To think we are heading towards a huge recession

[jnfrrss]

Homes and retail sales down 3% last month. Pay isn't keeping up with inflation. Backoffice staff are quickly being replaced with robots.

The last recession was only "saved" by printing billions to bail out the banks and this seems to have just caused a huge spike in assets like bonds and homes. None of the issues there have really been solved just delayed and they can't lower rates or stimulate like they did back in 07-08. The public debt has grown huge during the "austerity" times. Every day you hear of new job cuts and that's not to mention all the jobs that aren't replaced after normal attrition. Then there's brexit and the huge amount of people on interest only mortgages.

Or aibu and things are looking good?

Oh yes... all the signs are there but nobody wants to talk about it loudly because brexiters do take it as an “attack to democracy”

mightymucks
I was under the impression we had record rates of employment

The problem is the jobs are very poor quality/ low wage. In a downturn they would vanish in the twinkle of an eye as they are generally without a proper contract.

Yeah record employment on zero hours and low pay.

Wages aren't rising higher than real inflation, the official inflation figures are always very suspect - adding in items that are rarely bought and ignoring the essentials.

I was under the impression we had record rates of employment at the moment.
That's because we now count zero hours contracts and the gig economy as being employed.

Also self-employment, i.e. finding any bits and pieces to get by, is on the rise. Meanwhile people somehow magically drop out of official figures for this reason or that. And homelessness rises.

wrong interesting you should say that. the vast majority of all our new projects and investments are diversification into sustainable energy. The O&G industry aren't fools, the big companies don't want to just die when the fossil fuels run out either.

pigmcpigface

Your figures and graphs are out of date by 11 years....

That is hopeful soup. The recent surge in alternative energy is one of the few signs of hope I see. Shame it didn't happen 30 years ago, but let's hope it's better late.

My instinct is that we are in a period of global recalibration, with poor countries moving up -especially those with youthful demographics and good education systems - and more mature economies, particularly in Europe, in decline. Eventually, wages will converge across continents so that offshoring work to lower wage economies will not be worth the risk of being distant from the market. Plus the impacts of technology change. Zero hours and the gig economy are forcing down labour costs but it is likely to be a disruptive and very painful process. But hey! I'm not an economist, and am probably wrong.

Of course we are. People who think we can exit the EU without a catastrophic effect on our trade are in cloud cuckoo land.

elderflower - do you really think everything has changed since 2015?

yes wrong it's very hopeful. I work in our environmental impacts and management team myself so it's very important to me personally, it's been a slow grind to this point but there has been a step change in attitudes in the industry in the last 18 months which has led to projects and investments kicking off big style this calendar year :)

On the subject of "record levels of personal debt" I'm continually amazed at the letters we get offering extra credit etc

We aren't high earners

I don't know how they think we'd pay it off if we used it?

I didn't really notice the last one so hopefully I won't notice this one either.

A recession is certainly on the cards, whether huge or not remains to be seen.

It hasn’t got much to do with Brexit, althouh the uncertainty surrounding it may exacerbate things. It does have quite a lot to do with the reduction in global money supply, not least the massive fuck up that was the Euro, especially now the ECBs QE measures are about to be ended, reducing the Eurozone’s money supply. This was predicted some months ago.

China’s economic growth is contracting slightly, and commodity prices have been falling.

Oil prices are increasing, but this is due to the fact that the large glut accumulated by Russia and OPEC has now been cleared, plus the utter political collapse of Venezuela has further reduced supply.

"I didn't really notice the last one so hopefully I won't notice this one either."

Wow, how compassionate of you towards those who did feel it.

It's not an accident that you didn't, by the way. The middle classes have been protected from the consequences of the last recession by record low interest rates and the fact that austerity cuts have hit poorer and more vulnerable groups hardest. The problem is that many of the cuts to those areas of life have now been made - any new recession is likely to hit the middle classes much more than the last one did.

It's not an accident that you didn't, by the way. The middle classes have been protected from the consequences of the last recession by record low interest rates and the fact that austerity cuts have hit poorer and more vulnerable groups hardest. The problem is that many of the cuts to those areas of life have now been made - any new recession is likely to hit the middle classes much more than the last one did.

I'm not middle class. When the last recession hit I was living in a council flat with my single mother and four siblings, thank you very much.

I know we're on the road for gross inequality, that's what I meant by my crossed out comment, and like Niles I really struggle with the idea that some people prefer this and the associated suffering it will bring. The rhetoric around "bad choices" is designed to encourage the belief that the people who get left behind have only themselves to blame, and relieves the people who made "good choices" of any need to feel responsibility, guilt or even compassion.

when the last recession hit I was living in a council flat with my single mother
Then freezer you haven’t really known any other times have you? What have you to compare it to? I’m thinking of various recessions going right back to the 1970s when I first became economically active. This last recession has most certainly had an impact, for me it meant delaying my planned retirement.

Then freezer you haven’t really known any other times have you? What have you to compare it to? I’m thinking of various recessions going right back to the 1970s when I first became economically active. This last recession has most certainly had an impact, for me it meant delaying my planned retirement.

Well my mother and grandmother feel the same way I do, if that counts for anything. That it may happen but if it does it will probably all be fine in the end for most people.

As for delayed retirement, as a millenial I'm fully expecting to be working well into my seventies and eighties, I've grown up with that expectation. My grandmother is still working aged 78.

That's because we now count zero hours contracts and the gig economy as being employed.

We always have done.

And if you look at the ONS report on the unemployment it is neatly separated into full time and part time (which includes zero hour)

Part time has not increased significantly, and is in proportion to full time.

There has also been numerous reports done by BBC, Full Fact and CIPD, the numbers who are happy and or want more hours/fixed hours are in the minority.

As I'm sure you have read the ONS report and not just banging a political drum you would know it reports on underemployment finds no rise since 2010

Unless you have some random blog post to discredit this, there is a reason why the Guardian etc have quietly dropped the issue.

I fully agree with you AND i think it’s going to get worse (Thanks Brexit and its economic uncertainty and losses).

People who are really negative think the risk is a recession similar to one following Black Friday.
Others are more cautiously optimistic (it will be bad but not as bad as that)

I haven’t seen yet anyone saying that the economic outlook is in anyway ok (let alone good).

I have no idea how we can prepare ourselves though. Bar probably learning to do with less and saving as much as possible when you have an income coming in.

Plenty of people get on well with zero hours contracts as well, many of us seem to forget that. They suit my sister who is a student very well.

I haven’t seen yet anyone saying that the economic outlook is in anyway ok (let alone good).

Most economists did not see the crash of 2008 either, economics isn't a science, for every position there will be an equal opposite prediction and all those economists your listening to saying the outlook will not be in anyway good, also had to admit that they got their initial forecasting wrong.

Nursy1 "this last recession has most certainly had an impact, for me it meant delaying my planned retirement"

Was that due to reduced shifts etc?

Freezer, that assumption of being middle class made me lol but I can see you'd be annoyed. Interestingly I think recession is so personal, my sister was out of work for ages in the last two recessions and that made me conscious than anything else would. I tend to ignore media because I often think they are obsessed with people as units of GDP and nothing else. The rising rents have been a huge problem but they don't cover that so much.