To be worried about all the economic doom & gloom

[wobblemob]

Everyday I'm reading about redundancies, future tax rises, the greatest recession ever & it scares me. Even though DH & I are still working as normal & we actually have more in our pockets I've reigned in our spending & cancelled some direct debits. I feel like I need more savings.

However I then see threads about booking holidays, have friends who have moved house even though furloughed or having home improvements and I worry I'm being over cautious & when I feel comfortable to rebook a holiday the prices will be sky high!

I've heard it read that the vast majority of people are something like 3 pay cheques away from financial trouble.

I'm not sure how secure our jobs are and I work for a charity so have to fundraise my own salary and all running costs.

I do care, deeply, about others. My own charitable donations and work I do seek to make a difference for women and girls. Across many areas, and economically is a big concern of ours.

YANBU but I think there will be a huge amount of spending as soon as lockdown is lifted and cases go right down

I agree, it’s the uncertainty at the moment. As I said DP is job hunting. He’s professionally qualified and has 15 years experience in his sector but there have been no jobs advertised and recruiters all seem to have been furloughed. The ones he’s spoken to have all said the same - even pharma/tech/essential retail companies are unsure about what the future holds, so pretty much have a blanket ban on recruiting H/O roles. They say the market is gradually starting to move but they aren’t expecting there to be normality until at least September and that’s if we don’t have another lockdown.

Some of them are predicting a recruitment boom in some sectors - Tech / Pharma etc.

People tend not accept this sort of thing until it is actually upon them. A huge recession is now inevitable. It's a bit like knowing that a tidal wave is on its way. But until it hits the shore it looks like most people will continue sunbathing on the beach.

Thing is I don't think they can strip public services anymore. Around the time of the election I read that councils still had millions to save (translating into cuts to services/redundancies) despite what boris promised the red wall - ie end to austerity ! With a no deal brexit the damage to our economy will be huge, so there will be a further hit to spending as people cut back. It really is going to be bad.

If I’ve stopped spending I dread to think what the savers of this world are doing

We're savers. I'm trying to do my bit by buying more wine than usual.

This was always going to happen, despite people thinking that everything will go back to 'normal ' & that there'd be very little effect.

People talk of holidays .... as they need some hope for the future.

Thing is, how will worrying about how bad it will be help? I worried about losing jobs and income in previous recessions and that didn't help me. If everyone hoards their wealth and income that will make the recession way, way worse. I got so worried in the past I thought well if I have zero income I will be homeless and starve at which point I will be dead. When I'm dead I won't need a job nor an income and I won't need to worry about recessions and so on. So now I revert to this thinking when I read things like this.

@Moondust001, like you, we're mortgage free, in our 60s, have some savings and I will be retiring next year when I reach state pension age.

I'm so glad I'm not young, and really feel for those starting out, with mortgages and young families. And I fear for them, too. The poorest are still paying the price of the last recession and subsequent austerity measures, our public services have been run into the ground and the thought of further cuts in public spending really frightens me.

I think this will be biggest economic challenge since the end of WW2.

I have been worried about financial armageddon since day one of this. I don't know Boris could say with a straight face that we'd bounce back because there were no structural problems with the economy (prior to lockdown). Er, there may not have been then but yeah stopping the economy for a few months may just have caused some?

At least we are not like the US where there is not the welfare state we have and you could literally starve, or families be out on the street. And they are already at 14% unemployment and predicted to rise to 25%.

I dont know how the fuck he thought there were no structural problems with the economy prior to covid.

I think the word he used was 'systemic' (early daily press briefing).. same thing?

We have a welfare state but surely it can't support million more claimants at current rates ? How is it going to be paid for ? I can't believe some of the amounts of Universal credit people come out with ( mainly because of extortionate rent which obviously is paid straight to the landlords ). Multiply this by millions more claimants and I think we will really have a problem.

Two members of my family have got new jobs in the last week - one in tech and one in logistics. Both jobs have essentially been created by Covid 19.

Some jobs and businesses will close but new ones will open, and often it is young people who benefit from those opportunities.

Many of businesses were hanging by a thread before this happened. When they fail some of the custom will go to other businesses.

If the government wants to cut the benefits bill it should create government owned council housing so that the massive housing component of universal credit is paid from the government to the government, not to private landlords.

I also agree that many will go on a spending spree after this. DD is desperate to get out and party, and is sitting on two months of extra money.

I am pretty stoical about it because I am already at the bottom of the heap financially before this happened.

I'm very worried about it, too.

I feel like things were just being better out of austerity and then this.
When I turned 18 the housing market crashed. When I turned 30 a global pandemic happened and the economy is buggered again. Starting to think I'm cursed.

I don’t think people even have three months worth of contingency in their finances in the most part
A lot of people live month-to-month with no contingency funds.

The job losses after this I’m going to be massive it’s naive to think otherwise

I agree about the mini bounce.

However, it will be so tiny in the overall scheme of things, that it’s almost laughable.

The impact of this is huge. You can’t just shut down vast swathes of the economy and expect not to feel any consequence. Everyday lockdown goes on makes it worse.

The AI / robotics revolution is also coming. The timing will be interesting.

I think this will usher in a vast restructuring of the working world. There are specific skills that will be needed, but economic activity may never really return to pre Covid levels. Many jobs as we know them are finished. The public sector will have to he significantly rethought.

We will end up with some kind of UBI situation I believe. Out of necessity.

I find it ironic that I was trashed quite hard for defending my fellow Americans for protesting the lockdowns due to economic hardship and how many of you who trashed me are now saying the same thing. You have to get the economies up and running or it will be worse. Friday afternoon my state entered Phase 2 of easing of lockdown. Our salons (nail and hair) opened,restaurants have opened backed up with some restrictions and even better (to a degree) our Island has opened up just in time for our official beginning of the summer. Our population has grown from a thousand to over 150,000 in 3 days. All rentals are fully booked until November,my husband's charter fishing is fully booked so we are off to new challenges....Hurricane season and finding new doctors for the island. Luckily we have several interviews lined up for next week. Life goes on

Not necessarily, if the government plays this right and invests in public spending, investing in zero-carbon transport for example, generating value rather than the private sector at this transitional time we could see our way out of it. What we can't do is go back to austerity, this is what has made our ability to cope with the pandemic and the subsequent economic fall out worse than it had to be.

@IcedPurple - very succinct summary. Totally agree with your synopsis.

@Goldenbear its naive in the extreme to think there will be any investment in the public sector by a tory government when all of them in living memory have done the exact opposite. Boris has already said there will be public sector pay freezes just to start with.

I do think a lot of the newly done up gardens and houses are being paid for on credit card to be honest. Some are doing it on a budget, but I bet a fair amount aren't. They are probably hoping that things will go back to normal and they can pay it off in time. What if they lose their jobs? How will they pay it off then?