a tin hatter, I can't see how all those banker/traders can take so much money from the system and not do anything useful for it. The economy needs useful labour and few are doing it.

During the boom years there was loads of non-value add activity and lots got rich from others taking out more debt. Also during this time gov't thought things were great so gave the people anything they wanted, benefits, civil service jobs, hospitals etc.

They have sort of realised that the bankers where taking on too much risk and the deregulation doesn't work, but still they are giving out 5.5xjoint salary mortgages. Taxes are going up, jobs reducing, everything else going up.

Personally I don't understand how it keeps going, other than the banks are allowed to lie about their balance sheets and keep toxic assets for years while people don't pay their mortgages.

Right now I am not getting paid, previous employer went bust, but on a promise of payment..we'll see, I'm looking for a job but alot of applicants for each one.

[Speedy88]

I'm currently exiting 4 years of education, prospects look bleak but I'm one of those hippy types that doesn't care much about money. At the very worst I could still get a job at Siemens I'm sure due to a very good work placement reference there. If I didn't have that, bugger knows though.

[jtbo]

We all have to hope that things don't go the way they did 1910-1930, our local tabloid, which is very unreliable news source, reported from study where it was found that in a world all big things have happened in first 50 years of century, where latter part has always been more or less quiet, don't know where they pulled those statistics, but it certainly makes thoughts go around quite fast.

My father's generation had quite nice time to make up living indeed, he is now past 60, so wars here were pretty much over, weather was nice (1960-1961 summers were similar to this one where it was really warm) and economy got into big gear, also life changed easier because of new machines.

I'm bit envy of him actually, world where I'm living there are also new machines, but all they seem to do is stealing my time and causing myself to be 'available' all the time, well might be I'm tad pessimistic

We here are seeing similar effects as you there, however maybe not that severe, even our governments have been spending similarly crazy as yours, also there is added effect of global economy going mad.

Work itself is perhaps not going to end, but maybe it changes so that only those that employ themselves will have work, also might be that our greater values are put to ice, there is perhaps time coming where one can't be unemployed or student without personal treasure, kind of moving back to square one with social security.

One of the problems have been that whole europe has been spending more than earning, using loan to buy luxury which otherwise would not been able to achieve, that together with aging people is at least here big thing,

Here is how UK has taken more loan, this is what becomes 3.8 trillion according to article by the Independent:


This is how it was in Greece:


Ours is like this, Mrd is same as billion, see how tiny our country is even our countries are close match at surface area, there are so few finns and I still sometimes feel there are too many


Hopefully finance world does not get too shaken at upcoming years, even with good business boom there are challenges with all these loans, it is not only governements, but also people have quite lot of loan too, which makes things even more risky.

[Ride_on]

All our fiat currencies are based on interest bearing loans which require more people coming in at the bottom to take out debt and give it to older people trying to pay theirs off. Its giant pyramid scheme that requires geometric population expansion. It is also borrowing labour from the future, the problem with this is that as you borrow more into the future you get disconnected with reality and prices become out of step with value. 2 Populations have been getting older with not enough new people coming in to balance the older ones pensions and benefits, aswell as the many older ones who hold all the power to sell us stuff and give us loans. We should have had a big crash in 2000 to reset everything back to a more correct value, but instead the big gov'ts deregulated the banks and let them lend more imaginary money to everyone and anyone as the banks where reaching their limits (fractional reserve banking). The banks fell over themselves to give the extra money away and created things like CDOs which magiced away risk, except it didn't, just noone could understand them.

Suddenly everyone who was maxed out could take out more debt, and if you didn't play this game you could not buy big stuff like a car and a house, so most people had to do it. Some countries had limits on lending to their people, but their banks were borrowing and lending to the banks that where doing more risky stuff. The new limits have not yet been reached, but gov't are trying to wean the country of debt now before the next reset. I'm not so sure they can pull it off, and there is now alot more resistance from environmental factors, meaning simply gearing things up is undesirable. Economists consider the planet to be an infinite resource and sink (to absorb all our waste), some things are becoming more scarce and we are realising that the planet can only support a limited number of people, hence the economic system cannot go on forever with this pyramid scheme.

[volvosneverdie]

think the egyptians tried that.
not sure it was sucsessfull back then either.

[Speedy88]

Its giant pyramid scheme that requires geometric population expansion.

You are very much spot on with your post there sir, people used to laugh at me when I said things like this (before the recession that was)

[jtbo]

I bet my money on 2020-2030 for reset as those years are when many countries in Europe have too much people living on pension etc and too little workforce to support that kind of costs, our gov's financial wing has issued warning already that right now there are too small percent working and paying taxes than those consuming taxes, by 2030 it was going to rise something like 80% from current level if I don't remember awfully wrong.

Good plan is then to get rid of all loans if one even has any, invest in gold or some other rather stable stuff and cut expenses so that can build up some treasure, which comes handy when reset happens as it might be possible to gain rather nice property during that time with very little money, 10 year later there is nice multiplier to price tag.

I don't know how much we lose from social security, education and healthcare, but probably quite bit, I can see how UK gov. is trying to cut and make it trough just little thinner, but if they don't make it, then it can result getting to skeleton after storm is over.

Do you ever envy people living on places where there is no dead winter? I do, just think about it, you need only few planks to make a shelter, bit of seeds and a well, some tinfoil and cardboard to make cooker and water heater, there you have all you need for surviving, but think about our countries, you will freeze to death during winter if you don't have some serious amount of firewood, sturdy cave or house, ton of clothing, still there is problem of food, where in warm countries you just go and harvest some of crops that grow around the year, in our countries nothing grows at winter. So if things really go bad, it sucks to be in these countries, but at Pacific Islands you would have all basics needs around the year.
Probably things will not go for that, but surely there can be some issues with food and warmth,

One war time tip, when you peel a potato and put peels (thing you peel off, is that a peel?) to ground, you get new potatoes in 6-8 weeks during warm summertime, 50 days is limit you can survive only with water

[Ride_on]

I bet my money on 2020-2030 for reset as those years are when many countries in Europe have too much people living on pension etc and too little workforce to support that kind of costs, our gov's financial wing has issued warning already that right now there are too small percent working and paying taxes than those consuming taxes, by 2030 it was going to rise something like 80% from current level if I don't remember awfully wrong.

Good plan is then to get rid of all loans if one even has any, invest in gold or some other rather stable stuff and cut expenses so that can build up some treasure, which comes handy when reset happens as it might be possible to gain rather nice property during that time with very little money, 10 year later there is nice multiplier to price tag.

I'd be surprised if it takes that long for the US and UK. The banks are all insolvent, they are just not admitting it on the balance sheet. The previous gov't has encouraged them not to be too aggressive on repossession (business / property etc), and they are happy with that as it keeps the assets prices higher than reality, but gradually they have to do it, US home repossessions are up 38% on the last quarter, although they have jingle mail , you can just walk away from a mortgage. New UK Gov't is less sympathetic about debt.

Gold I am not so sure about, it seems to be in a bubble too. It value is held only because those buying/selling it believe it. It is useful in electronics but by in large its main outlet is jewellery which has much less usefulness. When the revolution comes the only useful thing will be a gun

[jtbo]

I guess first ones to go are indeed UK, then Italy and maybe Spain, Greece I count goner already.

Those then pull down rest of EU with them, but I can be wrong as don't know much about that stuff, just impressions what I have got from news from all countries, I read papers from many countries, for example here in Finland, there has been no any big news about UK situation, it is like being kept secret or something like that.

[macplaxton]

I guess first ones to go are indeed UK, then Italy and maybe Spain, Greece I count goner already.

You're missing the two other P.I.(I.)G.S. Portugal & Ireland

[jtbo]

But how big are they really? Any large scale industry? Exporting? Importing? Don't know too much about economy of those countries, they are however high on the list in getting into trouble, UK is often left out from listings as no Euro currency there, but I count it in as UK is large part of EU, together with France and Germany those three are mostly the core power of EU area economy in my eyes and any trouble in either one of these three is enough to cause major disturbance to whole EU, Spain and Italy are then in my opinion next important ones because of their industry and business volume, none of other countries alone has so great affect, but few smaller player can tip balance over of course.

Sp I imagine those two are still quite minor players, even Greece is quite minor player, even that there are lot of ships (world's largest merchant fleet) sailing under Greece flag.

It is like you can make a hole to wall, yep you get cold, but it is not fully raining in, but if you knock out supporting structure, whole house may come down.

[mrsoundcraft]

My god, this is is grim. As long as I get to keep my cars I'll be ok.

[jtbo]

My god, this is is grim. As long as I get to keep my cars I'll be ok.

I don't know how bad things will go, probably will be different than during last war, but back then you needed a coupon to get stuff and to have car you needed several forms and really good reason, but that was most likely because here we had shortage of cars and gov. needed them for their use.

Not 100% confident that current property is allowed to kept as has been, might be some heavy taxes for some not necessary stuff, who knows maybe even cutting roads from upkeep, but don't really think that, depends how things go if all efforts pay off, then not so much issues, but if all collapses, then can't see why it would be different than previous times.

Here gov. took property by special laws during wartime, if economy goes enough wrong, can't really see reason why not the same would happen again, it is still better than country going totally bankrupt, I think.

Must hope this all is just wrong thinking and economy will continue strong forward.

[Edcase 300]

Yo dudes
There will be light at the end of the tunnel..we need to keep calm and carry on
I think this was bound to happen sooner or later-bear in mind its taken me 2 years even to get a crummy part time job at tesco-im young,ambitious and some of my friends have got houses for free and dont work ,study or nada lolz way of the world huh
All in ll though-weve got the Volvo 300 love to keep us going But yeh the economy..
(job prospects-have affected the progress of many v300M projects : )

Sounds pretty tough over there aswell Jani