Families must accept partial blame for recession?

[emdee1980]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

there is an even easier way to sort this, dont let them have 2nd 3rd 4th etc homes, ok so they have to travel, but so do most of the UK, we can all do it so why should they be any different, if they need to be somewhere for a week or weekend there are many suitable hotels which would cost so much less than a second home and thus also helps to ease the housing problem

[winner12]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

Hi all
What a great read of all the above posts must say I agree with one post about the extortionate interest rates charged on Credit Cards over the last few years way above what they should be

Thats the reason I struggled aswell as PPI payments I knew nothing about being part of my monthly payment
So Mr Minister are we truly to blame I have no underhand tactics just want to pay off my debts how ever long it takes which with the basics to survive on rising at the rapid rate they are food (does it really have to be double what it was last week ) and heating etc it may never happen
If we are so much in dire straights why are the food chains and energy suppliers making huge profits why cant they give us something back sounds like they are Banks in disguise

[meellis]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

Sometimes I think that instead of writing off debts they should be allowed to be analysed properly and an agreement made where people pay of the true debt (original amount plus reasonable interest) and not the manufactured debt. Give the money back that was loaned and that is all. I fear that there is too much money made from chasing the debts, one of my credit card bills went from £4000 to £8500 in legal fees in one month. This is why I decided not to fight it any more and ended up bankrupt. Now they put in extortionate claims to the bankruptcy estate and I don't think they expect to get the money I feel they do it so they can right off bigger losses than the really had. If my assumption is right then they probably work it so the debt is written off against some tax avoidance scheme. If we could get it so people are paying back a reasonable amount but still have money to spend then maybe we could get the economy moving again.

[emdee1980]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

<sarcasm>
how can you possibly say that, just the other week that big supermarket brand beginning with T were offering £10 off your £80 shop if you brought just about anything that cost 1p or more
</sarcasm>

How anyone in this current day and age would want to spend £80 or more is beyond me but thats life

[messimoo]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

you hit the nail on the head there meelis, Debt collection makes millions they buy debts for pennies and chase for thousands The big banks would'n have it stopped as these debts are written off as tax deductable (I think) so these agencies would never be stopped. I look on it some form of cruel nature We as the general public trying to rummage through the undergrowth trying to survive the best we can, along comes the big shot predator or scavenger and swoops down taking whatever we have just to feather thier own nests.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

<sarcasm>
how can you possibly say that, just the other week that big supermarket brand beginning with T were offering £10 off your £80 shop if you brought just about anything that cost 1p or more
</sarcasm>

How anyone in this current day and age would want to spend £80 or more is beyond me but thats life

With the current price of stuff, my weekly shop for 2 adults, 3 kids, 2 dogs and a cat is (wait for it) £150. And we dont buy wines and stuff, neither one of us smokes, and we have a diesel car!
We are not entitled to any benefits (hubby works more than 16hours per week) apart from tax credits and child benefits.
What annoys me is, that Mr Milliband, Mr Cameron and friends all get their child benefit.. why would they need child benefit? they get paid an exhorbadant amount to sit in an office, tall rubbish and eat pastries!
I like David Cameron (C'mon Colin the Duck would have been better than Gordon Brown) but he promised he was capping the wages for child benefit.. I haven't seen it yet!

our income is roughly £300 pw, seems a lot but take £150 a week for shopping, £40 for gas and electric, council tax (all full) water rates.. you name it... well it looks like the kids will have more spending money in Scotland than us!
What annoys me the most is the people who know how to play the system. I was in the playground mentioned I needed antibiotics for a throat infection (i pay full perscribsion). I was told, (ready) Kick your husband out, claim benefit as a single mam, then you get free school dinners, free scripts, free glasses, then move him back in as your boyfriend. and get him to get sacked.
This person has been on holiday to lanzarote 4 times, has a permatan from the sunbeds, and has her nails done every 2 weeks.. right now i look like a milk bottle, the furthest out of the UK i have been is Belgium i have no nails and I'm going on my first holiday for 13 years in August.. its not the FAMILIES who are crippling us, and this is controvesial, or the politicians, its the people who have never worked, dont intend on working, and know how to stop themselves working that are crippling us..

[meellis]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

As much as I could admire the likes of Martin Lewis and Moneysaving. whatever people have got to realise that there is truth in the old saying you don't get anything for nowt. His website and the like are only encouraging people to take up these deals and to be honest why wouldn't you if people are offering them. But nobody should be foolish enough to think these things will not catch up with us. If it costs a certain amount of money to produce gas or electric, you then add on a realistic profit margin you should then have a price for it to be sold at to everyone rich or poor. If there are thousands of different tarrifs then either the cheap ones are running at a loss and are being subsidised by the more expensive ones or more likely the cheap ones are running at a small profit while the more expensive or just ripping people off. All the same the units of energy cost the same to produce. Same with the shops and there 2 for 1 offers if they can truly afford to give one away then they must be too expensive in the first place. If they can't afford to give one away they will have to make the money back somewhere. To me personally I think that is competition gone mad and in the long term is no good for anybody. I have nothing against rich people or people making lots of money if it is legal and ethical same if people have 100 houses if it is legal and ethical I do have something against scroungers and people who spend their lives taking advantage of things wether it is the working class taking advantage of the system or the rich taking advantage of poor or heaven forbid there own.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

i know i go on about Colin the Duck but, I one just for the giggle, googled the monster raving loony party and read the manifesto out loud.. then said Monster Raving Loonies?!? they are actually making sense!!
We will raise the old age pension to £2,000 a week for every pensioner who, for a period of more than 6 days, manages not to bore everyone witless about how brilliant their grandchildren are. To ease the transition period, special centres will be built where they may go once a week and rattle on about them. Unemployed people will be paid a ‘Bore Allowance’ of £27-50 a day to sit in front of them pretending to give a damn and saying “Mmm, how interesting” and “Really, well I never” and other statements as determined by the government. Tea and biscuits will be provided and the Samaritans will be on hand to council any of the ‘Bore Allowance’ volunteers.
Meals will be served on plates not on wheels.
Norman Wisdom will be made Minister of Pensions. Pensions will be raised by 100% on inflation, because I am nearly at retirement age myself.
Old age will be made officially 5 years older than you are.
All O.A.Ps will have the luxury of a woolly muff and free electric chairs
SPORT
All footballers will be made to wear slippers to make the game more interesting.
Boxing will be made obligatory for people we don’t like.
The Olympic Games will only allow British sports people to take part in order to help our gold medal chances.
In view of the new sports being introduced into the Olympic Games we intend to make ‘Synchronized farting’ a national sport and to reintroduce cheese rolling.
To keep up with the present government we promise to introduce many policies that have not been thought through properly, purely for cheap votes.
These include:
Making everyone a lottery winner
Providing beer for school children
Giving everyone a quid who votes for us
and finally
THE QUEEN
In future the National Anthem will be ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ as sung by Morecambe and Wise. It is quicker, more tuneful and people know the words. On state occasions Prince Philip will juggle his spectacles up and down and say, “Hey!” before the whole of the The Royal family do the dance off at the end. If the music can not be found because it was left in the pub then it may be substituted by ‘The Hippo Song’ by Flanders and Swann.

[Shadowcat]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

I truly believe that all these companies like the energy suppliers are cartels that do not compete but instead have a shared business plan which allows each other have the limelight for five minutes to tie people into contracts and then hike the prices and another one will drop theirs to attract more customers (not the ones who just signed up to the hiked prices one obviously), the contracts are the trap to enable them to continue this in my opinion and I wouldn't sign up to one, hence still being with the same suppliers as years ago.

Similarly, with things like washing powder, I believe they have a shared business strategy and take turns in offers to share the market.

Also, back in the day when we were told it was to become a shareholder's society, I refused on principal to buy any shares as I felt we were not only purchasing something we owned but I had a basic grasp of economics that told me pleasing the shareholder would not equate to pleasing the customer as profit would be made at any cost, good or bad.

[labman]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

One of my biggest lessons in recent years was losing my £50K+ a year salary through ill health, and having to live on £800 a month pension. Having gone through hell with debt, bailiffs etc... I've come out the other side. Gone are the days of buying on credit. We have to now live within our means. We run an old diesel car, but it does 55 mpg, everything we have, we actually own. Nothing is on credit.

I believe there is a lot of benefit in that. In my opinion, one of the biggest contributors to the situation we are in now was the culture of if you want it, have it now and worry about paying for it later. Credit was all too easy to get as the banks were throwing money at us. all those signs, the letters sent to us, everything encouraging credit. to what purpose? so we now have a high level of personal debt, and some cannot afford to pay it back either because they didn't have the intelligence (no offence intended, but not everyone is gifted intellectually), or through unfortunate circumstances like my own.

The 'Buy it now, pay later' culture has a lot to answer for. Only the very tip of iceberg I know, but a significant tip. Looking further down the iceberg reveals so many other factors that have contributed to the recession, they are too many to list.

To my mind, apportioning blame is almost irrelevant. I suspect we are all to blame in one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent. We need, as always, to learn from history, but more importantly, we need to move forward and look forward. My concern is that the 'greed factor' of so many thinking they have a God given right to a high standard of living, is possible too late to change now.

Some of us have it forced on us, but many are still very materialistic, and this breeds greed which in turn breeds borrowing / lending, then debt etc.... it is a viscious circle which will be very hard for any government to break.

Other things I may talk about later.

[Celestine]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

I truly believe that all these companies like the energy suppliers are cartels that do not compete but instead have a shared business plan which allows each other have the limelight for five minutes to tie people into contracts and then hike the prices and another one will drop theirs to attract more customers (not the ones who just signed up to the hiked prices one obviously), the contracts are the trap to enable them to continue this in my opinion and I wouldn't sign up to one, hence still being with the same suppliers as years ago.

Similarly, with things like washing powder, I believe they have a shared business strategy and take turns in offers to share the market.

Also, back in the day when we were told it was to become a shareholder's society, I refused on principal to buy any shares as I felt we were not only purchasing something we owned but I had a basic grasp of economics that told me pleasing the shareholder would not equate to pleasing the customer as profit would be made at any cost, good or bad.

I've often thought the same Shadow, especially with the energy companies. Cartel like behaviour but not done in a manner that the regulators can do anything about.

[Celestine]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

The 'Buy it now, pay later' culture has a lot to answer for. Only the very tip of iceberg I know, but a significant tip. Looking further down the iceberg reveals so many other factors that have contributed to the recession, they are too many to list.

To my mind, apportioning blame is almost irrelevant. I suspect we are all to blame in one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent. We need, as always, to learn from history, but more importantly, we need to move forward and look forward. My concern is that the 'greed factor' of so many thinking they have a God given right to a high standard of living, is possible too late to change now.

Some of us have it forced on us, but many are still very materialistic, and this breeds greed which in turn breeds borrowing / lending, then debt etc.... it is a viscious circle which will be very hard for any government to break.

Other things I may talk about later.

Having just spent 5 hours on the train alone, I spent my time earwigging others conversations! It was a fascinating snap shot of our society.

Young family: Off to see Shrek the musical. Listening to the strands of conversation I felt great despair. Designer brand names, pop groups, Jesse J, Cars, a very expensive fish tank that was being installed. Hearing the dad raving about a £400 Dory Fish (see sig below) he was getting was particularly depressing. Conversation WITH kids NON existent. No looking for interesting things out of window, no talk about school, the world, real people. Consequently kids behaviour was pretty poor.

My parents used to talk to us properly and expect us to join in 'adult' conversations. They didn't swear in front of us (apart from if mum burnt her hand on the oven lol) and we learnt a lot from them. And the conversations were almost never about designer brands, new cars, designer fish tanks, etc etc

[Shadowcat]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

I'm so excited at my impending grandson. We will go leaf-finding in October and make leaf tracings, he'll learn cricket (I'm working on persuading daughter on that one), we'll talk, read and listen to music and I'll take possession of a piggy bank that I'll buy, and each week he'll get £2 to put into it only to be taken out annually.... Until he's a teenager and the aliens take the reasonable grandson and put Kevin the teenager in his place, then I'll rethink strategy.

[Celestine]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

Seems our thoughts are very bang on topic!

Middle-class children 'hear 23MILLION more words than poorer children before they start school' | Mail Online

[wales01man]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

First time ive read this thread interesting replies but never fear i will take all the blame for the countries money problems might as well, itried in business started to succeed borowed money to grow started growing the business as appens then bang reccession business fails both of them not the reccessions fault mine for having ambition so let me take the blame not the rest of the country cant get worse for my debt situation although im not bitter it would have been great to have been a success ive seen others who started the same type of businesses become rich not me maybe everthing else thats good in my life may have gone wrong or worse but its sods law ?