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Yeah, your career is probably about to skyrocket

We'll probably be fine too. I work for an Indian company providing IT support to an American company, and our products are aimed at the wealthier consumers so should hopefully not be hit too hard by Brexit. My wife is in education (part time teaching, part time classroom assistant) and they're pretty much at crisis point anyway, I'm not convinced it can get any worse for them...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As I said earlier in the thread, with things seemingly starting to wobble, now is the time to start getting your finances in order.

If you've got a mortgage, but no mortgage insurance, now is the time to shop around - just in case.

If you've got credit cards, now is the time to tackle the balance - just in case.

Basically take what steps you can to insulate yourself from a potential financial shock - regardless of what eventually triggers it.

Because what caused the last one to hit so hard was a general consumer reliance on credit. When jobs were lost, situations became far worse.

In the UK, that of course filtered through into the PPI scandal (which comes to a technical close next Thursday, 29 August 2019, fact fans!). People had a chance to recover sometimes very large sums of money from the banks, and went for it.

Of course, not everyone really thought it through, so people also cancelled their mortgage PPI - y'know, the policy that would keep up your mortgage payments should be made redundant or suffer long term illness. So when the next comes around, expect higher levels of repossession in the UK, as people have willingly, and foolishly, thrown away their safety net.

Then there's the oft mooted fall in property values due to Brexit.

Britain is sitting on a financial timebomb right now. It's gonna go off, of course it is. But what's hard to tell is how much semtex has been packed in this time around.

I recently was considering a buy to let mortgage *ducks rotten fruit and waits for the hisses and boos to settle down*... The mortgage guy was surprised I asked about payment holidays or ppi for when the property was empty. He said most small time landlords are very suspicious of ppi, let alone enquire for it!

Wow, the Washington Post of all places has been all over this topic lately....

China's position in the trade war is more precarious than it might seem at first blush. Sure, the CCP has absolute control on monetary policy and can manipulate its currency to its own advantage, but these things have very real costs. Lowering the value of the RNB vs the USD means that all the loans Chinese companies have borrowed from the US (and there's a lot of that!) cost more to service. Not just that, but it means that US consumers don't feel the bite of the trade war as much and makes it easier for Trump to carry on with tariffs. Maybe China can ride out the 18 months to see if Trump gets re-elected, maybe not. Wealthy Chinese are putting a lot of money into gold right now because of the currency uncertainty

China is getting a lot of push back over its aggressive trade policies and the One Belt/One Road. Then there's the Hong Kong Protests, which are literally a no win situation for the CCP leadership - either accept a huge loss of face or huge economic blowback, both are VERY bad for Xi Jinping's regime, which is very much in a power struggle for leadership of the CCP. Add in the fact that China's economy is almost certainly in a stall or near stall (their 6% growth figure is widely disbelieved), and Xi Jinping's popularity as a leader is surely tanking.

China avoided the 2008 recession through monetary policy changes but they probably can't do that again - they're already over extended on loans and if we get a global recession any time soon China will see its first real recession and it's going to hit very, very hard. Best case scenario is that Xi Jinping is forced to step down (taking all the blame for the Hong Kong fiasco and tanking economy) and the new CCP leadership decides to play a bit more by the rules with regards to trade.

nareik wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As I said earlier in the thread, with things seemingly starting to wobble, now is the time to start getting your finances in order.

If you've got a mortgage, but no mortgage insurance, now is the time to shop around - just in case.

If you've got credit cards, now is the time to tackle the balance - just in case.

Basically take what steps you can to insulate yourself from a potential financial shock - regardless of what eventually triggers it.

Because what caused the last one to hit so hard was a general consumer reliance on credit. When jobs were lost, situations became far worse.

In the UK, that of course filtered through into the PPI scandal (which comes to a technical close next Thursday, 29 August 2019, fact fans!). People had a chance to recover sometimes very large sums of money from the banks, and went for it.

Of course, not everyone really thought it through, so people also cancelled their mortgage PPI - y'know, the policy that would keep up your mortgage payments should be made redundant or suffer long term illness. So when the next comes around, expect higher levels of repossession in the UK, as people have willingly, and foolishly, thrown away their safety net.

Then there's the oft mooted fall in property values due to Brexit.

Britain is sitting on a financial timebomb right now. It's gonna go off, of course it is. But what's hard to tell is how much semtex has been packed in this time around.

I recently was considering a buy to let mortgage *ducks rotten fruit and waits for the hisses and boos to settle down*... The mortgage guy was surprised I asked about payment holidays or ppi for when the property was empty. He said most small time landlords are very suspicious of ppi, let alone enquire for it!

Genuinely on the Buy To Let issue?

If the worst predictions prove true - and they’ve had a habit of doing just that lately - it may be worth holding off in case property prices do self-adjust.

Negative equity is one thing. Provided you’re not looking to move, it’s not a massive issue. But if it means rents go down as well, you could end up as landlord for a Lemon, where the rent doesn’t cover the mortgage, and you can’t sell without a significant hit.

Now I’m not a financial adviser. But you may want to consult one on that specific issue.

Or, bide your time, see what happens, and maybe be able to invest in a better property whilst dodging negative equity?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Now I’m not a financial adviser. But you may want to consult one on that specific issue.

This.

If I was a UK citizen and had available cash, I'd hold off on buying property. Maybe even convert GBP into a currency not likely to be hit by the Brexit backlash, though I'm not exactly sure what that currency would be if Brexit triggers a global recession.

 John Prins wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Now I’m not a financial adviser. But you may want to consult one on that specific issue.

This.

If I was a UK citizen and had available cash, I'd hold off on buying property. Maybe even convert GBP into a currency not likely to be hit by the Brexit backlash, though I'm not exactly sure what that currency would be if Brexit triggers a global recession.

chf, everybody runs to the swiss national Bank if things go tits up. Might even make some money that way

Yea in the end we decided not to go that route.

In Greece though the property prices seem on the up... The rents seen on the up and up!

Can buy a flat in Athens outright with what would be just a deposit in UK...

Hopefully these signs of Greek recovery aren't going to burst too?

Who knows!

Thing is, if you buy it cheap, you need to let it cheap.

Speak with an IFA, see how best to put that money to use, in a way that meets your risk appetite.

Be advised that Greek prices seem already extravagant for working Greeks. Rents are 50% more in certain areas because of Airbnb. And because we're cheap the Chinese are also buying up properties here with a view to a EU passport.

I have been wondering if the higher expected performance of the UK economy is made up of premium payments of people waiting to short the pound.

Manufacturing flat-lining?

https://slate.com/business/2019/10/manufacturing-recession-matters-factory-jobs-trade-war.html

It is not entirely clear that manufacturing is actually in a “recession” at this point, as some have argued. Journalists began bandying around the R-word this summer, after the Federal Reserve reported that industrial production had contracted for two straight quarters. Since then, the central bank’s stats have been more mixed. And while the ISM index shows the sector retreating, a rival barometer that some analysts prefer shows manufacturing is still growing, though just barely.

Still, whether or not we want to call it a “recession,” it is clear that the country’s factories are in a bit of a slump, which could have wider political and economic consequences.

It is kind of a significant metric in a way, as prior to the actual retractions US manufacturing was predicted to continue rising into the mid-2020s. Problem is the people making those predictions likely didn't expect the effect current policy is having on manufacturing, where the growth parts of the industry have gotten hit while the parts that were shrinking have shockingly continued to shrink despite policy efforts intended to bolster them.

A case of we can neither have our cake nor eat it.

I'm not sure how meaningful that is on the whole though. The US economy no longer revolves around domestic manufacturing. It's still an important industry but we still had these same hiccups a bit last year and the year before that at this exact time. This quarter is always wonky.

There's plenty of manufacturing...it just pays minimum wage. I've worked in the field and have a background in manufacturing engineering.

I'm talking about fast food. Every fast food place is run like a little factory and manufactures finished goods for consumer consumption from raw materials using an assembly line.

 skyth wrote:
There's plenty of manufacturing...it just pays minimum wage. I've worked in the field and have a background in manufacturing engineering.

I'm talking about fast food. Every fast food place is run like a little factory and manufactures finished goods for consumer consumption from raw materials using an assembly line.

Yes, but if you put it in a can that's a factory job and you deserve a fair wage, so it's different.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 skyth wrote:
There's plenty of manufacturing...it just pays minimum wage. I've worked in the field and have a background in manufacturing engineering.

I'm talking about fast food. Every fast food place is run like a little factory and manufactures finished goods for consumer consumption from raw materials using an assembly line.

Yes, but if you put it in a can that's a factory job and you deserve a fair wage, so it's different.

And why would it be different? If anything, the factory job is easier because you don't have to interact directly with the customer or meet the customer's deadline for immediate service.

That argument seems unrealistically arbitrary. It's like saying 'fast food and retail jobs are only for schoolkids so they don't need to be paid a fair wage'... and then expecting said businesses to be open during school hours when the schoolkids are in school.

I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm.

I think I saw a meme literally the other day that went:

"Why is that everytime I say Job X sucks someone immediately replies 'yeah well job Y sucks more?' Like, is there a contest I don't know about? Does the person with the shittiest job win a $1,000,000 and not have to work that gak job anymore?"

 Vulcan wrote:
That argument seems unrealistically arbitrary. It's like saying 'fast food and retail jobs are only for schoolkids so they don't need to be paid a fair wage'... and then expecting said businesses to be open during school hours when the schoolkids are in school.

Beyond the obvious moral and logical issues you already pointed out, ultimately I don't think you can argue with people who say that, because it shows a pretty aggressive indifference to reality.

70% of fast food workers are at least 20 and the average fast food worker is 29, and in 2019 when literally everyone has a smartphone in their pocket with nearly the facts in the world at their fingertips, they're making a choice to be willingly ignorant to support their worldview.

 Vulcan wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 skyth wrote:
There's plenty of manufacturing...it just pays minimum wage. I've worked in the field and have a background in manufacturing engineering.

I'm talking about fast food. Every fast food place is run like a little factory and manufactures finished goods for consumer consumption from raw materials using an assembly line.

Yes, but if you put it in a can that's a factory job and you deserve a fair wage, so it's different.

And why would it be different? If anything, the factory job is easier because you don't have to interact directly with the customer or meet the customer's deadline for immediate service.

That argument seems unrealistically arbitrary. It's like saying 'fast food and retail jobs are only for schoolkids so they don't need to be paid a fair wage'... and then expecting said businesses to be open during school hours when the schoolkids are in school.

My fault, I should have labelled that as sarcasm.

I'm only in my mid thirties so have mostly lived my (fulltime) working life through the post 2008 era, so in my eyes at least I've been living in some kind of suppressed economic times. Before 2008 I would be between crappy retail part time jobs being underemployed. I converted to an IT and Information Security career in around 2010.

Im lucky to be in a decent financial situation now and probably in a job that will be in demand for the next decade at least. I also managed to get a home over my head much cheaper than the other houses in the area as it was in a relatively poor state. I'd consider myself financially stable, with little debt (apart form mortgate) but very little in the way of actual savings.

I ask though, if over the past 11 years or so we've been in economic stagnation in comparison to periods of growth in the past.... what would a period of growth, or recession or depression actually look like?

My dad talked of 15% interest rates (80s?), 3 day weeks (70s?), but he's also talked about being able to walk out of one job and into another the same day (60s?).

I find living costs to be astronomical currently. I've never known anything else really though! To me it seems that all the people made their money decades ago - houses, stocks and shares - and I can't even imagine what it'd be like to be in a "boom time". Any extra money I get goes on paying off my house, putting into savings where I can, topping up my non-existant pittance of a pension or paying unexpected bills. Would a recession just mean people lose their jobs and not be able to find others, or will other costs go up too?

Tarkin, Peak wages were in 1977 in the US, I have no idea about the UK or EU.

I would wager most of us never saw the "Boom Times" as it has been a slow decline ever since for most workers.

 Easy E wrote:
I would wager most of us never saw the "Boom Times" as it has been a slow decline ever since for most workers.

Yup, the oldest millennials might have seen some but that got wiped out by 2008. After that it's all about phrases like "be happy you still have a job in this economy". And yet, somehow companies regularly manage to have record profits :/

Median income for millennials (born about 1981 to 1996) in the USA: https://twitter.com/LukewSavage/status/1126345501723582464

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 skyth wrote:
There's plenty of manufacturing...it just pays minimum wage. I've worked in the field and have a background in manufacturing engineering.

I'm talking about fast food. Every fast food place is run like a little factory and manufactures finished goods for consumer consumption from raw materials using an assembly line.

Yes, but if you put it in a can that's a factory job and you deserve a fair wage, so it's different.

And why would it be different? If anything, the factory job is easier because you don't have to interact directly with the customer or meet the customer's deadline for immediate service.

That argument seems unrealistically arbitrary. It's like saying 'fast food and retail jobs are only for schoolkids so they don't need to be paid a fair wage'... and then expecting said businesses to be open during school hours when the schoolkids are in school.

My fault, I should have labelled that as sarcasm.

I like to use [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] to avoid confusion.

I think it is a sad mark of the times though; not that your default assumption was that I was serious, not even that I don't blame you for making that assumption, but that I recognize it was something I should have labelled as sarcasm because it isn't nearly irrational enough to be outside the norm of what people believe.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think it is a sad mark of the times though; not that your default assumption was that I was serious, not even that I don't blame you for making that assumption, but that I recognize it was something I should have labelled as sarcasm because it isn't nearly irrational enough to be outside the norm of what people believe.

Sad, nothing. Now that you point it out, that's downright terrifying...

Moody's is not optimistic that things are looking good.....

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/10/16/the-chances-of-a-global-recession-are-uncomfortably-high-moodys.html

I believe this is from CNBC form 10/16/19 or so....

Even if there isn't a global recession over the next 12 to 18 months, it's clear that the economy is going to be much weaker, says Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics.

So, looking back it looks like Recession fears peaked in late September and very early October. I know there were some FED rate cuts since then, was this enough to stave off the "coming Recession"? It would appear so.



Also, no China/US Trade deal until after the 2020 election....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-trade/trump-says-china-trade-deal-might-have-to-wait-for-2020-election-idUSKBN1Y7134

Will this impact the "coming recession"? My guess is any impact will be temporary.

I've found that pre-recession has a timeline; fears crop up but are dismissed/debated away, then fears crop up and the data starts to give them good credibility and people start to get concerned. Then the recession doesn't happen immediately, human society with its infamously short memory forgets about it and fears diminish while actual data isn't given attention. THEN the recession hits.

The point being the recession tends to hit right after society has done mental gymnastics to convince themselves is in't coming for some time yet.

I'm thinking about how the Conservatives are talking about returning spending (borrowing?) to preConservative levels (the levels which they alleged caused the recession in the UK).

Imagine if they reinstate that spending and another recession hits? It will solidify the idea (even if falsely) that public investment causes recesssion. I suppose the same will be true whoever gets in; we're on the precipice of recession and every major party in the UK is promising increased spending.

Advocates of austerity must be rubbing their hands in glee.