weaver
Board Admin
Posts: 788
|
Is the economy turning around?
Posted: May 8, 2009, 16:56:40
Is the economy really turning around?
Are we in for a harder time still?
|
dburt01
Member
Posts: 532
|
Posted: May 8, 2009, 21:42:14
BIG QUESTION!!! I'm drunk so allow me a wee rant...
I guess it depends where you sit within the world, what country, what area within that country and it also depends on the industries that you are affected by.
If you're involved with car manufacture, good luck. Haulage? Good luck. Estate agent? Good luck. You get the idea.
Personally, I'm in telecoms and I work for a US telecoms giant who are continuing to perform well and actually, we're capatilising on the fact some of our competitors are failing and we're stealing some of their market share and revenue is on target. Our pipe line orders are running at the same level as last year and we're in many ways busier that ever. Consequently, we're all still getting pay rises and bonuses. So I count myself to be lucky, or blessed.
There are actually industries that are thriving, so it's not all doom and gloom. But I personally think we're in for a tough few years yet if we're talking general economics. From the UK side, my prime minister and his cabinet are so freakin dumb they're going to single handedly lead us into melt down and 10 years of recovery.
They're printing money like it's going out of fashion. They keep bailing banks and car manufacturers out instead of letting them go to the wall. All of the ministers have 2 homes, free Sky TV, free porn movies, as many pieces of exotic furniture as they like, free cleaners, their utility bills are paid, fuel cards for their many motors, and of course all the while they earn 6 figure salaries. Yeh.... it's all a little out of hand, and guess what, I PAY FOR IT. :cursing:
Meanwhile, I can't get a state dentist, I have to go private and in the last 24 months that's cost me £2,000. Our hospitals are amongst the worst in Europe. Fuel is £1.00 a litre so filling up my car costs £60.00. Car tax has been doubled to £400 a year. When I do jury service in June they'll give me just £5.00 a day to cover my expenses. Child allowance is £70 a month. When I got my bonus in February, the government took 40%. Yeh cheers, cos Gordon Brown really helped me with my performance over the past 12 months. Thanks pal. :thumbup:
At least I can sleep in peace tonight knowing my prime minister has probably just bashed one off to his free Sky subscription, he's well looked after and warm sleeping in one of his many houses, all of which are clean. His cars are full of fuel in case he needs to go somewhere in the morning and breakfast will be waiting for him. And he's got our economy under control. Genius. Go Gordon! :thumbup:
Brain donor. :cursing:
|
Atrus
Board Admin
Posts: 259
|
Posted: May 9, 2009, 09:04:53
No, it hasn't -- not likely it will so long as the Banks have the Senate in their pockets.
|
Xemnas
Global Moderator
Posts: 1694
|
Posted: May 9, 2009, 20:03:53
I personally don't know alot about the economy, But the way enployment is now, i think it's gonna be another year and a half before we're back on our feat.
|
Atrus
Board Admin
Posts: 259
|
Posted: May 9, 2009, 20:28:27
whoa, X... I see that you corrected the last word in your statement. Was that a typo or were you thinking fear? Reason I ask is I have a number of Republican friends and each and every one of them has indicated how disturbed and fed up they are with the far right neo-con element of their party. Too much "hate" and "fear" being pushed on everyone these daze. Interesting.
|
Xemnas
Global Moderator
Posts: 1694
|
Posted: May 9, 2009, 22:44:48
Quote from Atrus: whoa, X... I see that you corrected the last word in your statement. Was that a typo or were you thinking fear? Reason I ask is I have a number of Republican friends and each and every one of them has indicated how disturbed and fed up they are with the far right neo-con element of their party. Too much "hate" and "fear" being pushed on everyone these daze. Interesting.
It was a typo, I 1st meant to type feat then i saw i typed fear lol. |
etcetera
Member
Posts: 153
|
Posted: May 10, 2009, 02:53:45
Quote from dburt01: free porn movies
where do i sign up?
all this aside: i personally think they should have let the banks go bust, everyone should keep there own money at home, in a safe,
my uncle was made redundant not too long ago, lost his company car aswell, which isn't good for him. :/ |
Alpha
Board Admin
Posts: 1817
|
Posted: May 10, 2009, 13:00:17
The economy certainly wont be showing any signs of recovery, at least while the government continues with the 'bailing' out of troubled corporates.
What amazes me is, banks and car companies loaned out huge amounts of money on Mortgages and Hire Purchase agreements to customers that were unable to repay the debt.
Throwing billions of pounds at these industries to help keep them afloat will do little if a) the public do not have the money to spend or b) the company is not receiving enough revenue to repay their debts.
Its a vicious circle and the governments 'bail out' system is doing very little to change it.
Unfortunately, at the bottom of the economical food chain are the working public, who need the spare cash in their pockets to spend and bump start the economy.
|
dburt01
Member
Posts: 532
|
Posted: May 11, 2009, 10:06:13
And I ain't got any.... :P
|
bulletcatcher
Member
Posts: 354
|
Posted: May 12, 2009, 18:38:31
Well no doubt the economy is bad, but look at it this way, Repo guys are getting all the attention they EVER wanted! Lol.... Looking at the bright side of things.......:rolleyes1:
|
cpnichol
Board Admin
Posts: 4520
|
Posted: May 14, 2009, 12:31:45
I'm not really expecting things to get better for a while and will probably get worse in the short term.
I used to work in the automotive industry and I expect that will get hard hit. Profits weren't great before the recession and the car companies had already squeezed their suppliers for every possible saving so there isn't much give in terms of cost cutting left. I used to work for a company that made car seat and headliner fabric and one car company just told us they were having 14% off next year. From what I heard that kind of thing was fairly normal.
Now there is a bit of money pumping round the banking system hopefully some of the companies that were profitable, but needed the odd loan to get them through a quiet patch should be able to get that rather than going out of business.
|
Raven
Member
Posts: 6362
|
Posted: May 14, 2009, 14:21:10
Can't we all just go work for Tesco, Primark or Sainsbury as they made BIG profits recently.
Not to mention BP, Shell, Esso, British Gas etc etc etc.......:sad:
Perhaps the government should be stepping in to reduce the cartelled profit making ability of the utility companies thus giving us more spare cash to go "spend" on the high street and suchlike to give the economy a boost.
I hate paying massively high prices for Gas and electricity despite crude oil prices plumetting recently (oil has come down by 2/3rds per barrel). The utility companies are quick enough to raise prices but drag everything out when reductions are required :cursing:
Sigh............
|
XTR3M3
Global Moderator
Posts: 2435
|
Posted: May 27, 2009, 15:22:05
The big oil companies have always pissed me off. I think it is so wrong to gouge the public, make record profits, and sit there and wring their hands and say "It's supply and demand". "We are only making like a dime per gallon". No what they are really doing is splitting the whole thing up into distribution, refining, retailing, acquisitions, ect. to spread their profit out so it doesn't look so ridiculous. I mean please....have you looked at the chromed out trucks they use to deliver the fuel? Some of them around here look like they came off an episode of "Trick my Truck". I own a business too...I could make it look like my business LOST money every year with far less creative accounting than the oil companies use....like pay myself a ridiculous salary like their executives get.
The economy has showed signs of revival around here. I am getting work lined up for my construction business and my phone has been ringing after a LONG time of being dead. The local lumber mill for this area is gearing up to go back to full time which is a good indication of increased building. After 9-11, new construction is what brought my area back to life after the stock fall.
I have hope but am not holding my breath.
|
|
Forum Home > Non-Gaming > Real Politik > Is the economy turning around?
|
