Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

I like ferfal's blog because he's a realist, and he's been there, and he still has family out there in Argentina.

He's frank about what really happens when an economy goes bad. It doesn't go Mad Max, it goes progressively c ra pp ier and c ra pp ier, the inflation is insane, the quality of everything from groceries to your utilities (water and electicity) goes down as well as the supplies going erratic, and life just gets progressively more and more difficult and trying for people.

I have some South Africans among my friends and acquaintances. People of British descent whose families had been living in SA for a couple of generations. They were driven out by crime. Real crime, not unspecified fear of random crime. One pal has seen several people shot in Joburg, another left after getting their child out of their carjacked car with seconds to spare (they explained to me that carjackers usually throw babies and children to their deaths from carjacked cars)..........it was the final straw.

For those whose family histories will support it, a dual-nationality status could potentially be very useful indeed.

shammyjack

ivyleaf wrote: »

When i had my ingrown toenail done, the chiropodist used S@vlon antiseptic spray, which is providone iodine. I bought one for my own use. It was quite hard to track down though, only one local pharmacy stocked it!

Hope the RV got on okay at doctor's, Mar x

£3.09p for the 100ml dry version !

SpikyHedgehog

Frugalsod wrote: »

The Harry Potter solution.

:-D well, it worked for the Dursleys - you don't find Harry overeating!

I, however, find open packets of oat cakes concealed under the cushions in the cupboard in DS2's bedroom - his cupboard functions as a place to store his spare duvets & blankets, sleeping bag; hide his cuddly toys from friends; calm down when he's feeling overwhelmed/stressed/angry. & hide the food he's stolen...

He was out working in the woods with Scouts yesterday & was told he had good accuracy with an axe.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

For those whose family histories will support it, a dual-nationality status could potentially be very useful indeed.

It might be a case of which dump to move to? I have dual nationality but for a country that is in a worse state than here. At the moment while things are deteriorating here for most people things are worse elsewhere.

thriftwizard

things are worse elsewhere

Too true! I have a friend who married a Galician farmer years ago, and they have scraped a living farming and hosting pilgrims on the walk to Compostela for many years whilst raising their family. Some time ago, she came home to England to live in a mobile home with their daughter, in her late twenties and an art graduate, who had never had a job of any kind. (Youth unemployment is extremely high in Spain; they thought she might be able to find something over here and at least be able to go home with some experience of working to offer potential employers.) I saw her again a couple of weeks ago, and she told me ruefully that now her husband and her son have joined them in their 2-bed mobile home because they were actually facing starvation at home in Spain; they couldn't afford to feed their livestock any more, so had to sell it all, or hire equipment (or help) to work their land, which is increasingly being flooded in winter & the soil washing away. Once those picturesque ancient stone walls start to break down, there's nothing to keep the soil on the slopes...

Their son (also a graduate) & daughter have both been able to find temporary work, albeit manual stuff, over here, which is keeping their heads above water. But the quiet desperation of their situation keeps coming back to me. This is mainland Europe, not some remote African nation. The land they have left has sustained his family for many generations, but now they're living hand-to-mouth in a glorified caravan that's also in danger of flooding.

So yes, it's worse elsewhere, and not too far away either...

Frugalsod

Spanish youth unemployment is over 50% and in Greece it is more than 60%. So you can understand why they are migrating en masse. Lots of young Spanish are taking up apprenticeships in Germany because the future in Spain is so dire.

The long term problems are simply not being addressed anywhere. If you are lucky enough to have a job in the EU periphery then you can never afford to get on the property ladder because governments have conspired to keep property values too high for the locals just to keep the banks solvent. It also gets worse for those with mortgages in Spain because you can never escape the debt of a mortgage. It literally is a death contract. Ireland has 12 years of bankruptcy so it means you are excluded from any recovery until the debts are cleared or 12 years are up. That is far longer than here.

thriftwizard

There are lots of Spanish youngsters working in France, alongside DS3, too. He seems to be speaking Spanish far more (at least on Facebook) than the French he went out there to practice!

Frugalsod

thriftwizard wrote: »

There are lots of Spanish youngsters working in France, alongside DS3, too. He seems to be speaking Spanish far more (at least on Facebook) than the French he went out there to practice!

I think that the young have migrated from all over the EU. I think I read somewhere that nearly a third of some baltic countries have upped and are now living and working elsewhere. So while the country may no longer have a deficit they will still have the massive debts and only two thirds of the potential working population to pay them off.

For a temporary solution it benefits countries to export their unemployed but it is the long term damage that it is doing to the nations is not even being considered right now. For example of just half of Spain's unemployed youth leave then in the short term it eliminates spending (no more unemployment and costs associated with the unemployed) but it also reduces the long term tax base. As these people are unlikely to ever return so there will be fewer people paying into the government coffers to cover the state pensions. In effect it skews the demographics against those that stayed. They may have to work longer as their will be fewer of them to cover the pensions of the elderly. I know people who left the UK during the recession of the 80's and none have returned.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

I like ferfal's blog because he's a realist, and he's been there, and he still has family out there in Argentina.

He's frank about what really happens when an economy goes bad. It doesn't go Mad Max, it goes progressively c ra pp ier and c ra pp ier, the inflation is insane, the quality of everything from groceries to your utilities (water and electicity) goes down as well as the supplies going erratic, and life just gets progressively more and more difficult and trying for people.

Even for the very rich life becomes worse. While they may have the money to cope they will need to spend more money on things that that never needed before, like round the clock security, armoured cars and school fees will increase as they need to up security to levels unheard off. Think of it as a tax increase. Slowly what is left of the middle class will be unable to maintain any semblance of normality and I suspect that they will take the fall harder than most.

In many ways the US is on the path to becoming just like latin America. With the rich in gated compounds and armoured cars to protect their kids from kidnapping. The roads will resemble dirt tracks because of inadequate maintenance.

My most likely scenario is financial collapse and that is what I am preparing for. The problem is that it will be unpredictable, in how it will impact us. So the only way to cope is to get your living expenses down as low as possible so that when falling incomes start impacting nearly everyone that you are the last to suffer. Think of it like the bear in the forest. You do not need to be the fastest but just run faster than others. They will be the ones protesting with pitchforks and barricades.

I wonder how politicians will try and get us to vote for them when all they can offer is to make your standard of living fall slower than the other parties?

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

It might be a case of which dump to move to? I have dual nationality but for a country that is in a worse state than here. At the moment while things are deteriorating here for most people things are worse elsewhere.

Countries' fortunes fluctuate over time, and what is true now may not be true always. Lots of Spaniards went to Argentina because it was a land of wealth and opportunity, the saying was rich as an Argentine, Buenos Aires was the Paris of South America. That was, and could potentially still be, a fabulously-wealthy country. Some of their descendants are returning, and struggling, but the struggle may be less than the struggle back in Argentina.

When I was in Andalusia, in the Sierra Nevada, a few years ago (less than 5 years ago), there was a phenomenon of local people who had emigrated to Madrid and other places for work, returning to take up the family subsistence farm and scrape a living in the mountains. Everywhere you walked, you could see these tiny traditional stone houses being rebuilt, and people out gathering the sweet chestnut harvest (it was late October). The explanation was that people had left the area, reluctantly, to work in factories and shops up north. That work had dried up, and they had come home to the farmstead, where they owned a bit of land and a house of sorts, on the grounds that it wasn't much but that it was theirs.

I've often wondered how depopulous some eastern european countries must appear to the ones who are left behind, as every second person around here seems to be speaking one of the languages from that part of the world. It really is astonishing in my hometown, for instance; you can walk along the main drag and not hear anyone at all speaking english.

People have always moved to maximise their advantages, often highly reluctantly and with much trepidation, but it is destabilising for the countries which lose their populations as well as those which gain. And the stress caused can lead to the rise of far-right parties, which isn't something to be welcomed.