small buisnesses about to go bust

[jimmy2x3]

looking at china, then italy. then talking to local buisneses here in a holiday town and if things get worse and everyone says including the government that they will then we are looking at the fastest, biggest crash in uk buisness history. These companies in a 1000 towns up and down the uk depend on a 6 month window to make their money, often working 7day weeks, 14 hr days for 6 months. and we are just at the start of the tourist season. it effects millions of people mostly just small buisneses and at the worse possible time just after the winter lay off.

this virus is going to affect every single person financially in the uk. 

 

[Si1]

I think we may be staring down the barrel of a multi year liquidity trap

[TheCountOfNowhere]

6 minutes ago, Si1 said:

I think we may be staring down the barrel of a multi year liquidity trap

Think we already were. Didn't carney say this? 

 

After Christmas ive heard plenty people talk about losing jobs, worried about jobs. 

The virus might accelerate the decline but it was baked in. The new paradigm was just the old paradigm with fancy nickers on. 

 

 

[stop_the_craziness]

Silver lining?  All those over-leveraged BTL merchants who converted their places to holiday lets/Airbnb in order to get around S24.

[Pop321]

8 hours ago, stop_the_craziness said:

Silver lining?  All those over-leveraged BTL merchants who converted their places to holiday lets/Airbnb in order to get around S24.

Interesting. And maybe ?

Our town has a strong full year demand for Air BnB, hotels and actual BnBs but even here some are struggling anyway with over supply and costs.

Only concern is that it’s probably the actual BnBs that may suffer the most because (in this town) they seem to be the most vulnerable. 

[regprentice]

Been surprised at a few redundancy headlines this week- small businesses (or at least local or regional ones)... Numbers in the hundreds, all taken together I'd imagine they are a bad as a big bank letting 2000 go, but perhaps worse as they are largely in more rural locations. 

Anglian water 200 redundancies 2/3/20

N Brown head office (Birmingham) 120 redundancies 3/3/20

Royal Mail Bristol sorting office 100 redundancies 28/2/20

Ted Baker Head Office London 104 redundancies 26/2/20

Ricardo engineering Shoreham 50 redundancies 28/2/20

Maersk maidenhead 150 redundancies 3/3/20

Direct line 800 redundancies at various locations, mainly Ipswich and Bromley, 3/3/20

British steel scunthorpe/teesside 400 redundancies 3/3/20

Drax (coal power station) North Yorkshire 230 redundancies 27/2/20

IBM gts tech svs 240 redundancies 27/2/20

Aviva Sheffield 27 redundancies whole department of specialist IT jobs 3/3/20

Lloyds branch network 780 redundancies 26/2/20

Redland bakers West Country 50 redundancies (6 branches) 3/3/20

Home office comms dept London 60 redundancies 28/2/20 described as the Cummings effect

Styles and wood construction Liverpool 340 redundancies 27/2/20

Been a busy/grim week for a lot of people. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by regprentice

[dougless]

I agree, things looked grim long before this health scare and yet the Tories keep telling us the economy is doing well.  Do they really think anyone believes them?

[TwoWolves]

Yup. Budget set for massive tax increases as if the economy is booming. This government is run by the stupid.

Need to cut, cut, cut - stimulate demand side.

 

[Simhadri]

8 hours ago, TwoWolves said:

Yup. Budget set for massive tax increases as if the economy is booming. This government is run by the stupid.

Need to cut, cut, cut - stimulate demand side.

 

Exactly. They're pretending as if corona virus is the cause of slowing economy. 

[17clarence]

Airbnb'ers are going to get hammered.

Tourism is down fullstop, and while you may have some faith that hotels will properly sanitise the room/bathroom, doors etc, there is no such comfort in an airbnb. If they drop prices to attract people, even less chance they will squander on cleaning.

[scottbeard]

13 hours ago, dougless said:

I agree, things looked grim long before this health scare and yet the Tories keep telling us the economy is doing well.  Do they really think anyone believes them?

If you only list job cut figures and not new jobs created of course it looks grim

Whats the net figure...?

[regprentice]

5 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

If you only list job cut figures and not new jobs created of course it looks grim

Whats the net figure...?

The main ONS numbers are here. These are 'seasonally adjusted estimates' and its an odd dataset to analyse as its quarterly numbers reported every month. The part time numbers look to have dropped in the last 6 months and the permanent jobs slowly risen, but the part time numbers seem very seasonal (summer vs winter) so I'm not sure much can be read into that. 

Next stats published 17/3 

[zilly]

17 hours ago, dougless said:

I agree, things looked grim long before this health scare and yet the Tories keep telling us the economy is doing well.  Do they really think anyone believes them?

Well they genuinely believe it's doing well because theirs is the world of stock and property portfolios. That is their 'economy' - the world of money (mostly in the form of debt), not tangible product. And it's been doing just dandy.

A low-wage, low-skill, expendable cabal of 'gig workers' suits them just fine, as it does their future employers in The City.

However underneath the soaring stockmarkets and bubbles in all assets predicated on artificially manipulated interest rates, the reality of the hollowing out of the productive manufacturing sector is revealing itself now.

It's the same in the USA, but at least Trump for all his faults seems to acknowledge they need their factories back. Complete silence over here from our political overlords - too much of an uncomfortable truth, and as long as "I'm alright Jack " (the Tory manifesto summed up in a single phrase) HEY why rock the boat?

So it depends on which economy you're talking about - the one in which wealthy speculators operate, or the one which most of us schlubs are part of I guess.

[Bluestone59]

43 minutes ago, zilly said:

Well they genuinely believe it's doing well because theirs is the world of stock and property portfolios. That is their 'economy' - the world of money (mostly in the form of debt), not tangible product. And it's been doing just dandy.

A low-wage, low-skill, expendable cabal of 'gig workers' suits them just fine, as it does their future employers in The City.

However underneath the soaring stockmarkets and bubbles in all assets predicated on artificially manipulated interest rates, the reality of the hollowing out of the productive manufacturing sector is revealing itself now.

It's the same in the USA, but at least Trump for all his faults seems to acknowledge they need their factories back. Complete silence over here from our political overlords - too much of an uncomfortable truth, and as long as "I'm alright Jack " (the Tory manifesto summed up in a single phrase) HEY why rock the boat?

So it depends on which economy you're talking about - the one in which wealthy speculators operate, or the one which most of us schlubs are part of I guess.

+1.  Spot on summary imho.

[dougless]

Zilly has nailed it.

I wish our society was more equitable as it would ultimately benefit us all, collectively.  I fear we are still in Gordon Gecko land and its hard not to despise the Tories.  I am constantly amazed that anyone could vote for them with a clear conscious..

[scottbeard]

1 hour ago, dougless said:

I wish our society was more equitable as it would ultimately benefit us all, collectively.  I fear we are still in Gordon Gecko land and its hard not to despise the Tories.  I am constantly amazed that anyone could vote for them with a clear conscious..

To be honest, that sums Labour's policies up for the last 10 years.

Step 1- put forward a well-meaning agenda that doesn't actually appeal to enough people.

Step 2 - act amazed when they lose yet another election.

I didn't actually vote Tory last time, because I don't trust Boris.  But equally, I didn't vote Labour because - frankly - they would have been even worse.  I don't see the country crying out for 1970s policies in the 2020s, and for Diane Abbott to be put in charge of anything more complex than a jumble sale stall.  We shouldn't have to choose between liars and anachronists, and yet that was the choice we were given.

[MARTINX9]

13 hours ago, dougless said:

Zilly has nailed it.

I wish our society was more equitable as it would ultimately benefit us all, collectively.  I fear we are still in Gordon Gecko land and its hard not to despise the Tories.  I am constantly amazed that anyone could vote for them with a clear conscious..

The biggest disparities arose under new Labour - buy to let was small scale in 1997 but rose ten fold under Blair and Brown along with a four fold rise in house prices. By 2010 the damage was done - its not got better I agree but new Labour deserves a lot of the blame for our generational inequality etc.

[Dorkins]

5 hours ago, MARTINX9 said:

The biggest disparities arose under new Labour - buy to let was small scale in 1997 but rose ten fold under Blair and Brown along with a four fold rise in house prices. By 2010 the damage was done - its not got better I agree but new Labour deserves a lot of the blame for our generational inequality etc.

Yes, the new Labour tendency in the party are forever going on about how only they understand "aspiration", but they were the ones who made the aspiration to have a stable life in a home of your own a wild fantasy instead of just something you can do if you work for most people born after 1980.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Dorkins

[iamnumerate]

23 hours ago, scottbeard said:

To be honest, that sums Labour's policies up for the last 10 years.

Step 1- put forward a well-meaning agenda that doesn't actually appeal to enough people.

Step 2 - act amazed when they lose yet another election.

I didn't actually vote Tory last time, because I don't trust Boris.  But equally, I didn't vote Labour because - frankly - they would have been even worse.  I don't see the country crying out for 1970s policies in the 2020s, and for Diane Abbott to be put in charge of anything more complex than a jumble sale stall.  We shouldn't have to choose between liars and anachronists, and yet that was the choice we were given.

I agree in an ideal world Johnson, Corbyn, Abbot,  Naz Shah and many others would not even be in parliament, not even on a parish council - let alone ministers.

All parties seem to have some really lunatic views - HTB for example.  

 

[Confusion of VIs]

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

I agree in an ideal world Johnson, Corbyn, Abbot,  Naz Shah and many others would not even be in parliament, not even on a parish council - let alone ministers.

All parties seem to have some really lunatic views - HTB for example.  

 

Nothing lunatic about HTB if your overriding priority is re-election

[iamnumerate]

12 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Nothing lunatic about HTB if your overriding priority is re-election

Long term it would probably harm the chances of the following election.

[Confusion of VIs]

3 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Long term it would probably harm the chances of the following election.

Maybe but one problem at a time.

[Aidan Ap Word]

32 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Nothing lunatic about HTB if your overriding priority is re-election

 

18 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Long term it would probably harm the chances of the following election.

Suggests that doing anything now with the intention of having  apositive effect in > 8 years' time is a useful modern strategy in politics. At best that's high risk strategy (even if the targetted returns are high).

Heck, I find planning beyond 5 years in my personal life invovles untold risk.

The biggest personal risk is that they open the money-'printing'-taps (even further) again.

Had I gambled on them closing them much over the last 5 years I would have gained little and ... well, I would have lost ... and now the rumours of the taps being turned on ECB-style are rife.

[winkie]

The economy thrives when people have jobs they feel safe and secure in, meaning they have holiday and sick pay, a pension, opportunity for promotion, enough hours with regular monthly pay......having a regular monthly payday is important because most bills are monthly, a mortgage is monthly, rent is monthly, CT monthly, water and energy monthly, car payments monthly etc.

There might be work but it is lower quality, unpredictable, unstable, insecure work.......which means will go out less, spend less, save a bit more, shop around and manage it better......not a bad way to do things, doing things differently.....needs must.?

Edited March 6, 2020 by winkie
spelling whoops

[Kosmin]

1 hour ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Nothing lunatic about HTB if your overriding priority is re-election

HTB is popular with people who either (i) mistakenly believe it helps buyers, (ii) want to keep prices high for narrow self-interest, or (iii) place a very high value on stability (i.e. they aren't prepared to risk a recession or negative equity in their attempt to solve the housing crisis).

Therefore it was a lunatic decision for Labour in 2017 and 2019 to support HTB. There were prepared to do things which were perceived (by markets, financial institutions, commentators, middle classes) to be risky, and they stood for many things which weren't well understood. It makes no sense that they thought: "Well HTB is clearly bad, but we can't explain why to the electorate, so we must advocate it."