Rolling UK Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

"Widget Alignment" even

And even then, holidays aren't the first thing people tighten their belts on unless they're actually made unemployed

Really?

i haven't been on holiday since 2005. this isn't really a money thing, more a being mental thing.

I'd say so - people tend to to value holidays very highly in this day and age. Your average family, if tightening the purse strings, is more likely to tighten them elsewhere so they can still afford a holiday ("we can wait for that new furniture?", "do we really need another TV?").

Of course, they may book cheaper holidays as well but Thomas Cook can still spin that as 'number of bookings remains high'.

(This is only true up to a point of course, but I don't think we've got to that point yet)

Unfortunately most families can't wait to pay those steeply escalating electricity, gas and council tax bills.

I aim for at least four holidays a year.

Thomas Cook can still spin that as 'number of bookings remains high'.

Is Thomas Cook a public company? If so they have an obligation to say things are going tits-up if they are going tits-up.

EXACTLY

though 'spin' isn't really working for Bradford & Bingley right now

We go on The Sun holidays - £38 for 4 nights! It is the ONLY thing The Sun is good for. Laxalt - you're right - why do I look at this thread? The same reason I pick up the Express sometimes - just so I can tut tut I suppose.

Your average family, if tightening the purse strings, is more likely to tighten them elsewhere so they can still afford a holiday ("we can wait for that new furniture?", "do we really need another TV?").

these are all things that have been increasingly paid for with credit. those lines of credit are being withdrawn quicker than harry kewell on a match day right now

Bradford & Bingley evidently didn't take hedge ineffectiveness into account(s).

Laxalt - you're right

No he isn't! He did the same "We're all doomed" routine, on the Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread! And they weren't all doomed!

Look no one's saying everyone in the UK is going to be sacked and we're about to enter a Great Depression where we have to huddle together for warmth and eat rats, they're just saying lots of people may be laid off, the economy might slow or perhaps shrink and we'll be through it after three years. Jesus.

that is exactly right

even the head of the bank of england is saying it. depends on your definition of 'shitbin' i suppose.

I meant he was right about the title being indicative of its content.

I think also that 'shitbin' offends me. It reminds me of all the HYS posts that start "This country has now officially gone to the dogs".

would you prefer "the dumper"?

dunno about 3 years, most other times its really been more like 5 (though the periods of 'technical recession' are often around 2 if you don't count below inflation growth, which is still pretty poor). i think it will be worse this time as the credit expansion period has been longer and fuller, but whether this means a heavy short(ish) recession, or a longer less immediately sharp one, only time will tell

No, what's going to happen is that everyone in the UK is going to be starved in order to subsidise the lifestyles of hedge fund managers and shareholder pension fund subscribers and then made to eat rats in the workhouse. Jehovah.

I think also that 'shitbin' offends me.

merely copying the US title. i wouldn't have chosen that word either, otherwise

Will they be eating these rats on their holidays?

'Rats abandon failing Britain'

Quipped Geldof at Gatwick: "Too much f***ing tax!"

but if anyone doesn't like it, i think maybe we should start a list of things that are good about the uk economy

1. Whiskey Distilleries

i'm going to need your help for the others:/

or, if we can't manage good things...how about 'things that are more promising here than in the USA'? i'm stumped

Where do they distill whiskey in the UK? Norn Ireland?

Biosciences and shit will probably be okay.

i think we kind of are in the shitbin; HYS talks about symptoms mostly, but it's a country with a now very wide gap between rich and poor, a middle-class living on credit based on their overvalued houses, and with a public sector now insanely in hock (enron style, off the books) to its private-sector 'partners' and consultants.

What is HYS?

Technology sector will probably be hit less hard as well, especially if not too reliant on the consumer or individual big business customers.

(xpost - BBC Comments Box mentalists innit)

have your say -----> I think also that 'shitbin' offends me. It reminds me of all the HYS posts that start "This country has now officially gone to the dogs".

-- Ned Trifle II, Thursday, February 14, 2008 11:46 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Where do they distill whiskey in the UK? Norn Ireland?

scotland? ok i was clutching at a straw

Whisky!!!!!!!!!!

oops!

"Shitbin" was first used to bash the Bush administration = it is an liberal word. Official right-wing parlance is "hell in a handcart".

Since most of HYS is written by a curious alliance of ILxors and bored BBC staffers I don't think we need to pay it too much serious attention.

Have Dolcis gone under? Or are they being taken over?

Are they one of those companies that are to pricey to be budget, but too cheap to have cachet? Would think such a store should do ok in middle england though, all the same.

Into administration: "the first big high street casualty of the credit crunch".

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article3228324.ece

"The writing was on the wall when the foreign rubbish started to flood in and shoes gave way to trainers, it all seems like "LIFE ON MARS " now the end of another British era.

Steve, coventry, uk"

That Poles Depart story (do you see what I did there?)

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=98895&in_page_id=34

There was a time when East European migrants looking to boost their finances felt Britain's streets were paved with gold.

But now it seems these shores have lost their economic lustre and the Poles are going back home.

Our weak pound and failing economy combined with a boom in Poland is tempting many to head East, say Polish economists.

The news came as the Bank of England predicted a tough year ahead with growth slowing dramatically and inflation remaining high.

'Many Poles left for Britain when British salaries were four times higher than Polish ones. But now they are only twice as high,' said Alfred Adamiec at Poland's Noble Bank.

A mass exodus was unlikely, but the Poles are going rather than coming, said Dr Jan Mokrzycki, head of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain.

Those who failed to save up money in Britain can now return home without the 'stigma of failure', said migration expert Pawel Kaczmarczyk.

But it's not all about the money, reckons Adam Pniewski, 28, who returned to West Poland, this month.

He said: 'I've had enough of doing nothing but earning money. It's more important to live among people that love you.'

An estimated one million Poles have come to Britain or Ireland since 2004.

http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02/PolesAN_175x125.jpg
Fewwer(sic) Poles now check the small ads

Sales of M&Ms and Coke remain strong.

Credit crunch not really all that relevant here - Dolcis has been struggling for years and had zero brand equity anyway. People don't want shit mid-market when they can go to Primark, or whatever the equivalent for shoes is.

Meanwhile house prices are sliding, with Scotland experiencing its first quarterly fall in seven years:
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWVCOTd8BfjnQDBi3R79JqWL0yrw

Average Scottish house price falling £60 a day:
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2047526.0.house_prices_fall_by_60_a_day.php

Number of unsold properties in England highest since 1999, ratio of agents reporting falling prices vs rising price at highest since the 1992 crash:
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2047526.0.house_prices_fall_by_60_a_day.php

oops, final link should be
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/construction_and_property/article3361789.ece

Yes I was kind of wondering if Dolcis had just finally reached the end of the line. Wouldn't normally expect a midrange shoe shop to be one of the first casualties

in say 2 years time what will the impact of the recession be on rent prices on a flat in a city centre? in the city where i live, apparently 45% of flats are unoccupied at any one time, admittedly this includes all the nasty rougher places on the outskirts but is this normal and can it be sustained?

Which city do you live in?

Conventional logic says if people stop buying completely and consider themselves longer term renters, and investors sell flats off, this would increase number of renters and decrease numbers of places to rent, and finally push prices up

But:

-The huge oversupply of city centre flats available to rent isn't going to disappear overnight (and, incredibly, they're still building them!

-In a recession, numbers of people renting might actually fall, partly immigrants returning home, but also people returning to live with parents as job market implodes

Personally I think large numbers of those city centre flats may never be occupied. may well end up functioning as social housing in the end, but the govt will probably have to build more people to put in them

Also the appeal of living in them is going to pall, for renters now as well as buyers, most are as you say half-empty at best, questionably built, and will probably function as social housing in the nearish future. They were always going to be the slums of the future, but that future might be a lot nearer than imagined

or, to put it another way, can you think of even one reason why the rent on one of those would be more expensive in 2010 than today?

"slums of the future" has become my phrase of the day.