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March 28, 2024, 10:30:02 AM

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The Recession and You

Started by 23 Daves, August 30, 2008, 12:00:16 PM

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Jack Shaftoe

Maybe that's the sequel?

Or maybe, to continue the theme, the next book comes with a supply of magical glittering fairy dust that you put up your nose to make you feel like you have the best ideas in the world! Until you bloat up, and run out, and none of the other bitch fairies will lend you any magic dust 'just to get you through the week'.

I do think though, that schools have a responsibility to teach children about finance, as well as the basic psychological tricks applied by advertisers to get their cash. Also: hand to hand combat.

Quote from: Backstage With Slowdive on September 01, 2008, 10:30:24 AM
Is that IT-related? I've heard that IT recruitment in the City hasn't been hit by the crunch, regardless of how the other departments are doing.

No, it's in tax.  There are some departments in companies which can only be trimmed down so far and ours has been relatively undermanned in the "good" times, so no scope for getting rid of people.  I think that's the same for a lot of companies.

Backstage With Slowdive

Schools have a responsibility to teach kids about long division and the Corn Laws.

biggytitbo

#63
Quote from: Jack Shaftoe on September 01, 2008, 10:33:37 AM
Maybe that's the sequel?

Or maybe, to continue the theme, the next book comes with a supply of magical glittering fairy dust that you put up your nose to make you feel like you have the best ideas in the world! Until you bloat up, and run out, and none of the other bitch fairies will lend you any magic dust 'just to get you through the week'.

I do think though, that schools have a responsibility to teach children about finance, as well as the basic psychological tricks applied by advertisers to get their cash. Also: hand to hand combat.

If schools did teach kids about finance they wouldn't teach them anything close to approximating the truth. Our fraudulent banking and finance system is so ingrained within the mentality of the state, and so much of it revolves around our exploitation in the economy that children would be taught to be ignorant about its true nature.

They should at the very least be taught these things -

1 - Banking is a sytem designed to transfer the wealth of the many into the hands of the few.
2 - The vast majority of money in the economy doesn't exist as anything other than imagined debt.
3 - The only thing of any genuine worth in the exchange when you take out a loan or a mortgage is your signature.
4 - Bankers can never lose
5 - Bankers are cunts, liars and criminals

Shoulders?-Stomach!

When they talk about a recession on TV I'm still wondering whether this recession is either happening or going to happen. Obviously you can see the prices rising with food, petrol and utilities especially expensive, but for myself and the people around me it just seems like a little belt-tightening and nothing serious.

In terms of tackling the problem with unemployment, the government needed to make it easy for smaller businesses to start up in order to generate jobs. One method of doing this is to make credit easier to come by. This did work and opened up lots of job opportunities and medium-sized businesses also took advantage of this. At that point it becomes the businesses responsibilities to run their affairs properly and make some money to repay the flexibility afforded to them.

The trouble is that the relationship between employer and their employees is symbiotic but in a market such as this, the business loses respect for the employee in the search for profits and cost-cutting.

The credit crunch has come about due to a massively unscrupulous and unethical use of money essentially lent to businesses by governments and employees. Some of these businesses far outrank governments and unions in terms of power and importance.

The growth forecast and greed-ethics were always unsustainable. I think in the future we will have a reappraisal of the purposes for why businesses exist. If the state can't rein exploitation, greed and the country's reliance on dwindling resources then it can't be doing anything but travelling head-on for disaster. If a government surrenders its ability to protect its own citizens then it can't promise anything, let alone deliver anything.

Perhaps this is why we are seeing the emergence of a control-freak Home Office. When you lose something you hold on to what you have even tighter.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on September 01, 2008, 11:11:10 AM
When they talk about a recession on TV I'm still wondering whether this recession is either happening or going to happen. Obviously you can see the prices rising with food, petrol and utilities especially expensive, but for myself and the people around me it just seems like a little belt-tightening and nothing serious.

In terms of tackling the problem with unemployment, the government needed to make it easy for smaller businesses to start up in order to generate jobs. One method of doing this is to make credit easier to come by. This did work and opened up lots of job opportunities and medium-sized businesses also took advantage of this. At that point it becomes the businesses responsibilities to run their affairs properly and make some money to repay the flexibility afforded to them.

The trouble is that the relationship between employer and their employees is symbiotic but in a market such as this, the business loses respect for the employee in the search for profits and cost-cutting.

The credit crunch has come about due to a massively unscrupulous and unethical use of money essentially lent to businesses by governments and employees. Some of these businesses far outrank governments and unions in terms of power and importance.

The growth forecast and greed-ethics were always unsustainable. I think in the future we will have a reappraisal of the purposes for why businesses exist. If the state can't rein exploitation, greed and the country's reliance on dwindling resources then it can't be doing anything but travelling head-on for disaster. If a government surrenders its ability to protect its own citizens then it can't promise anything, let alone deliver anything.

Perhaps this is why we are seeing the emergence of a control-freak Home Office. When you lose something you hold on to what you have even tighter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7591072.stm

QuoteCrime levels are set to rise as a result of the economic downturn, according to a leaked Home Office letter.

Good job they brought in all those authoritarian laws then!

Part of the problem of business is this relatively modern idea of the 'corporation' and needs of shareholders. This has created a mentaility of perpetual growth at all costs which is completely unsustainable and actually incredibly destructive environmentally and socially. The only aim of business now seems to be endless growth and profit - primarily through debt - rather than consolidation, sound fundamentals and good practise. That's not sustainable business, its cancer. That's what our economic system has become - a big aggressive tumour eating away at everything of any worth or value.

MojoJojo

That's pretty much one of the main theme's of Brave New World. The problem in our godless society is that economic growth has become an end in itself. We are obsessed with the idea of building a giant machine that can be used to be build an even bigger machine, which in turn can be used to build an even bigger machine... and so on.

George Oscar Bluth II

When I was in school HSBC came in one week to speak to us in that hour of the week that's reserved for talking about sex or drugs or whatever and explained what a bank was, how they'd give us money for putting our money in there and that, if we set up an account, they'd give us a free pen.

Of course pretty much everyone did, but even my 13 year old self could see how brazen the whole thing was. That's pretty much the only education we ever had in financial matters.

Oh, and economic downturn annoyance of the week: any advert that mentions how "we're all feeling the pinch". Tesco, Hastings car insurance and a couple of others I've counted pulling this little stunt. Makes me want to scream "you're not you fucking pricks" at the TV.

Jack Shaftoe

Here's the fairy shopping book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fairy-Shopping-Sally-Gardner/dp/1842551949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220272367&sr=8-1

Customer quote: "My 10 years old and her friend spent ages making up a "shopping list" of items they wanted to "buy" for their fairys. The fairy credit card is a real bonus and a big hit with my girl."

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Jemble Fred

Aha yes, I think that's part of a tacky series that I remember when I was unemployed, desperately trying to get my own children's books published, and I got a cash-in-hand job packing up... children's books. I did indeed feel like flobbing on every brainless tome I shoved into the cardboard packaging.

Bitterbitterbitterbitter.

The Widow of Brid

She's also, apparently, the author of the fairy catalogue.

"To order any item from our treasure trove of goods, all you need to do is WISH! Because, dear children, your imagination is worth more than fairy gold."

It has to be a joke, I'm sure. The review mentions quirky humour and I can't imagine any child reacting well to shit like that sentence.