I love the Credit Crunch

On a big plus it does lead to some mildly amusing songs.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=s_iMS31mqmU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tvllSp...eature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kQdNLF...eature=related

And the hotel is now booked. Snowdon here we come!

[timwilky]

The problem with the credit crunch is the innocent victims caught in its wake.

New builds have died. My lad was/is a tiler. He has been laid off.

No work round here to be had. everybody is scrabbling after what used to be the foreigners etc. everybody thinks they can do that etc. He is now working on minimum wage. 4 weeks of 40 hour weeks does not pay his mortgage, and to top it all because he is only 21 the minimum wage he gets is less than the full minimum wage.

He applied for one job and was told he had to be unemployed for 6 months first as it was a training position for the long term unemployed, as if he is going to sit on his backside for 6 months.

He has gone from £24,000/year plus bonus to £4.77/hour though no fault of his own. Please don't gloat about the credit crunch it is destroying families.

I don't 'love' it, but I'm fairly indifferent to it. The basics have gone up, but luxuries have come down, so for me I'm only marginally worse off in practical terms. I imagine people who earn a lot (and don't have the money tied up in shares/property) are actually proportionally slightly better off. Of course, it's the poorer people who would buy fewest luxuries that are the worst effected by it all.

Speaking purely personally, it's not really affecting me at all. Local authoritiy employee carrying out a statutory function (therefore job safe), final salary pension scheme, etc..... steering the middle path - we lose out relatively when times are good, gain relatively when they are bad. I don't have a mortgage either. I do have some dosh in a L & G Private Pension, though. Think I might leave it there - no point bailing out at the moment.

Doesn't stop me "feeling" for others, though - a lot of the people I know aren't so fortunate and are really worried about the immediate future.

The whole sorry situation is caused by a lack of confidence and a few banking types "waking up, smelling the unsustainable coffee and getting twitchy". They play with other peoples' money like gamblers in a poker game.... one more little risky investment won't hurt.

As for an upside........hopefully house prices and the earning/mortgage ratio will mean that first time buyers can afford to buy a house, although if it were me I wouldn't take the plunge just yet.

Hope that everyone on here survives the coming couple of months unscathed

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Speaking of 'carbon footprints', amazing how quickly everyones forgotten about that since this financial catastrophy began.

Oh yes. Sales of Fair trade, organic and eco products are down almost 40%, illustrating that when it came down to it people cared about them about as much as they do about other "fashion" goods. I'm not suggesting everyone who buys them doesn't buy them for the right reasons, but for many (a significant wedge of those who've stopped) it was more a matter of suburbia latching onto the latest fad as opposed to the individuals concerned having a strong personal moral belief in the importance of such goods.

Originally Posted by Ceri JC

I don't 'love' it, but I'm fairly indifferent to it. The basics have gone up, but luxuries have come down, so for me I'm only marginally worse off in practical terms. I imagine people who earn a lot (and don't have the money tied up in shares/property) are actually proportionally slightly better off. Of course, it's the poorer people who would buy fewest luxuries that are the worst effected by it all.

+1

Fuel prices are coming back down for the first time in ages ... as is anything else I care about ... people have stopped swarming everywhere I wanna be ... its all good!!

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

+1

Fuel prices are coming back down for the first time in ages ... as is anything else I care about ... people have stopped swarming everywhere I wanna be ... its all good!!

Have you got a job yet Blue? Or are you sponging on the rest of us?

Originally Posted by timwilky

The problem with the credit crunch is the innocent victims caught in its wake.

New builds have died. My lad was/is a tiler. He has been laid off.

No work round here to be had. everybody is scrabbling after what used to be the foreigners etc. everybody thinks they can do that etc. He is now working on minimum wage. 4 weeks of 40 hour weeks does not pay his mortgage, and to top it all because he is only 21 the minimum wage he gets is less than the full minimum wage.

He applied for one job and was told he had to be unemployed for 6 months first as it was a training position for the long term unemployed, as if he is going to sit on his backside for 6 months.

He has gone from £24,000/year plus bonus to £4.77/hour though no fault of his own. Please don't gloat about the credit crunch it is destroying families.

I have been a tiler for over twenty yrs and although things have slowed down ,I still have work from my regulars at the mo.

[fizzwheel]

Our parent company offer its employee's the opportunity to purchase shares at a reduced rate. Due to the cacky market and the fact that the building trade has been impacted our share price is low.

I can get shares at £1.09 on the current offer me thinks i'll be investing.