I brushed on Economics at College, and have recently been reading a few books on World Politics and the World Economy (and the effect they also have on each other). Heavy reading for the beach, but there's only so many action thrillers you can read.. LOL

What i would be interested to know from BeoWorlders across the world is the following..

1) What is the general 'mood' in your country with regards to the economy? - Boom, Recession, Stable?

2) How do you see your countries economy going in the next 12-24 months?

3) Which countries do you see as 'up and coming' in the world?

Most books say Brazil, Mexico and China and India will also be new financial superpowers, and the mighty US ecnomy that has dominated for so long will eventually have to settle into a new world order...

Discuss - i find this fascinating!

Lee

Lee - fascinating indeed!

UK - in recession and will remain so for at least 24 months. There has been far too much purchased on various forms of credit by individuals and Government over the past few years and it's now payback time. I know this is a very simple analysis, but hey, I'm a very simple guy  

With regards to the rest of the world - all I know is that when selling items on ebay I will always be putting available worldwide for the forseeable future! Some of the selling prices I have achieved from Far East buyers recently have certainly put a smile on my face!

Cheers

Nigel

I am finding Scandinavian countries are spending more freely than anyone else on the planet at present for some reason, but that's only one business and one genre..

I'm fascinated though as to what the 'mood' is around the world as there are so many factors that contribute to public feeling. We have a herd mentality - it's part of being human, and at the moment the whole of the UK seems to be holding its breath waiting for the entire country to collapse around them!  We'll all be eating our jumpers and living in tents soon...

Lee

I am with Nigel on this one.

Some of you may remember last year when I posted a thread on someone who was betting of a collapse in the US economy around August time...  Remember three bankers who walked away with something like $3b around november time??? there has been a feeling for a long time now about the state of the US economy and its impact on all over economies due to its hold over them and its inevitable effect on the UK.  I even mentioned something about this a year or two ago in a thread where a US B&O dealer said that the economy was fine yet there were rumours and concerns back then over access to finance and sums borrowed.

Nigel is correct, in the UK we have simply too much money on finance which, at present is showing no profit and defaults on borrowings are increasing daily.  We, like the US have put way too much emphasis of our economy on the back of house prices and its reflection of earnings when the cost of living has increased quite dramtically and there has been no real increase in wages for your average Joe.  Banks have simply put been greedy and relied heavily on an ever increasing housing market which have been sold as good debt when in fact its actualy bad as those with mortgages have remortgaged, loaned, continued to use credit cards, nice cars on finance and bang, inflation which has led onto staglfation as the UK is in at the moment.  We have an economy which is not growing, inflation increasing (dont believe the rubbish from brown and co, have a look at your food shopping and cost of living etc and work it out for yourself).

I would say that we are in tough times, and will be so for at least 3 years.  Expect a drop in house prices of around or upto 30% for the short term but to then even out but at the same time, expect an increase in redundancies.  Now I say this but over the last 3 years, how many jobs have been lost? how many businesses have closed and moved offshore?  We have been on the edge of a resession for the last two years at least, the banks have been propping this up with continued borrowing fueling an ever increasing debt ridden economy which is why the credit crunch happened as banks would simply not borrow more money due to so much being borrowed already.

This could all have partly been avoided if the BOE had put rates up in 05 instead of cutting them.  Northern Rock to me was always dodgy... everything about the business was wrong and many sceptics knew it would not last.. and that a bailout would always be the end result.

The futures grim.. very grim.. but as many say, banks have a short term memory and as soon as the bad debt is gone, the doors will be opened once more.

Regarding up and coming coutries, Dubai has to be up there and are setting themselves up as the next trade center for the world.  Lots of money and I do not think much has been invested in houses or consumer debt.  I think they sold most of thier oil to help invest in Dubai to make it a world leader.

I also find it "funny" that China is being demonised in the press at the moment for anything... when all know that they along with the Russians will become major players in the global econmony.. see them flexing their power in Georgia as we speak securing more gas and oil which we are all reliant on.

Far too deep and profound a subject for me this, but I will say that this country is cr4p, and if my house was not so filled with happy memories of my life with Mavis, I'd sell it tomorrow and go and live in a little village in the mountains of Spain. (sorry for long sentence)
Mobe, you seemed to shine there! I think you've found your calling!

Andy T.

If i remember rightly - we have some big brains on here when it comes to economics - i'm looking forward to hearing the views!

I always enjoy reading Mobe's predictions and analysis (or whatever the plural of that is)

Lee

Lee, I enjoy reading them too as I sound like a right fool sometimes!!!

To be honest, no one really knows what will happen or when it will happen, but the goung has been good and with good comes bad... 

mobeyone:

To be honest, no one really knows what will happen or when it will happen...

Absolutely, which is why i'm looking more for personal opinions and an insight into the 'mood' in each of our members countries. We have a fabulous array of intelligent people from all corners of our planet (me excluded of course - LOL) and it's always fascinating to see how each culture and nationality lives, works and feels.

The feeling in places like India is huge optimism from the youth, who have had a less traditional and more western upbringing - and even China's traditional system seems to be fading in favour of a more modern approach to education and entrepreneurialism.  People are flooding from the countryside to the cities, and they feel like times are really changing.

However, it's the exact opposite (doom and gloom) in the UK. The Scandinavians seem to be bobbing along very nicely - and the Australians and New Zealanders seem to be oblivious to what a recession is.  Correct me - please!!!

Lee

My experience is that the housing market is well and truly shafted here in the UK. Anyone else have any experiences of trying to sell a house at the moment???

We have a lovely house that we spent a fortune on, up for sale at a very reasonable price (knocked £40k off the asking over the past three months), but we still can't sell. There are so many houses for sale at the moment it takes the pi$$, but no one is selling - it's like we're all caught in some housing market purgatory. Everyone wants to move, but nothing's moving. We can well afford to move and get another mortgage, but I guess the lack of first time buyers coming into the market is really impacting on the number of chains getting off the ground.

I wouldn't mind, but we're only moving back to Sheffield as I start Medical School in 7 weeks. Anyone want to buy a house in Pudsey?!

:P 

DK can be summed up like this: Growth is slowing to almost 0, but unemployment is still at an all time low. The housing market has been at a stand still the last year, and probably will continue like this for some years, I estimate price drops around 30 % depending on the future interest rate.

br

Chr.

Anyone else? - you don't have to be an economist to answer this, just alive and living in a country that's in the world somewhere!

Lee 

The future prospect of a recession in Italy seems ever more likely as it has suffered its second quarter of negative growth in the past nine months. Output has shrunk to its lowest percentage of 0.3% in five years. However Italy is not yet officially in recession as this requires there to be two consecutive negative quarters.

Italy is the third largest eurozone economy and it is by no means the only European country suffering an economic slowdown at the moment, as must of us know. Denmark and Ireland are already either in recession or teetering on the brink of it. The European economic slow down has on the whole been triggered by a combination of the global credit crisis, US economic weakness and rising inflation. The Italian economy has also been hampered for some time by poor productivity, labour unrest and political instability.

Jandyt:

We need some comment from 'Down under' now.

.. and Scandinavia plus the rest of Europe!  I'd also love to hear comments from Chinese, Russian, Indian and Mexican members!

Lee 

Finland is doing pretty alright.

Seems like we learned something from 1991 when we went BUST big time! 

j0hnbarker:

My experience is that the housing market is well and truly shafted here in the UK. Anyone else have any experiences of trying to sell a house at the moment???

We have a lovely house that we spent a fortune on, up for sale at a very reasonable price (knocked £40k off the asking over the past three months), but we still can't sell. There are so many houses for sale at the moment it takes the pi$$, but no one is selling - it's like we're all caught in some housing market purgatory. Everyone wants to move, but nothing's moving. We can well afford to move and get another mortgage, but I guess the lack of first time buyers coming into the market is really impacting on the number of chains getting off the ground.

I wouldn't mind, but we're only moving back to Sheffield as I start Medical School in 7 weeks. Anyone want to buy a house in Pudsey?!

:P 

Sorry to hear that you cannot sell your house in Pudsey, congratulations on med school though. You know Sheffield is better anyhow...................maybe. Pudsey is rumoured to be the location of a huge new climbing wall.

Luckily for me I sold up last year, unluckily the catalyst for the sellimg was the break up of my marriage, all 362 days of it. As I have no property in the UK Ia m free to move anywhere in the world and next week I move to the south of France.

Only problem is that I still get paid in Pounds Sterling so have to exchange to Euros and I cannot see any improvement in the exchange rate for the next year or so what with the downturn in the UK economy. I know its a world wide recession but i believe that the mis-management of the economy by Blair/Brown et al has put the UK in a very weak position.

i guess as long as there are talented people with US, Europe (more specifically UK) and Japan there is no question of economy engine/ baton changing hands to BRIC nations. 

having said that impact on India with the current uncertainities is likely to be the least compared to the other countries with huge domestic consumption.  

Well, the problem with (not only) Europe is that it’s becoming a kind of a financial trap and people are finding it increasingly difficult to live there happily – or as comfortably as they used to: even if they are paid (still) astonishingly high salaries (for less and less done) relative to most of the world, more and more of what is left after tax is immediately sucked away by higher cost of living (– what was supposed to go back for ‘public good’ now has to bail out the banks.)

Those who can afford to travel far and wide will have a good comparison … also regarding the quality of living, which will not necessarily be in Europe’s favor - when you really think about it!

And it becomes a real trap for those who borrow money to consume and/or pay for insanely priced ‘assets’ which, indeed,  remind more of (well turned to, right?) liabilities. When you earn you can borrow. When you borrow you have to pay back. To pay back you have to earn. … it’s hard to escape.

For example: for the price-equivalent of a house in Europe, you can get plenty of real estate elsewhere (where the cost of living is also much lower), which would actually give you a reasonable income + a place to stay, making it a true asset as opposed to a liability towards a 20- 30 year(!!!) loan for a piece of ground and a few bricks, which even households where both adults work struggle to afford. (How comes the prices in some places doubled just over a decade?! Did incomes there also doubled - or what, have everything else become half-price so people could afford to use money on something new – or have someone witnessed population-growth explosion?)

Thankfully, the world offers many choices (fingers crossed politicians will not spoil this) for all those bright and open-minded. A lot of migration is already on its way – both virtual and real. Many will benefit, many will lose …

Interesting point, I migrated from Europe to US 10 years ago. 

It is still tough (in Germany) for what I consider middle class to buy a home or be financially independent (read - enough that you don't have to worry about the cost of food that you eat & can have vacations). With jobs that my parents had it was possible to buy a house, put 2 kids through university and still have annual vacation and decent cars.

With the same jobs today, I think they would struggle paying for our studies. Looking at the US though, I would say it is very much similar.

There was an article on CNN explaining how it looks in a household that makes 250K annually.   It wasn't as luxurious as one would think.

Yes there is a house and there are private schools for the kids and there is vacation but I did not see the BMW or Mercedes in the garage or Louis Vuitton Handbags.

What makes me nervous about the US is that there is no savings in most households for emergencies. 

Cheers

JK