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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think we are talking ourselves deeper into recession ?

41 replies

Katiestar · 30/01/2009 15:31

I am sick of hearing people on the news speculating (and that is all it can be) that this is going to be the worst recession ever.
I mean doesn't it kind of become self fulfilling.the more people spout this sort of thing the less consumer confidence there is and the less people spend and the deeper we go into recession.

OP posts:
mm22bys · 30/01/2009 15:33

YANBU.

We talked house prices up to unsustainable levels, and I agree that talking things down does become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Saying that, we are in deep sh*t, and noone know what to do to get us out of it.....

mummyflood · 31/01/2009 16:09

Exactly what me & DH think. Apparently Gordon Brown has said today/yesterday that we should be thinking positively in order to not talk ourselves deeper. Try tellin the media, especially Sky News!!

Actually becoming quite worried about the increasing unrest around Europe, unless Sky News are talking THAT up too!!

poppy34 · 31/01/2009 17:24

nope yanbu - I'm not denying as mm22 says that we're in trouble but I do wonder WTF five live weekday morning phone ins were about before this crisis... I don't know why victoria darbyshire nad nicky campbell don't resign and go work at a job centre so keen are they to discuss unemploymebnt.

daftpunk · 31/01/2009 17:26

yabu..we are in recession...except it...it's gonna be a hard few years.

coveredinsnot · 31/01/2009 17:48

I think the media have some part to play, but recessions are a completely natural part of the economic cycle - it's the resistance to it and horror in the media about it all that makes it so much worse. AND the fact that, instead of letting the recession run its course and things rebuilding in the way they always do, politicians are trying to shape and rescue things too much and are making a complete mess of it. See this excellent clip which is of some guy predicting the recession a while back - no one listened because they were too busy fannying around thinking they could stop it. Prats.

coveredinsnot · 31/01/2009 17:55

p.s. it's a long clip, but worth watching, especially when you see how they are laughing at Peter Schiff when he was so completely right!

OrmIrian · 31/01/2009 18:00

i agree.

Yes we're in trouble. No denying it. But everyone keeps talking about this magical thing called 'confidence' without which no-one will lend or invest. And telling us that this is going to the worst recession in the history of recessions and that we're all going to starve, isn't going to help.

Why do they keep doing it? It isn't helping anyone. It's not as if we can do anything about it. Weather people tell us it's going to be freezing, I can put on some more clothes. Peston tells me the recession is deepening, there's not much I can do to help is there?

sorrento · 31/01/2009 18:13

Well the media talked up the house price inflation and that seemed to suit most people didn't it, a quick coat of magnolia and you got £10k of free money.
Bubbles burst and that's a good thing for our children who might have a cat in hells chance of owning (not having a mortgage, that's different) their houses.

OrmIrian · 31/01/2009 18:15

That was another thing I failed to understand sorrento. Huge rises were seen as a good thing. But unless you were intending to sell up and go abroad or live in a shed, it wasn't 'real' money anyway.

sorrento · 31/01/2009 18:19

Well rising house prices were making people feel rich and so they would take on debt/credit cards/car finance or remortgage which is going to cause the reposessions this time around.
Even unsecured debt will be able to be converted to secured and then people will be out on their ears.
Anybody who bought a house as their pension will be screwed as new council houses are planned and the bottom drops out of buy to lets, again a good thing, houses should be homes.
I also have heard a whisper that the next plan is to make landlords pay business tax, which will affect everyone currently thinking if they can't sell their smaller house they'll let it out and move anyway, accidental landlords.
Of course they will drive down the price of rents too.

peanutbutterkid · 31/01/2009 18:24

A lot of this recession stems from loss of confidence -- ie, we've already talked ourselves into it.

The funny (and ) thing is all the journos scrambling madly to find different angles on this -- when it's still early days and there isn't that much to be said, YET. I'm fed up with speculation about "What will happen?" It all has so much time to run and the real stories will be told much better and much more correctly in retrospect.

trixymalixy · 31/01/2009 23:30

YANBU - I totally agree that all this speculation about it is making things worse.

tryingtobemarypoppins · 31/01/2009 23:31

Totally agree - especailly as DH is in construction and has no work

Quattrocento · 31/01/2009 23:37

"when it's still early days and there isn't that much to be said, YET."

I'm very surprised by that comment. I have seen colleagues made redundant, met many others who have been made redundant and seen businesses downsizing and going to the wall. Your High Street presumably no longer has a Woolworths. for instance.

But yes of course, recessions are mostly about confidence.

Ivykaty44 · 31/01/2009 23:50

A lot of this recession is due to over borrowing and now that the lending has stopped - there is nothing to spend.

If lending had been sensible we would have still gone into recession, but not as bad as it is.

This recession has been about Banks going bust - due to bad loans that they have made. Was that over confidence in getting the payments back ? or the goverment bailing them out?

SlartyBartFast · 31/01/2009 23:53

agree totally,
even in people in comparatively safe jobs just have to read the papers, listen to the news. and no way are they going to buy that three piece suite, book that expensive holiday?
are they.
we it certainly gives me the heebie jeebies, and puts me off buying any more than the bare necessities.

daysoftheweek · 01/02/2009 00:17

YANBU
But I think it's just the to be expected result of too much cheap credit and our live now pay tomorrow mentality together with a consumerist society that thinks mainly of the here and now (etc etc)
But FWIW I also think the massive inflation in house prices was a bad thing.

GB is (IMHO) just making things worse after all if you are in a secure job having seen the mess everyone else is in why would you spend loads, and if you are not in a secure job why would you spend loads? So it's very very wrong for him to imply that's what people should be doing

We were looking at house price charts yesterday, historical average price about 60K current price over 150K and the peak was about 180K so if you believe that they have about 60% to drop from peak and they always overshoot!

I think the best thing we could do is to work out how to make ourselves as recession proof as possible as a nation so think looking at food production, energy etc would be a better start than massive spending programmes, I'm really not looking forward to paying all that back!

AnnakeyRules · 01/02/2009 00:19

yanbu. I run my own business, and while it's a sound, (albeit v. small ) business, and I'm trying to remain upbeat, watching the news each day is blinkin' petrifying (did I see that Urchin have gone today?)

daysoftheweek · 01/02/2009 00:26

Oh to clarify I blame the gov/banks and feel v sorry for individuals who are struggling. Really think the gov should have predicted this

Niecie · 01/02/2009 00:48

YANBU - psychology has a huge part in all this and it does become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I was particularly irritated by the IMF saying that the recession is going to be harder and longer for us than the rest of developed world. How does this help? Western Europe and the US went into recession before us - are we really in that much worse a state than them?

Ivykaty44 · 01/02/2009 11:54

So if we were told - oh its ok the recession isn't going to be that bad, no it will all blow over in a couple of years and we will be no worse of than any other developed western country.

What would you think then when the recsession hit us harder and for far longer and we were worse of than other countires.

Would you be cross that the IMF hadn't given us the facts and the truth? I think you would then be complaining about they had hiden the truth and buried it which is irisponsable.

It has to be said damned if they do and damned if they don't.

We had 16 years of growth - the longest period of growth for - what over 200 years. Anyone could predict that the recession was coming after 12 years, you don't need a goverment to tell you that.

violethill · 01/02/2009 12:12

Yes there is a psychological element, but I also think it's true that it's going to be long hard recession and will probably be years and years before the economy is in a healthy state again.

sorrento · 01/02/2009 12:28

Yes Urchin have gone, as have Blooming Marvellous, but look what these places sold, overprice shit that parents didn't really need to make the children's interior design experience special ie give them nice stuff to trash.
The world has gone bloody bonkers over the past 5 years, we used to live in Ellesmere Port a very very working class area and people earning £30k a year between them were buying speedboats and X90's.
The fall to earth was always going to be painful for some but it needed to happen.

quint · 01/02/2009 12:41

The media are not going to be happy until there are riots and they will all blame the government and take no part of the blame themselves.

Everything goes in cycles and I think the banks are to blame. DH is currently explaining to me about subprime in America, I understand what he's saying but couldn't explain it!!!!

sorrento · 01/02/2009 12:42

But the government allowed, no encouraged the sublime lending so bring the riots on .... oh no sorry we can't can we because you'd be held under anti terror laws if you dared to complain.