Past Recessions - what were your experiences?

mizzbiz

drbeat wrote: »

But that is exactly what financial institutions don't want people to do! The monetary economic model is based on debt and interest. They stay in business by selling debt and collecting the interest! If everyone pays back their debt then they'll be another financial crisis.

Sounds stupid I know but that's the bottom line on how things tick in this crazy society!

You're exactly right about t his and that's why this recession will be so bad. Just like the 'Plasma' lifestyle, the current economic model is not sustainable over the long-term. The current crisis will hopefully mark the end of this maya-ish philosophy and pave the way for a new sustainable model that is beneficial to all. I would like to see people able to buy directly from businesses and manufacturers with the cash they earn and cut out the middle man. DO we really need banks for a thriving economy? I think they have some part to play, but from the perspective that they serve to bleed money from a fund that doesn't, in physical terms, exist, their purpose is questionable.

As a result, I think everyone should endeavour to pay off any debt they have and !!!!!! the economy. WHat matters is your health and family, and not your duty to prop up a mirage that wouldn't pass the most basic tests of the laws of physics or reason. Even those middle-classes that think they are well off behave in a way similar to worker ants, existing only to consume and carry luxury to the queen bankers and politicians. Show me an investment banker wothout a mortgage, who lives in a three bed terrace he could buy with cash? Crazy! If I earned £100k per year I wouldn't owe a spud to anyone. I certainly wouldn't think I could afford a 1 million pound three bed semi and a lotus esprit on the tick.

olly300

Pobby wrote: »

I wonder if the following strange attitude prevails elsewhere? My wife was talking yesterday to a relative who is certainly not earning the £100k ish a year that as a family she is used to. My wife was telling her about Aldi and Lidl. Relative said that she couldn`t shop there.

Lots of people I've met say that.

However once you have shown them that £5 fruit tree or other cheap household/gardening product you picked up in Aldi/Lidl they start shopping there for a few bits and pieces.

milliemonster

Why won't they shop there? what's wrong with aldi and lidl, am I missing something?, however there was some recent research done on the cost of an 'average' weekly shop and aldi was the most expensive (out of aldi lidl, morrisons, tesco and asda), can't remember where I saw it, Aldi's response to this news was that their products were equivalent to competitors 'finest' ranges and not their 'value' range

dopester

drbeat wrote: »

But that is exactly what financial institutions don't want people to do! The monetary economic model is based on debt and interest. They stay in business by selling debt and collecting the interest! If everyone pays back their debt then they'll be another financial crisis.

It might just happen anyway. You have to realise that interest on debt was widespread in many Arabic countries many hundreds of years ago. If you couldn't meet your obligations you lost your assets, land, children, or even your freedom.. having to become a slave to others.

Happened in Roman world too... too many freeholders became dispossessed.. which was a major reason for the downfall of Roman power... especially when freeholders/farmers (the best fighters too) were called away from their lands for long wars.. to return and find their lands taken over as family had taken debt on to run them.. or poor harvests to fund loans taken.

Do you really think the Islamic world just suddenly decided to adopt rules against lending at extortionate rates of interest just for a laugh? Of course not. There were many clear reasons to do so.. if not helping in the long term (as Islamic countries never had power of capital markets for industrial development on a world-scale)

Muhammad had seen in Mecca of his own time how a disproportionately large population of the poor, fraught with discontent, could militarily weaken a system. This was not because the poor themselves were able to overthrow the local elite. It was rather that they had no reason to defend the system when it did come under attack. Muhammad exploited such a weakness in taking Mecca.

It was common in antiquity for states to be weakened by dispossessed freeholders and insolvent debtors. This happened in almost every Greek city-state. It was the reason for Solon's reforms in ancient Athens. He found a city simmering no less than Mecca. Solon stabilised the situation by prohibiting lending on a person's body, and decreed a general cancellation of debt similar to the Biblical Jubilee.

The injunction against usury was an artificial means of ensuring a wider distribution of property. It was a roundabout, religious limitation on taxes. By narrowing the availability of credit to finance tax payments, usury discouraged high taxes. It made it relatively easier for the small owners to avoid being squeezed off their lands by the oligarchies that both started wars and tended to hog the primary spoils of war.

I'm against too much personal debt. Debt to service productive economic investment and returns is fine.

A New Taboo on Debt

A more positive sign for America's future and those who invest in it would be the emergence of a new taboo on debt. When people have suffered from overindulging in some practice, rules often change in the wake of a trauma to place it off limits. The bitter experience of debt default and debt bondage by taxpayers could lead to at least a partial repudiation of high-tax policies that encourage debt. That would be far more constructive for the future.

I think it was this thread... saying the better paid should take more of the burden in taxes...

As we analyse in detail elsewhere, part of the problem has been the growth of income redistribution - which reflects the deteriorating capacity of governments to maintain order. The political etiquette of this process has served to disguise the degree to which many of the poor contribute to their own plight.

For reasons we have canvassed at length, a major cause of poverty and rising social disorder are the life-style choices of the poor themselves. Chronic failure to take advantage of abundant educational opportunities, for example, assures that incomes among the lower class will not rise in a period when returns from manual work fall.

Yet we hear very little overt criticism of the unwillingness among the poor to apply themselves. Quite the opposite. The common response is to exonerate the poor for their part for their part in economic decline, whilst the more productive and successful are blamed.

That makes about as much sense as a farmer beating his most productive cows because the rest of his herd has gone dry. The rising tide of resentment against achievement is a negative indicator for the future.

The trouble is.. that is what your Labour party loves.. wealth redistribution to their main clients. Rome first introduced the dole... with free food for the mob. They learnt to their cost that the mob got rougher and courser and more aggressive - ever more difficult to control - in their demands each time they were given an increase in their "allowance".

I can't imagine our client state "mob" taking kindly to a cut of their benefits and transfer payments.

John_Pierpoint

But that is exactly what financial institutions don't want people to do! The monetary economic model is based on debt and interest. They stay in business by selling debt and collecting the interest! If everyone pays back their debt then they'll be another financial crisis.

Banks need shopping addicts hooked on credit, just as cigarette manufacturers need nicotine junkies. Have you noticed how junkies regard their pusher as their friend and get very upset when someone points out this simple fact?
Let them go and corrupt the Chinese and leave my family alone.

My wife was telling her about Aldi and Lidl. Relative said that she couldn`t shop there.

Do you remember Mr Gluck, the wine writer for the Guardian, who specialised in the Supermarket & chain offerings?
He told exactly the same story about wine at the time the Berlin wall had recently come down:
Young woman organising a dinner party; "I notice you are making notes and look like you know about wine .............................".
"What are you serving your guests?"
"....................meat.........................."
[picks up a vintage bottle of Romanian/Moldovan Pinot Noir and explains that it was made for the Russian elite, but now it can be sold more profitably here]
"I would recommend something like this for its flavour and body, never mind its very reasonable price".
"I could not possibly put a bottle like that on my table.......................".

It is sad when you buy wine by its snob value rather than its nose & taste and a dinner party becomes an exercise in keeping up with the Joneses. Try a blind tasting with friends - it is an "intellectual" way of having fun and getting hammered.

John

For what it is worth I think that Pinot Noir has got worse under capitalism. They have probably fallen into the trap that contributed to German wine's loss of its European lead in quality/value stakes - too much mass production, sale when too young and expansion onto less suitable land?

amcluesent

I don't like recession era food -

Pigs trotters
Jellied pigs head
Hazelnut 'coffee'
Carrot cake (made with swede)
Oxtail
Tripe & Onions
Gooseberries
Fish-paste sandwiches

Yeuch!

Generali

amcluesent wrote: »

I don't like recession era food -

Pigs trotters
Jellied pigs head
Hazelnut 'coffee'
Carrot cake (made with swede)
Oxtail
Tripe & Onions
Gooseberries
Fish-paste sandwiches

Yeuch!

You don't like Oxtail! At least liver isn't on your list. I do a cracking liver and bacon.

Pobby

Nowt wrong with Aldi/Lidl. We do a selective shop between those 2 and Morrisons. Seems to work well.

amcluesent

>I do a cracking liver and bacon.<

I forgot the liver and bacon!

How do the witchetty grubs taste?

olly300

milliemonster wrote: »

Why won't they shop there? what's wrong with aldi and lidl, am I missing something?, however there was some recent research done on the cost of an 'average' weekly shop and aldi was the most expensive (out of aldi lidl, morrisons, tesco and asda), can't remember where I saw it, Aldi's response to this news was that their products were equivalent to competitors 'finest' ranges and not their 'value' range

1. Stigma - they view Aldi/Lidl as cheap due to the minimal amount they spend on doing their stores up.

2. Worried about quality - lots of the products have foreign languages on the packaging and are brands they never heard off. They don't realise that Germans tend to be frugal but like good quality products.

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons spend a lot of money on advertising. Advertising obviously works.

BTW the people I know who shop at Aldi/Lidl tend to be in the well off bracket or poor bracket.