IMF in global 'meltdown' warning !!

treliac wrote: »

I keep watching news programme interviews when interviewees are asked if they think we're reaching the bottom. Some still seem to think we're almost there. Whatever happens, such a massive loss of confidence in the financial marketplace is going to take a very very long time to rebuild IMO.

At a personal level, a major shift of attitudes towards money and borrowing will be needed and this won't even start until the pain is felt in the 'real' economy. As yet, it is still a theoretical problem only for the average brit.

I think you need to differentiate between house prices and the stock market. Most people I've seen commenting this week are referring to the stock market that is already down 40 percent on this years high with prices back to levels seen in 1996. I personally don't think the stock market has much further to fall, but house prices, thats another matter entirely and initially I though a 30 percent fall from peak would do it, but now reckon it may be as much as 40 percent but will take another year or two.

treliac wrote: »

I keep watching news programme interviews when interviewees are asked if they think we're reaching the bottom. Some still seem to think we're almost there. Whatever happens, such a massive loss of confidence in the financial marketplace is going to take a very very long time to rebuild IMO.

At a personal level, a major shift of attitudes towards money and borrowing will be needed and this won't even start until the pain is felt in the 'real' economy. As yet, it is still a theoretical problem only for the average brit.

I'm constantly amazed at the complete indifference shown by the general public to what is going on.

Sooner or later it's going to sink into the public consciousness just how serious this situation is. Our modern society is built on a very complex system of finance and business and this system is about to be shattered at its core. Consider the 'just in time' nature of how our supermarkets operate. A financial screwup that disrupts a component of the supply chain could lead to food running low very quickly.

I don't think that this is now going to be the case of things getting slowly worse over a few years - we are in for a 'big bang'.

My advice is to take a few precautions now - have 1 month's expenses in cash, to hand. Also, have enough food stored to get your household through about a month. You don't want to be queuing at the ATMs when the government announces a 'bank holiday' or competing to grab whatever food remains in your local Tesco with a load of panicky people. Keep your fuel tank full on the car and get in some heating oil/fuel for the winter now if you are low.

Not saying this is going to happen, but taking a few sensible precautions will stand you in much better stead if it were to come to pass. They certainly won't leave you any worse off. The cash, food and fuel will be used in any circumstance.

Walletwatch wrote: »

The issue really is that the scale of the stock market fall now makes it relevant to the housing market, and also threatens to extend what I previously thought would be limited to 25% falls. The average wannabe house-buyer has thought out something as his long-term plans, both in terms of investments and acquisitions (a house being one of them). He might have decided on a threshold of say, 20-25% for house prices to fall, at which point he plans to seriously consider buying. However, his investments are stuck and threatened by the stock market collapse, so he would be forced to hold back. Similarly, the threatened breed of BTL investors are stuck due to inadequate resources and lack of credit availability, and so any thresholds he has set for him to pick up cheap houses become irrelevant.

What we are seeing is what I recollect DD having called rightly - nobody really stands to gain in the end, except someone who has the bulk of his assets in liquid cash.. He did send out a strong warning that we should be careful what we wished for.

This situation has nothing to do with anyone 'wishing' for anything. It the inevitable consequence of the over-issuing of credit and over leveraging with that credit.

Money should reflect the amount of useful product in the economy. Over the least decade, credit has been issued that cannot possibly be reflected in useful product. What's more, people have taken that credit to hold leveraged positions in property or to p1ss up the wall on emulating the 'celebrity lifestyle'.

This is why those of us warning everyone not to buy over the last couple of years have been doing so. We didn't 'wish' for house prices to crash - we knew house prices would crash along with the rest of the economy.

I friend of mine who lives in Spain, said this summer the lorry drivers stopped working for a couple of days and the shops ran out of foodstuffs, it was chaos within a few days.
They now have stocks of food to get them through if it happened again, bit of an initial outlay but it will get used anyway.
If they are saying financial meltdown is almost upon us, I would think it would be wise to prepare for that possibility.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this has been the heist of the century, derivatives, CDS, and all the wonderful financial instruments are very complex, we were never supposed to understand them, in fact the ironic thing is, they don’t either.
Truth is, we are in for a long and protracted downturn, the likes that we have never seen before; the evidence is on our screens every day, at the moment, house buying ought to be the last thing on people’s minds.
As !!!!!! suggests, will the sheeple wake up?
Unlikely, IMO, only when the ATM‘s not working, then its too late.
The greatest ponzi created, is dead.



What's the difference between Investment Bankers and London Pigeons?

The Pigeons are still capable of making deposits on new BMW's

amcluesent wrote: »

Whatever, there's a very big 3-way play going down between the private banking cabal, international socialists and mohemmedans. People, companies, countries are going to be chewed up and spat out. The global danger is another 'Weimar Republic' with nuclear weapons.

Obviously the "mohemmedans" have replaced the Jews as being the sinsister hand behind every crisis.

I doubt if we could describe that as progress.

And to think we mock as redneck McCain supports shout "terrorist", "arab" & "kill him" at the mention of Obama's name.