Do you remember the day the 2008 crash happened?

[mwmw]

What were you doing? Did you think it would turn out as horrifically bad as it did?

Yes. I lost my job.

I remember it. But having lived through the 3 day week in the 70s, seeing mountains of refuse piling up in the streets, and then the horrific time in the early 90s when interest rates went up and up and up (including when they were raised several times in a single day, hitting around 15%) and seeing houses repossessed all around... it felt a bit like, ok, this isn’t great but I’ve lived through worse

The difference with Brexit though, in case anyone is worrying, is that Britain is a tiny economy. 2008 was a global crash. We'll be cushioned from financial catastrophe.

No, I was that bothered by it.

Brexit on the otherhand is a different story.

Wasn’t that bothered

No comfort in the rest of the world’s economy carrying on as normal if we can’t access it though.

The other thing I remember vividly is a throwaway line from the late Socialist comedian Jeremy Hardy in the run up to the 1997 election.

“I’d like to believe that Tony Blair is a closet socialist like the Daily Mail says, but I really don’t think it’s true. The day after the election he’s not suddenly going to yell “SURPRISE!!” and nationalise the banks.”

That joke came back to me when Blair and Brown really did nationalise the banks, as a reminder of just how insane things had become.

We're not due another global crash until 2028.

Yes I remember it, working in tech and redundancies started, pay rises stalled. Company was taken over and I eventually took redundancy in late 2013. I also remember the dot.com bubble bursting, again we had redundancies around 2002.

People who don't remember, do you wonder why mortgage rates are currently so low?

I also remember very high rates (15%) in late 1980s/1990s and at least one friend who then struggled with negative equity for years after.

From 2008 to 2013 with low mortgage rates we could overpay mortgage and pay it off with redundancy money so I could switch to part time work.

Winter of Discontent, anyone?
I know Brexit is shit, but those of us age 50+ have lived through a lot of crap before

I had a baby in September 2007 and remember watching TV and crying my eyes out at a news report of an elderly man who had lost all his life savings and his wife had died and he didn't know what to do. Would that have been Northern Rock? It definitely wasn't 2008.

Yes.

I had my life savings/the money from the sale of my first house in an icelandic bank.

i moved it out an hour before the bank fell, [it took a month to actually move]; but if id waited an hour, past midnight, id have lost the lot.

Yes, borrowing became much harder for people generally. I also remember the huge crash in the early 90’s property prices were in free fall. Lots of people repossessed and trapped in negative equity. We purchased a city flat in the late 80’s, took us until early 2000 to sell it for a very small profit. Really tough times for people.

Yep I opened a business up a week before the crash. My funding was through RBS. It folded 7 months later and I ended up going bankrupt as a result. RBS refuses to even return my calls for 3 months even though there were things they could've done to help. It was a terrible time.

I remember. There were literally no jobs, I was willing to do anything and had never found myself unemployed before. I was in a university town and had to go back home to live with my parents.

It was the push I needed to retrain so it all worked out but I'm worried about it happening again. With a mortgage at the top of what we can afford and 2 preschoolers limiting our earning potential I feel very vulnerable.

As for bohbell's comment the Tories have spent even more so meh

I don't remember it being a specific day, just a big slide down into recession, which lasted for years. I remember black Wednesday in the 90's vividly

Yes. We are in the constitution industry. The week before a big job we should have been starting was suspended without a new start date which was odd. But we knew everyone was worried and had struggled to find work for a few months leading up to it.

We managed to limp through, things started to pick up properly in 2014, then by the time the Brexit vote happened things were slowing down again. We were really worried it would happen again but since then things have picked up again, in the North anyway. We haven't had as much work since pre 2008 and the prices we get have increased by 25%.

Not sure what will happen long term, but I know 2008 to 2011 we were skint despite 2 of us working and pretty low outgoings.

Never heard of it before your thread. I was 28 and just started my highest paid job in marketing.

I remember on the news people queuing outside North Rock to take all their money out. Didn’t realise that it was a bank until then.
Shortly after I got my first job at a supermarket and it felt like shift to shift you could see the prices rise on products. I was too young to take it in really (16) but our closest town was transformed into a ghost town.

I remember.
I remember Lehman and Northern Rock.
I also remember lots of news coverage on the lead up to it all, full of dire warnings and predictions of what was to come.
The fact is, the people in the right places to stop it happening or in the very least prevent a lot of the damage did nothing.
DH and I had bought our first house in 2005, we would spend a few years there, build up our equity and move up and start a family.
Everything went on hold for a bit. I had to stay in a job I absolutely hated as DH's job stalled. He was one of the lucky ones, no direct pay cut but was told overtime would not be paid.
Lucky for us DH's CEO is a very sensible person who kept the business going when competitors were going to the wall. They're now more successful than ever and DH did get his promotion in the end.
We were lucky and weathered the storm. I am well aware that plenty weren't.

It started in 2007 and I remember in a meeting where it was discussed that things looked like it was coming to a head. When Lehmans collapsed, it is unfortunte to say but there were people who knew about it long before it did collapse. So leading up to when the employees were told in September was like waiting for a train crash that i knew was inevitable and yet vast majority of employees there had no idea. It was awful, the fallout cost peoples homes and ruined lives. The next one on the horizon however, will make that look like a minor downturn

fitwit, you might be thinking of Iceland's financial crash (to put it simplistically - I cant remember the details).

Boom and bust. It’ll keep happening. We were all encouraged to borrow and borrow. Self cert mortgages were the norm where you signed your own paperwork and borrowed what you wanted not what you could afford pushing up housing prices. Our entire economy was built on lies and greed. Traders using phantom money to buy layer upon layer of stock. This was all allowed to take place under labours ‘new britain’ vision. Total corruption. There was no way to go but down.

Yes it was awful.

Large established companies falling like dominoes, people queuing too get money out of banks, DH work and many many others savagely laying people off, cutting teams too the core... daily reports of home repossessions....

Jqbased

Which down turn