Who remembers the 80's recession?

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Ashers

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those of you that do, is this one worse than that one or not as bad?
 
I think that would depend on your personal circumstances. My folks very nearly lost their business and home in the last one. This one from what I can understand from a friend of mine who writes reports on the banks in the city, is going to be far worse.
 
During the one in the 1980s I was self-employed, but also very fortunate to always have enough work. As far as what we're being told now, I'm totally ignorant of the facts. It's probably just a sign of the times, but this one seems to be much better publicised than the last - with forecasts and stories of how everyone's going to be affected by it.
 
I wonder how much damage the continuing reporting does. Yes, we`re all aware that we could be in the **** in the not too distant future, why the media keeps going over the same ground with a slightly different angle? Oh how they love the doom and gloom.
 
I believe this one could be far far worse, not just the immediate effects but the after effects. The media, with 24hr rolling news and experts dragged off the street is as much to blame as the banks and credit card companies offering easy credit.
 
I'm looking forward to the days when we all drive around in cars with big spike and guns on 'em hunting for black gold. Mad Max here we come.
 
KayJay said:
I'm looking forward to the days when we all drive around in cars with big spike and guns on 'em hunting for black gold. Mad Max here we come.
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As long as it doesn't mean I need to become Australian, I'm up for that.
 
andrewc said:
I believe this one could be far far worse, not just the immediate effects but the after effects. The media, with 24hr rolling news and experts dragged off the street is as much to blame as the banks and credit card companies offering easy credit.
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Not alot to add to that !

I have just swapped my bank to a local one with local people, I use local butchers and if that is not practical I buy local produce from AsDa, right now I am keeping any of the little money I have LOCAL.

Yes I may be paying a little over the odds on bits and pieces but I would not like to see my local shops going under, as for the butchers, no supermarket can get near the price and quality !
 
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I remember buying my first house with interest rates at something like 10%, and watching them going up (to 15% briefly then 'dropping' to 'just' 13%).
 
I was born in 1980, sorry if that makes any of you feel old!! I can remember my father and mother losing their jobs. We lost our house and had to move in with Grandparents. Never wanted for anything though, times were hard but it seemed like it was like that for everyone.
 
i was born 81 but i dont remember the recession at all
 
Thing is, there is always money to be made when times are hard, look at the Kennedys (jfk et al), old Joe made his money by hoovering up cheap property during the Great Depression, but I suppose for everyone who wins like that lots of others have to lose...
 
it was was a drink filled time but i remember bits of it :)
 
andrewc said:
I believe this one could be far far worse, not just the immediate effects but the after effects. The media, with 24hr rolling news and experts dragged off the street is as much to blame as the banks and credit card companies offering easy credit.
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saved me typing it

back in the 80's they dealt with it (IMHO) the correct way by putting up taxes and interest rates
this time the government is lowering taxes and lowering interest rates. So if it doesnt work (and i dont think it will - for the reasons stated by andrew) we are properly screwed long term!!!

the irony is that with the pound falling every day we could be exporting at a cut price (for example we could be selling cars to europe for 30% less than they can sell them) but our government killed off our manufacturing industry so we have sweet nothing to export.

i'm a glass half full person, but this is not looking good
 
Recession in the 80s? Sorry, but I was in a long term contract paid by the Queen so I didn't notice that recession.

I'm also fortunate to be in two recession-proof businesses right now. My only problem is that aren't enough hours in a day.
 
I have been talking with my parents about this just the other night. They warned me several months ago that things were going to get worse so we cut spending down straight away and started paying credit cards etc off as much as possible. In the last 4 months aloan I have managed to reduce our monthly expenses by £250 so at the moment I am not seeing any differance.

Wise words from my parents that I listened to :)
 
I don't remember the recession of the 80's, I know interest rates went up to 15%(I'd just bought my flat) but other than that I wasn't aware of the recession.
I agree things are being made worse by the media and so called experts. Being a Ford employee I've been taking alot of interest in how Ford have been coping with their problems in the States. They would be doing alot better if it weren't for the rubbish the media keep printing. A Billionaire had bought shares in Ford meaning he owned 6% of the company. Because his other investments had gone belly up he started selling his Ford shares to raise capital, no other reason, yet the media decide to see it as a bad point for Ford so the share prices drop.
 
About the export stuff, I wouldn't look at things negatively. As it so happens, most developed and mature economies have gone way beyond being a manufacturing nation (almost everything can be manufactured elsewhere for lesser money). What these countries have moved into is "services". From education, healthcare, tourism and financial services.

This is where the UK comes into play. This is where the UK needs to focus and it does so very well.

The cheaper £ may be bad for the UK public going abroad, but it is wonderful for bringing in hard currency; which is badly needed at times like this.

With regards to the credit crunch, this is a sad repercussion of very bad central bank monitoring. Some even go so far as to say that some banks have bribed government officials (not in UK, but in USA) to turn a bling eye at the financial instruments that were to create this mess (securitisation of sub prime loans). Still, what people need to keep in mind is that market trends are a natural by-product of any semi-free economy (I say semi-free as I don't believe there is a free economy per se); and with these trends there will always be up times just as well as down times. What we are witnessing now, is the down time.

Sadly, what is fueling the problem, as has been said here already, is the media frenzy. This is creating a psychological fear that is making people weary of the days to come. These people, you, me, the next person, everyone ... gets worried and takes drastic action to try to remedy the situation by draconian practices (job cuts, overly-prudent business practices etc.) which drives the real economy down.

Is this one going to be worse than that of the 1980s? Sadly, yes; but not because it is any worse in terms of the real business practice and slump, but because of the cheap availability of media, the cheap availability of idiots who make silly comments, and the mass frenzy who read the tabloids.

This does not mean banks are not guilty of what's happening, far from it. As an ex-banker (dare I say, in lending) I believe banks are the least of ethical and legal business practices, only beaten to the pits by politics. I also believe that semi-free countries, such as the UK, should be looking at investigating the legitimacy and legality of the sub-prime loans, its securitisation and the central banks' lack of control (but that's another subject).

So, hold on to what you've got. Try to sleep this through, as it's not an easy thing to live through a recession. If you can take time off work (sabbatical leave, etc.) then by all means do so. It is better for your resume to state that you left for further education, than to state that you were made redundant.
 
Peoples immediate reaction is to tighten their belts, which can make the problem worse. Live within your means and try to reduce any reliance on credit.

The VAT cut is helping slightly with my businesses exports to Europe (UK VAT at 15% is now about the lowest in Europe), coupled with the dropping of the exchange rate with the Euro - however as we buy a lot in Europe as well its a bit of a double edged sword.
 
Wail said:
About the export stuff, I wouldn't look at things negatively. As it so happens, most developed and mature economies have gone way beyond being a manufacturing nation (almost everything can be manufactured elsewhere for lesser money). What these countries have moved into is "services". From education, healthcare, tourism and financial services.
This is where the UK comes into play. This is where the UK needs to focus and it does so very well.
The cheaper £ may be bad for the UK public going abroad, but it is wonderful for bringing in hard currency; which is badly needed at times like this.
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Not everyone in a country can work in education, healthcare, tourism and financial services. That's just not enough jobs for everyone. You'd have very high unemployment. Banks are/were already overstaffed, just never enough counter staff.
Being a Ford employee although I get my wages in £'s as far as Ford are concerned they are paying me in $'s as they are an American company, with the current exchange rates, Ford are saving money, add to that anything we produce is cheaper to sell too.
Because I am involved in producing stuff for future Ford cars and not current cars the crunch hasn't really effected me other than overtime has stopped.
 
nilagin,

You are right, of course. Silly of me to not make it clearer.

The focus of the economy is no longer on manufacturing, and not that the UK should stop manufacturing stuff all-together.

Pitty, but the reality is that most manufacturing is moving to lower cost countries and this will create huge unemployment .. so, what's the answer?
 
Wail said:
nilagin,

You are right, of course. Silly of me to not make it clearer.

The focus of the economy is no longer on manufacturing, and not that the UK should stop manufacturing stuff all-together.

Pitty, but the reality is that most manufacturing is moving to lower cost countries and this will create huge unemployment .. so, what's the answer?
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I'm not sure what the answer would be.
Ford produced 5 or 6 different vehicles in this country at one time, now there is only one, the Transit. Soon the will just be the flat bed chassis as the van production will be moved to Turkey.
As far as Ford in Dagenham, where I work is concerned, we produce some of the cheapest panels in the world, but that is down to the presses being old and paid for, any other countries setting up for production have to pay for what ever machinery they install which makes them more expensive even though the wages may be alot lower.
Then there is also quality. When the Chinese company bought the Rover tooling etc., their cars are now substandard in quality and also crash testing.
Although other countries are cheaper in production now as their economies grow, things will level out to a certain extent.
I can see wage cuts being taken in different sectors in this country, if people want to keep a job, it's just how much of a wage cut that will be necessary.
I had noticed not alot of credit crunch being mentioned over the xmas period.
 
ive started a mass debate on something sensible and relevent... i dont know whats come over me :eek:
 
got to watch my beer intake so im on G and T tonight
 
nilagin,

Again, very accurate about the quality and reliability of stuff manufactured abroad. Sadly, the majority of people are happy to sacrifice on these two to save a few £££ and get a bit more gizmos.

Sadly, about the Credit Crunch, here in the UK things have gone past that stage and now it's talk about the recession, dare I say possible depression too!

The funny thing is, go down to Bond St. in London and you'd wonder if there is such a thing as an economy slow-down. What the local government has done is bail-out the horrible crooks (banks) at the expense of tax payers (hopefully they'll get their money back once the banks payback their loans) and at the expense of good-home-owners (regardless of how well their mortgage repayments are .. as failing to meet the payments is primarily due to unrealistic pricing on real estate in the past years, and the horrid NINJA lending schemes that most banks applied). It's these two who will suffer, and we're seeing that now.

Hence, the Credit Crunch is now all too irrelevant, thanks to what the government has done in their bail-out plan.

The saddest part of all this is that it will get a lot worse in 2009; but this will not be because of the silly government bail-out strategy, this will be cause of the media hype creating the draconian psychological fear.
 
Ashers said:
ive started a mass debate on something sensible and relevent... i dont know whats come over me :eek:
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May be very true, but only because you were high on that stuff you grow in your bathroom ;):razz:
 
i dont grow anything they are prescription :D perhaps i should take them more often :D
 
Everyone says it's much worse than the 80's and at the rate at which companies are going under you would think so, but as yet there have been no real surprise in the major companies that have gone. Woollies, Adams, Wedgwood have been struggling for a long time and would have gone sooner or later anyway.

We have been told for years that house prices were over-inflated by 30%, so a self correction was due so why is everyone shocked.

I think things will get worse than they are now, in fact I believe we are just at the start of the downturn with a long way to go before things get better.

On the upside if you have no debt and keep your job your going to be laughing, mortgage payment have shot down, so you'll have money in your pocket to buy all the bargains that will come as companies try to drum up business.

The good thing is that people will start to look at how G Brown deals with this and hopefully realizes what an economic prat he really is.
 
I agree with some of what has been said, but disagree about the media. All they are doing is making us aware of the problem much better than in the previous recession, and quite often doing a much better job of correctly pointing out what will happen. It's easy to blame the media as they are a soft and easy target and deflect the blame from where it lies. The real cause of this recession is unsustainable levels of lending and personal debt, along with the 'gambling' of money on the worlds poorly regulated financial markets. This has been driven by greed from the lenders and, frankly, the consumer too. Although businesses can also be blamed to some degree. It is an enormous bubble which is being burst way way way to late..£1trillion + of debt etc etc.

We are already in a bad position now before the effect of unemployment which will rise dramatically; inflation which is highly likely to rise again due to all the actions; and further debt related problems in the financial industry e.g. bad credit card debts etc.

HOWEVER, for those of us that were around in the last recession, it is also a time of tremendous opportunity for those people / business who can find their way through it the best and position themselves for the market (however it looks) post-recession.
 
im doomed then no money no job and no property
 
my thoughts exactly :D i might i nvent a new product, something that comes right out of my own mind :D
 
lol no i was thinking of my own range of butt plugs called the defiance range :D i dunno lol there no jobs i applied for one but got rejected coz im male i didnt think the recession would bother me but it is affecting me
 
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