MissPrism

Three houses near me are having substantial extensions built.
I think that many people will extend rather than moving up on the housing ladder.

afterall

Rickmay,

As tourists how could you notice anything different? An extra 10p on a cup of coffee? Would it make any difference to you on your one week trip? I doubt it.

What you are really asking is has the UK economy gone belly-up. And as an American you'd be happy if it had.

But if it has it will be mainly down to the absolute crap systems you have in the US for monitoring financial activity.

Because of your government's no questions asked approach to financial matters, the global monetary system is close to meltdown, and yet you have the gall to ask if prices in the UK have gone up.

Now I want to hear from you your thoughts on how the house of cards can be kept standing.

Waiting.

travelgourmet

<i>But if it has it will be mainly down to the absolute crap systems you have in the US for monitoring financial activity.

Because of your government's no questions asked approach to financial matters, the global monetary system is close to meltdown, and yet you have the gall to ask if prices in the UK have gone up.</i>

Oh please. The European banks are supposedly run by grown-ups. Don't blame the US because they made some bad investments. Everyone in the UK was more than happy to revel in the money while it was being made. But now you want to whine about it and blame someone else?

And who said the global monetary system was headed for meltdown? Zero growth isn't fun, but there are no signs of substantial contractions in either the US or Europe. Inflation is a bit high, but this has much more to do with demand than any problems from the housing crisis. Just because the Euro and Pound are dropping from unsustainable highs does not indicate a meltdown.

Josser

What you are really asking is has the UK economy gone belly-up. And as an American you'd be happy if it had

Come on now.
Rickmav is/are one/two of the more civilised posters on this forum.
I'm not even sure that they are American.

rickmav

Thanks Josser. And as for Afterall, I am a Canadian, and even if it was relevant to my question, I doubt my government had anything to do with the BBC story I was referring to. Also, I never said I was going for a week, we will be in England for three weeks. We go every two years and I was simply curious whether - again, based on articles I've been reading on the BBC website - we will notice anything different. I also wanted to know whether the English people posting on this board, some of whom I've become a little fond of, are 'hurting' at all. Civil questions that I think deserve civil answers.

BTilke

We have seen a significant slowdown in hiring. I work in what has been a high demand field and a year ago (more or less) I could swan around one of the most popular UK/EU job web sites (for my &quot;industry&quot;, not a general site like monster.co.uk) and dozens of jobs would have been listed. Now, there are only about half a dozen for this particular field; in one sub-category, there only 2 vacancies compared to about 10 or 15 a year ago. Either companies aren't hiring or people aren't changing jobs due to jitters about job security. Or both. (and that does take into account the normal post summer holiday lag in vacancy notices on this site)

travelgourmet

And to bring this back around to travel, the sagging economy is blamed for the failure of XL Group.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS....ap/index.html

DeepaSingapore

Time to short the Sterling and the Euro!

afterall

Travelgourmet,

If the sub-prime fiasco wasn't the trigger for the current financial instability, then do please use your extensive knowledge to provide an alternative analysis.

Looking forward to learning something from it.

travelgourmet

<i>If the sub-prime fiasco wasn't the trigger for the current financial instability, then do please use your extensive knowledge to provide an alternative analysis.</i>

That wasn't your point. Your point was that the UK economy was tanking because of poor US financial controls. But the problem with that is that a) the UK has their own mortgage problems, and b) nobody forced UK banks to get into bed with the US banks. The UK could have forbidden their banks from making sub-prime loans or buying mortgage-backed securities, but they didn't. Don't blame the US (or US regulators) for selling financial instruments that so many people in so many countries were happy to buy. The UK didn't stop Northern Rock from crisis any more than the US regulators managed to keep Bear Stearns from death's door.

And besides, it is unclear exactly what financial instability you are talking about. Inflation? This is demand driven, as commodity prices were rising rapidly, well before the sub-prime crisis took root. The sub-prime crisis should work to diminish inflation. The declining value of the Pound or Euro? They were overvalued during the first half of the year and a correction was inevitable.

So there is a slowdown in growth, this stuff happens every once in a while. And besides, much of the previous growth was driven (especially in London), by the same high-risk banking activities that you are now upset about. You can't whine about the downside after keeping your mouth shut while riding the upside. You want all of the benefits of a high-risk banking sector, but none of the downside.

MissPrism

I hear that Thorntons are doing very well at the moment.
We are all buying shoes and stuffing ourselves with choccies to cheer ourselves up.