There goes civilisation...

bleak times ahead?

lehman brothers have just filed for bankruptsy.

surely this means we're tumbling into weird financial times...

It means the level of silly betting on silly things in the future in an attempt to reduce the risk to future investment will become in itself more risky and require betting against.

It will make things worse, and not better.

When one business dies another is born.

there will be more to come, the fed isn't going to bail out any more banks after FaM/FrM,
here in the U.K there are a few banks that are penuriously close to a Northern Rock situation, i expect Moron Brown to throw a few more billion of taxpayers money at them.

seen the first repossession in my street and 2 bars closed due to bankruptcy in my local high st.
before christmas i expect to see the first "been made redundant :-( " posts on this forum.

don't buy that stupid overpriced piece of NJS tat save money instead, the average person in the u.k. only has enough money to cover their living expenses for 56days if they loose their job.

at least the sun is shining today :-)

When one business dies another is born.

when giants collapse, they tend to crush rather a lot of people underneath them.

I'm a buyer of the banking sector

Interesting times.
Incidentally, an acquaintance of mine has worked for the following firms over the past 2 years:

Northern Rock
Bear Stearns
Lehman Bros
Bradford & Bingley

Quite a CV

Broker, how's the bonus looking this year?

Friend of mine is just being made redundant - from an architects.
Tried to give her £5k for 14 years with them. Tight fuckers

There is not civilization, its just a list of cultures Chuck Norris has left standing

^ I heard Chuck once counted to infinity... twice

Broker, how's the bonus looking this year?

It would be uncouth of me to say (AKA not good)

Chuck Norris doesn't shower, he only takes blood baths.

friend jumped ship from lehmans last year, sold his house and opened up a bike shop. fucking good timing!

We were destined a few causalities hardly Armageddon.
I hear AIG is another going back cap in hand - be great to see them go under and pull a few pennies out of Utd!

This just means more regulation, increase in rates to cover piss poor management and the hike in administration costs.

In all honesty i think it's a good thing. Those who will get fucked over haven't managed themselves well enough. (yes there are exceptions)
I remember reading about one of the Northern Rock victims. 125% mortgage based on 4 times one salary. pictured in a house filled with kids toys, leather sofas, fk off TV's etc etc.. Nai fookin pity!

^ I heard Chuck once counted to infinity... twice

It would be uncouth of me to say (AKA not good)

in hindsight it's a cheap shot for me to ask.

i asked somebody in the bike trade how this was affecting them (big importer of bikes/bits/accessories) but they had more growth than predicted and they expect the high end road stuff to sell well, can't afford a Porsche because your bonus is shit? buy a 5k bling road machine!

I have to say that the state of mortgage lending was something I really struggled with when I started looking here (as upose to in my native canadia) It didn't make sense to me and I didn't understand why young people, some as young as early 20s were so egar to extend themselves so massively.
Now - I have to say this doesn't surprise me at all

I have to say that the state of mortgage lending was something I really struggled with when I started looking here (as upose to in my native canadia) It didn't make sense to me and I didn't understand why young people, some as young as early 20s were so egar to extend themselves so massively.
Now - I have to say this doesn't surprise me at all

Me neither.
easy credit, so called 'liar loans' , the "me want it now" attitude their parents didn't have, so called 'experts' in the media like sarah beeny and that dark haired one telling people to Buy! Buy! Buy! when technically they are giving financial advice on prime time T.V. without being qualified or regulated by the FSA, peoples inability to look back at historic price crashes that happen every 12-16 years, the belief that 10% increases are sustainable every year even though wages are static (or falling when indexed to inflation). anybody who brought into this speculative investment scheme with such high leveredge ratios deserves what's coming to them.
i sometimes think people spend more time researching their next gas-guzzler 4x4 or 40in plasma tv than their single biggest purchase of their lifetime that they will spend 25years paying off, some even fail to realise how much they pay over the term (example 100K 25year 5.5% = 186k of payments)

end of rant.

First the bankers, then the photographers, then the people who write shit music for telly ads, that's always the order.

i don't understand any of this shit. i've done the economics a-level and i read the papers etc, but it's just all so abstract. i wonder if anyone truly has a handle on it. i feel so far removed from it all, especially being a student (I have this week moved home to my parents house to save money :( ). I know the so-called 'credit crunch' (how i hate that expression) has real consequences for ordinary people, but i can't help but feel it's just so abstract. money in general is a system developed by people and has no place in nature. i just feel like it's all bollocks. whilst all this politicised economic shite swirls around above all of our heads, we'll only really comprehend it the day we fail to make a payment or whatever.

That David Mitchell bloke off the telly made some flippant remark about it a few weeks ago and it really stuck with me "It's just a lot of arsehole city bankers make stupid bets with numbers on screens. None of it is real, it's not going to cause a house to burn down because none of it really exists" (or words to that effect).

I supposed I just like things to be real, hence why i like riding. just thought i'd put that out there.

MrSmith you got no mortgage debt?

Beer prices for one of the sh!tty beer co.s go up this week too. End of Days.

First the bankers, then the photographers, then the people who write shit music for telly ads, that's always the order.

Oh yeah, and sex workers, they get it bad in these sorts of situations, looks like Hippy's Specialized might be up for sale soon . . . .

I took [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Taleb"]Nassim Nicholas Taleb[/ame]'s books on holiday, very interesting reading given current events.

First the bankers, then the photographers, then the people who write shit music for telly ads, that's always the order.

those fkrs pushing jingles for loan consolidation should be the first to go and their mind warping work should be replaced with some sombre holocaust influenced jazz that runs over adverts for companies looking to buy your vital organs for cash....

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