Is Anyone preparing/hunkering down for 'after the budget'

[IsUnemploymentRising]

The news is today seems to be full of headlines such as unemployment is going up, housing markets are softening, budget is make or break.

Lots of people such as Andrew Bailey quoting things like markets could crash due to debt and AI bubble etc

I just don't see how RR or anyone else for that matter can get us out of our current situation without considerable cutbacks and pain.

Raise Taxes - lots of people think this is maxed out now with rich leaving and businesses already hit (thus rising unemployment)

Cut Benefits - will they try this again. If so what will all the people on benefits actually do to live. Will they all get jobs. Is there jobs?

So are you hunkering down?

Me personally I wish they would just get on with it. I hope to move house in next few years and whilst I'm still committed to it I can see another frozen housing market coming where only forced sellers sell and everyone else sits tight.

I'm retired (although not getting any pensions yet as too young) and definately worried about pension values (ie stock markets, bonds etc). It's very difficult to plan when your pensions are dependant on things outwith your control. (not applicable to those with final salary/defined benefit schemes of course)

State pension is a good 14 years away for me (I'm fully paid up) but I worry it will be eroded when I have built it into my calculations for retirement not to mention the freezing of tax brackets which means we are all getting taxed more each year by stealth.

I'm probably in a better position that many to weather the storm as no mortgage or debts and holding cash etc but even then I worry about our currency being worth nothing soon if they go down the route of printing money again.

Am I being overly pesimestic. I mean how are they actually going to get us out of this. For those on benefits (apart from worrying, being scared etc) how will you actually cope if your benefits are cut.

Yes, everyone is. That means that when you hear talk of "increased government interest" that interest is going to the pension funds etc. So the government is paying out money but some of its going straight back to UK peoples pockets. That doesn't mean you shouldn't worry at all about bond yields. Too much and it's a huge burden. But the headline figures of "government pays X Billion in interest" could also say "pensions receive Y billion boost".
I think, for all you said there are a lot of frightened people on the thread, your talk of avoiding UK bonds is irrational and scaremongering. I am not blase about the issues caused by too high national debts. I know that debt defaults can happen (Iceland). But the idea the UK is on the brink of this is hysterical. UK bonds are still some of the safest investments out there and nothing the bond markets or IMF have done or said have suggested they think otherwise. Even France, which has a much bigger debt and much bigger problems, isnt on the brink of a debt default yet. They could be, if the crisis continues indefinitely. But broadly speaking bonds are still some of the safest places to put money compared to other investments. And UK bonds come near the top in terms of safety. You would need something genuinely catastrophic to change that. Either a genuinely crazy government policy (Not like Reeves, not even like Truss. Someone like Trump could probably do it). Or some massive global crash like America defaulting on its own loans combined with world war. But if that happens, all other investments are screwed anyway. I guess I don't know what these "global investments" which are safer could be. I agree diversifying is always a good move.

that's a shame about the wheelchairs. I had to buy one for my mum and I know they are expensive. I gave ours to a charity after she died so hopefully someone was able to benefit from it.

I also gave them her other mobility aids but they would only have been suitable for old people not disabled children.

I am aware of some the things you speak of. My dad got given a very basic (and quite useless) walker from the NHS after he broke his hip. I bought him a much better one with wheels but it cost hundreds of pounds. It went to the charity shop too.

Surely an incare facility where the children get good care but it costs less is better than the country collapsing and there being no benefits or incare available. I'm not using the word asylums because I don't believe that is what they would be like.

Are we not facing a reform goverment though? Is that not considered to be quite like Trump? I mean I agree with you on this point.

I disagree with you that UK bonds are still considered one of the safest places. It's okay if we disagree.

Thanks to everyone who posted on the thread. Even when I don't agree with you I do like to hear everyone's views.

May we all weather the budget storm intact. Until then I will keep reigning in my expenditure as many others of you seem to be doing as well.

But then, why give up work without the savings for a long retirement. I can understand people well of enough to live 50byears from their own investments doing that. I can also understand people who retire early planning to live of their savings until state pension kicks in because they trust there will be enough in th pot to do that. It's hard to understand someone who doom mongers about how the government can't afford to support everyone and everything will collapse, but also then takes early retirement. And then worries that when their own savings run out the government won't be able to support them with a pension adequately for the rest of their lives.
And then in other posts you imply other people should have thought more carefully about how to manage their own budgets

I know I sound harsh. I really don't mean to. I don't think you are doing anything wrong. But equally I don't think your situation (retired very early to live of savings, hoping to be supported by a state pension for the next 40 years but worried you won't be) is a sign that the economy is terrible. Or that Reeves has fucked everything up. Or that we need to slash the welfare budget more generally.

Maybe we all need to count our blessings more.

So what the conclusion now is we have to get rid of the NHS because we have so many old rich moaners who vote right wing and vote for Brexit and they are bankrupting the country? And the NHS was never set up to deal with an ageing demographic to this point in a liberal worldview where everyone has to be treated equally, so you cannot prioritise a 30 something worker on the NHS to get back to work?
So do away with the NHS and state pension for all is now an aspiring lefty ideal?

Who would have thought?!

Honestly I think you're being a bit dramatic. Savings will probably have to be made in many areas, but it will likely be spread across a few different things, benefits won't stop completely, they may pay out a bit less or be a little more difficult to get.
Yhere may be tweaks to council tax, inheritance tax etc but nothing so dramatic as you're forecasting.

I am more interested in when the AI tech bubble is going to burst - any ideas? And if that will then inform policy decisions. AI is anti green, horrendously so, and all these gold prices going up, heavy metal components, all deeply troubling.

I think those who can should spend wisely supporting their local economy. As others have pointed out, when people worry about wars/the future even the comfortable stash their cash in savings and live off the interest. But I would rather support UK government bonds then eg all the Middle Eastern banks offering high interest rates on platforms. We do all need to try and be as patriotic and as supportive of the local economy as we can, within our means.

I do agree reform could do it. It would take more than just Farage making crazy decisions though. The most likely scenario there is the economy tanks, he's removed, chaos, huge economic damage. Truss on steroids but not necessarily debt default. For that you would need either the existing checks and balances to be completely eroded, or responsible people just giving up, or just continued cycles of chaos. Brexit did a lot of damage but on its own it didn't destroy the UK. Increased waves of discontent>right wing populism>economic craziness>discontent>more extreme populism etc is the most likely scenario. But the way to avoid that is to not fall into the trap of demonising segments of the population.

Nigel Farage is an attention seeker. I simply hope that if he does get his grabby hands on the keys of 10 Downing Street, that all sorts of good sorts will simply join to do the behind the scenes work.

I'll be old one day with luck we all will. I can accept that I will have to pay more tax to support the NHS because there is more pressure on it. Likewise state pensions. What gets to me is the implication I am paying more tax because of asylum seekers, or because some care worker needs housing benefit, or someone needs Pip for their disabled child. It's a lie.
We have a moral duty to look after the old and infirm, (even those who voted for Brexit). But it is annoying if those same retired people are advocating for disabled children to be in asylums because "we can't afford to look after them" or "my son pays so much tax he can only take 2 holidays a year".

Just be honest and accept as the population ages either we make old people jump of a cliff or we have to pay more tax one way or another. I'd vote for pay more tax. But it's not Reeves and Starmer's fault.

@rachelhere When you stop mocking and join me then the country's economy will be healthier. If money constantly flows out of the country - whether on French cheese or Stein or Aliexpress or other Chinese crap someone in the uk is less likely to have a job. But perhaps you'd prefer it if I took my money and went to live somewhere else, I've been looking at the options.

If everyone starts postponing expenditure out of fear we will be in even bigger trouble. Postponing essential spends is actually silly as it's just getting more expensive all the time. So no, dont "hunker down" unless you are on the breadline.

The government has been trying to address the housing shortage, which would bring down rents, Hopefully they wont increase tax on rental income because that will just push up rents. I've never been a landlord, I'm not renting - that's not self interest. Some people dont look beyond their jealousy.

Yes I'll continue to keep people in work when I can - so I'll just phone a local tradesman, who will no doubt moan about paying for my pension when I'm giving him the money to do so.

Regarding demographics and housing shortages, if there was more tolerance towards inter generational living and support (downwards and upwards) and far fewer single parent households, then we would all be instantly richer. So part of the problem is the disintegration of old style family structures, I now sound like a conservative (which I am not), but it is true to some extent.

A lot of Europe is going to be left behind if we do not get back to more family support that a lot of other countries worldwide have inbuilt in their societal structures. Whilst we had a boom post WW2, that is now coming to an end. We do not need to be poor and have elderly starving and lonely necessarily, if families are more willing to step up. The fact of the matter is everyone expects “society” to do it. At some point, if the social contract is broken and late stage capitalism in its current form no longer works, then you do just have to DIY. It grates when they refused to do childcare, but what exactly can you do.

I don't know what to do...! I have the lot in my stocks and shares isa, i follow a nice chap on youtube and took his advice...he now suggests investing in copper....I might sell some gold and take the profits and put some of the money into copper but havent done any research yet...it does look like gold and silver will continue to do well as such a huge demand for it and mines cannot produce enough at present.

What’s not Reeves and Starmer’s fault? They didn’t have to get it wrong on NI policy this needing another round of tax rises after saying it was a one off.

Have a look at clive thomson on youtube, he is very good, i took his advice a long time ago and invested in gold and silver and have done very well, he does a video on AI, i dont think its going to crash as its still early days, i have a very small holding in some AI shares.

I think on currency the most fascinating thing is whether there is going to be some sort of universal cryptocurrency that all the Central Banks do approve of. But again, I do not like the crypto energy intensive side of it! If we are going to agree on the concept of a universal currency which I would welcome for all nations and more control of dark money and billionaire control, why would it have to be crypto.

Oh dear I mentioned the universal currency buzz word that you are not allowed to do or your reply is instantly hidden.

Anyway, the gist of it was that if a certain currency is eventually approved by all central banks the concept of it is potentially a good thing but I do not like the energy intensive side of it being electronic. I feel money rules the world, always has done, we should have a universal currency that central banks approve of and an a universal base tax rate for billionaires. At least, all the strong currencies and democracies should potentially do that. The fact that oil is depleting may mean that a whole lot of countries previously not fully on our side because that was their only bargaining chip for world influence, may end up being on the same page, is possibly a good thing. Or the cynical view is that humans will always fight over scarce resources and use those to control others.

I am hoping that Gaza gets sorted in some form and then Trump/world powers moves onto Putin. That will influence us as much as anything Reeves does. They do not really have that much control. They basically have to stay in sync with the ECB and the Fed and be seen to be doing the same amount of AI/tech investment but not too much etc. It is like small scale business on a big level. Do what your friends and competitors are doing, but do it smartly. If we are out of sync on the benefits and migrants front European wide, of course we will simply attract more of that. And if that leads to instability amongst our own population, regardless of our own ideology, it has to be handled. And if the dissatisfaction amongst our own population is driven by foreign interference via social media and algorithms, then that has to be handled too. We all know cyber security is a pressing need on all fronts.

incare is better than what? Being at home with their families??
No absolutely not. I am not condemning my children to life in an institution to solve a mess that is not of their own making thanks v much .
And this is not the first thread suggesting that disabled people should all be warehoused to save costs recently ! Imagine if we wanted to do that to any other sector of society ! There would be an outcry ! But disabled people and their families are fair game it seems

Hang on... tour previous post says that your parents "were very old school and kept hundred of thousands in the bank so over the period from 2008 to 2019 they would have earned very little in interest."

Fuck me. Imagine having parents with hundreds of thousands of pounds in savings and thinking they weren't well off.

@flapjackfairy - I do not think anyone wants the UK to get to a position of such poverty that we cannot support disabled children! I would have thought they are the number one priority on most people’s moral compass. Things would have to become extremely dire for a civilised society with such history and wealth to disintegrate to that level. However, it is scary because we did see some of the comments made during Covid around DNRs. I suspect more than their fair share of parents with disabled DC are long term spooked by that.

Does the OP have children?
I wonder how she’d feel if some members of the public thought about her children as they do disabled children (including mine I referred to upthread).
There is no need to feel sorry for me @IsUnemploymentRising .
I adore my daughter. She is the happiest person I’ve ever met. She communicates perfectly fine with me, though the words she tries to say are a struggle for her to make and others do not understand her.
She might have been walking if the NHS had not t stopped physio for her - but she does just fine in her wheelchair.
She brings joy to everyone around her - though not to those who don’t like disabled children I expect.
She doesn’t cost “hundreds of thousands of pounds”. She receives DLA and my husband maintains us otherwise.
regarding agreeing with institutions for disabled children being “better” …
Imagine if someone took your aging dog and put it in a pound where it had food, water, and limited places to move.
No love given to it.
No hugs or walks or whatever you do for that dog.
Imagine you could see that dog but not interact more than a few minutes each day.
Imagine some members of the public pushing for that dog to be euthanised.
Imagine that.
If you think that would be painful imagine what it feels like to be the mother of a child who you love, you carried in your womb, you gave birth to, you fed and clothed and loved and played and sang with, went on adventures with.
Yes the life of a disabled person is very difficult and financially strained more often than not.
Agreeing with wanting to institutionalise children to SAVE MONEY is so below basic human decency it’s impossible to say anything else.
Didn’t the Nazis take a similar view?

And as for the poster early in the thread who commented on hundreds of thousands of pounds for complex cases being spent on individuals- she’s referring to children who are “looked after” - kids who’ve been removed from families because of parental abuse of the worst kind, county lines kids who have been abused and so on. My husband works with some of these children- they are not the severely disabled.

The country spent last year (23-24)around £128 billion on state pensions,
£3.7 billion on DLA for children…

compare those figures for a second.

Spot a difference?

Around 700,000 disabled children in England and Wales receive DLA.

Where’s the evidence for the alleged hundreds of thousands of pounds referred to by one poster and then invoked by a couple of others?

Do you think institutions for disabled children would save money - why do you think that?

If the family can care for the child at home without needing goverment support then of course nobody would be stopping you.

I'm talking about IF we can't continue the current benefit system then surely a benefit system that at least offers incare facilities is better than nothing at all.

The same is happening with old people. At the moment if you can afford it you can stay in your own home and pay private carers or family to look after you. Currently the goverment offers support for this with money but I think that will be withdrawn also as it is too expensive. Then I think it will be stay at home at your own expense or if you can't you will be offered state incare (ie old folks homes). This happens already and it's not ideal but if it's all the goverment can afford then it's better than no benefits and no incare either.

Nobody said you had to put your children anywhere. if you can afford to look after them yourself and make provision for after you die there is no need to have anything to do with anything the goverment offers.

As someone getting older I have this problem myself. If i can't look after myself, I need to pay someone or accept incare (and even that might not be available if things get really cut back).

Calling incare facilities a warehouse is deliberately being goady. Do you call old peoples homes a warehouse?

When we were growing up we lived on a council estate and were quite poor. Thus I went to uni on a grant.
My parents would have been in their fifties at this point.

My dad retired from his main job (which didn't pay particularly well) in his mid fifties due to having two heart attacks. He then got himself well and lost alot of weight and stopped smoking. He worked in a variety of part-time jobs whilst getting his pension from his main job. He worked till he was 80. He lived very frugually and in a small owned house. What he did was save, save, save so he could afford to have my mum and him looked after in their old age which is what they did.

No sure why this is so difficult to understand.

After they were both dead there was enough for a medium sized inheritance.