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Predictions - When will we see some kind of "normality"?.


Butch

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I was going to run a poll, but I thought better to read opinions.

We were happily bumbling along pre covid. apart from Greta turdburg doing her thing, it was all fine and dandy. Cheap food, cheap energy, cheap flights and cheap bank loans.

Then a pandemic hit us. 2020 to early / mid 2022 before we could show our faces in public again, travel, work and socialise. Now we're paying for it, but we are hit with a double edged sword. Massively increased energy bills, inflation in double digits and no end in sight. Factor in monkeypox for some extra worry, and it all looks a bit depressing. Also, we've a labour shortage in the UK, supply chain issues, strikes from all and sundry and for a while, we had the threat of being nuked by Russia.

I chat to my Dad a fair bit, he said it was similar during the War. There was a depression before it (he was too young to recall), a load of crap during it, and a bloody hard time recovering from it. I remember the dark days of the 80's, unemployment, the cold war and real social division.

seems we go from one bad time to another, and the bits inbetween are great if you're rich but still suck if you're poor.

We're all doomed...doomed I tell ya.

 

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Brought it on ourselves.

Brexit caused the labour shortage, Eastern European workers were doing the minimum wage jobs in retail and hospitality for example.

Too reliant on foreign energy and imported goods due to people not wanting to pay more for British manufactured goods.

And so on.....

But let's blame it all on Covid and Russians invading Ukraine.

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1 hour ago, galenkia said:

Brought it on ourselves.

Brexit caused the labour shortage, Eastern European workers were doing the minimum wage jobs in retail and hospitality for example.

Too reliant on foreign energy and imported goods due to people not wanting to pay more for British manufactured goods.

And so on.....

But let's blame it all on Covid and Russians invading Ukraine.

All is a bit much, but even with Brexit, Covid and Russians invading Ukraine should get at least 75% of the blame, as those are hitting pretty hard in the rest of Europe as well.

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Gents, it's not about attributing blame, moreover the cycles we seem to have over time. The situation today has its reasons, as many after the War were still blaming Hitler for being on rations, but doing so still didn't alleviate the situation.

@Freee!!when I say normality, it's hard (almost impossible) to define. I guess I'm on about when we're not mid pandemic and in an enforced lockdown along with being strongly advised to get jabbed (although national vaccination policies are nothing new) and now we're facing an out of the ordinary level of inflation.

As I said elsewhere, our parents and grandparents managed to cope without Central heating in our houses, my Grandad managed to still feed his family (My Nan died young) during a period of depression but the "good times" back then still weren't that good.

Just seems that for a lot of people, life is getting more and more challenging, and it's not their fault.

 

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I blame the baht bus drivers.Were certainly not back to normal in some places,while waiting on a bus yesterday to granada from malaga,i realised i had to have a mask,nipped back in airport friggin 3 euros ! thats not normal,kickin myself cos all those free masks on the rig i threw in the bin,while the rest of us want to just get on with it,still have the assholes making a big deal of things for profit.Apart from that i also blame the tories.😊

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Put it this way Butch , the prices are up there in U.K now..

You never see them come down people pay , prices stay .

This is here to stay.

As for travel I've no idea about prices I suppose if you want to go you have to pay at the minute.

Managed to get to Ibiza twice as well as Thailand in December / January no idea about Thailand now , but fuel/food prices are up in Spain too.

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14 hours ago, Butch said:

Cheap food, cheap energy, cheap flights and cheap bank loans.

We were living on cheap money for far too long,interest rates were held artificially low and eventually the bubble was going to burst.

Covid & Ukraine merely accelerated it.

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The generation that I was born into have probably had it the best it's ever going to be.  As Butch mentioned, it's hard to imagine what life must have been like during WW2 and perhaps our generation doesn't have the fight now we  have headed into difficult times, particularly the Pandemic and all of the knock on effects now on the economy and labour shortages. Then add on the Invasion of Ukraine and subsequent rise in fuel prices and the early negative effects of Brexit. All 3 have come around in the last 3 years. 

Nothing feels normal to me anymore, at least what normality was maybe 4 or 5 years ago.

The world has changed fairly rapidly.

I can only speak for UK, but I think the next generations will end up paying for Covid. That isn't a criticism about the way Covid was handled, but the actual costs to the Country to try and keep us afloat during lockdown.

Whilst Covid infections are less harmful now, the effects of the Pandemic still haunt us and it hasn't gone away yet  

I think it will take at least 10 years before we see a real economic recovery and that is dependent on eventual world peace and political stability. Some of may be brown bread by then. 

We now live longer than probably at any time in history, but the quality of that longer life is being eroded. 

We have no choice but to adapt to change, that's nature's way. But right now that process is hard for many as we only have our own past to compare with. We can only relate to our own standards of living, whereas in many parts of the world, people have been struggling for years.

We can't expect governments alone to make everything right again. 

Normality is relative. 

For me personally, it's been more than Covid/Brexit etc and my health changed a lot just before Covid struck. I have had to adapt to ageing and long term effects of treatment  

On the plus side though, we have food on our tables, and all of us here have a roof over our heads, albeit getting more expensive. We can travel again, and enjoy holidays again and spend more time with our loved ones and love dones. 

Change is hard for all of us, but we shall eventually adapt to a new normal

Amen 😀

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1 hour ago, coxyhog said:

We were living on cheap money for far too long,interest rates were held artificially low and eventually the bubble was going to burst.

Covid & Ukraine merely accelerated it.

People took on too much cheap debt, like it was gonna stay like that forever.

Look at the 80's housing market, interest rates went up and many got repossessed.

Can see it happening again. 

Everyone living on borrowed money they could barely afford before all this.

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In my view too much money was given as free handouts during Covid.  At one point the UK Government was paying out 80% of salaries to staff who were not able to work.  Some support was needed for firms during Covid restrictions, however my view is that the 80% level was far too high.  Additionally a lot of public money was given out as grants to various businesses and local authorities.  

The Government did not have this money and hence National Debt level increased.  Higher National Debt means higher interest rates at some point with the consequent negative effect on cash flow and day to day banking businesses by firms.

It is speculation but I wonder whether the great 'Rishi Sunak give aways' and his subsequent popularity was all part of his leadership bid/plans.

The media have also made the most out of the increased costs of living.  The media realised what power they have in the way they were able to keep the Downing Street Parties stories going; these ultimately contributing to the fall of the Prime Minister.

Once anything averse to stable government occurs the Trade Union Movement capitalise on it and the current wave of politically motivated strikes are also having a negative effect.

Many reasons for the situation including those stated in earlier posts by other members, however I suggest the above have and are now playing a major part.

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55 minutes ago, john luke said:

In my view too much money was given as free handouts during Covid.  At one point the UK Government was paying out 80% of salaries to staff who were not able to work.  Some support was needed for firms during Covid restrictions, however my view is that the 80% level was far too high.  Additionally a lot of public money was given out as grants to various businesses and local authorities.  

The Government did not have this money and hence National Debt level increased.  Higher National Debt means higher interest rates at some point with the consequent negative effect on cash flow and day to day banking businesses by firms.

It is speculation but I wonder whether the great 'Rishi Sunak give aways' and his subsequent popularity was all part of his leadership bid/plans.

The media have also made the most out of the increased costs of living.  The media realised what power they have in the way they were able to keep the Downing Street Parties stories going; these ultimately contributing to the fall of the Prime Minister.

Once anything averse to stable government occurs the Trade Union Movement capitalise on it and the current wave of politically motivated strikes are also having a negative effect.

Many reasons for the situation including those stated in earlier posts by other members, however I suggest the above have and are now playing a major part.

Certainly some of the business loans given out of up to 5k were certainly abused and easy to obtain. They were not underwritten by banks and the Government will have no chance of claiming back many of them, cerainly not legally. 

That said the Furlow scheme did benefit many during lockdown. 

There are lots of staff shortages everywhere, noticeable when shopping, dining and even call centre wait times for banks mobile phone and energy companies. But it appears that low paid jobs are not attractive to some who can get more on benefits as opposed to zero hours contracts. 

Heathrow is an example where many left their jobs, especially ground and air crews and have not returned, partly because of change of contracts being less attractive. 

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credit, HP and cards was too easy by far to get before, and of course when things went a bit off, the banks cut people credit lines making their overdrafts and credit cards worthless, and instead a long term debt.  ( revolving credit is a joke).  one of todays issues is that interest rates have been so stupidly low that people bought houses thinking they would always be so low.  in fact people with savings have been getting fuck all which is crazy.  mortgages  have, of course, to go back to the old norm.

 

here  in thailand , we had a double dip on covid.  first year that the rest of the world, ie europe etc, had it.. well according to the experts, we didnt.  but instead had zero tourism, which f'd us all.  THEN we got it too, so were a year behind.

 

this will be my third or fourth global recession, or actually depression.  I lost a fortune in the dot com bubble of old, thru those ghastly insurance policies that promise to pay off peoples mortgages, Lost all the equity in my house with mrs. thatcher too.. the flipside is that other times i did rather well.  so life, as always is and was a roller coaster.

 

"bumbling along happily before covid"  hmm. things were already on the slide, just not discussed.  here we had no high season really the winter BEFORE covid, people forget that.  low interest rates and cheap food hid the bigger issues and fucked people up and down teh food chain. 

short answer.. there is no norm, only lulls, highs and lows.

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2 hours ago, john luke said:

In my view too much money was given as free handouts during Covid.  At one point the UK Government was paying out 80% of salaries to staff who were not able to work.  Some support was needed for firms during Covid restrictions, however my view is that the 80% level was far too high.  Additionally a lot of public money was given out as grants to various businesses and local authorities.  

The Government did not have this money and hence National Debt level increased.  Higher National Debt means higher interest rates at some point with the consequent negative effect on cash flow and day to day banking businesses by firms.

It is speculation but I wonder whether the great 'Rishi Sunak give aways' and his subsequent popularity was all part of his leadership bid/plans.

The media have also made the most out of the increased costs of living.  The media realised what power they have in the way they were able to keep the Downing Street Parties stories going; these ultimately contributing to the fall of the Prime Minister.

Once anything averse to stable government occurs the Trade Union Movement capitalise on it and the current wave of politically motivated strikes are also having a negative effect.

Many reasons for the situation including those stated in earlier posts by other members, however I suggest the above have and are now playing a major part.

Same in the US. The previous administration's impotent Covid response and subsequent knee jerk economic stimulus programs were met with unbridled corporate greed and runaway fraud.

The US government policy to isolate China prior to Covid -- and especially during -- has lead to a new world order of militarized isolationism. And greed

Add in a mad Russian dictator trying to destroy his neighbor for sport & financial gain.

Greed rules the day now and, as always, the little guy suffers the most.

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5 hours ago, john luke said:

In my view too much money was given as free handouts during Covid.  At one point the UK Government was paying out 80% of salaries to staff who were not able to work.  Some support was needed for firms during Covid restrictions, however my view is that the 80% level was far too high.  Additionally a lot of public money was given out as grants to various businesses and local authorities.  

The Government did not have this money and hence National Debt level increased.  Higher National Debt means higher interest rates at some point with the consequent negative effect on cash flow and day to day banking businesses by firms.

It is speculation but I wonder whether the great 'Rishi Sunak give aways' and his subsequent popularity was all part of his leadership bid/plans.

The media have also made the most out of the increased costs of living.  The media realised what power they have in the way they were able to keep the Downing Street Parties stories going; these ultimately contributing to the fall of the Prime Minister.

Once anything averse to stable government occurs the Trade Union Movement capitalise on it and the current wave of politically motivated strikes are also having a negative effect.

Many reasons for the situation including those stated in earlier posts by other members, however I suggest the above have and are now playing a major part.

The Covid money was madness. Self employed working and getting thousands in payments. People working other Jobs while claiming 80% etc.

Tens of billions defrauded and will never be got back.

People registered companies at a ridiculous rate.

Proper mess this current government has made of handling the economy.

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