Family incomes to drop by £2k......

[henpecked]

is a billion, a thousand million or a hundred million?
do i care what politicians do?
not a lot
as a resourceful person like a lot of you on here I will always make ends meet
one way or another
LLL

Tis officially a 'Million Million' but we are talking about the American 'Billion' (when referring to our mega, mega debt mountain) which is a Thousand Million.

[Stuarty]

I hear lots and lots about poor family incomes, middle family incomes, pensioners incomes but extremely little about people about myself. I live alone in my rented 1 bed flat, almost 80% of my income is spent on rent, bills, and essentials. Im lucky im in a job that there is quite a bit of overtime with, although thats gonna dry up very soon. I get no benefits or help from the state, apart from my single occupancy discount on my council tax.

I dont live outside of my means either. I used to drive a battered banger of a motor (that was untill last friday, until some pisshead rammed into the back of it, cheers mate!) i dont go out getting hammered every weekend, I am actually as tight as a ducks arse. My bills are rising, my landlord wants to up the rent, yet my wage is the same as 2 years ago. If this continues, well, im fecked!

Are us poor folk on living on our own meant to go down the street, shack up with the local bike and get her up the duff and live off the state?

But im alive and fairly healthy so just need to crack on with it

[parishpaver]

A good visualisation of the US national debt here.....
us debt

[DNgroundworks]

That is truly staggering parish, especially the "1 million takes the average human 92 years of work" jesus i know guys that i talk to on a daily basis that spend that sort of money in the blink of an eye.....per month lol

[bobbi o]

more doom and gloom from todays scotsman:

SO MUCH for the Prime Minister’s “blue skies ahead� assurance to the Conservative Party faithful last Wednesday. By Friday morning the front pages blazed with the dire warnings of Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King. “This,� he declared, “is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen since the 1930s, if not ever.�


The governor’s remark is the latest in a series of unsettling utterances from leading figures in politics and finance this autumn. There have been dire warnings on the state of the Eurozone from the World Bank and from International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde. Speeches from Business Secretary Vince Cable, Chancellor George Osborne and Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls have echoed these. Party conferences were dominated by Doomsday statements about now near the Eurozone is to a financial precipice.

In an earlier age such remarks would be more carefully nuanced so as not to destroy the very confidence most needed at times of crisis. Today there is an almost unseemly rush for people in senior positions in public life to out-spook each other.

All of this could be dismissed as soundbite sado-masochism were it not for the appalling data flow of recent days: the Belgian bank Dexia needing government support; rating downgrades of Italian sovereign debt; worries that Greece has failed to meet the targets necessary to qualify for the next tranche of emergency Eurozone bail-out support, consumer spending no higher than it was five years ago, and continuing volatility in stock markets.

Then, late on Thursday, came news that Moody’s had downgraded its credit gradings on a clutch of banks including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group. There were also reports of growing apprehension among senior officials in Whitehall that RBS may yet need another injection of government support as part of a Europe-wide effort to recapitalise banking systems. RBS protests that it is soundly capitalised to withstand current pressures. But the history of the past 18 months has been a series of extraordinary and exceptional events that have obscured underlying progress: the £3 billion provision on Payment Protection Insurance; extra provisions against lending in Ireland; a major write-down of its holdings of Greek sovereign debt and so on.

Then on Thursday came the announcement that the Bank of England was resuming quantitative easing, with an initial bigger-than-expected boost of £75 billion.

If you detect in all this just the slightest touch of official panic, do not feel you are alone. Conventional policy response has been stretched up to, and beyond, its fiscal and monetary limit. No macro economic boffin can pronounce with any certainty whether the mooted Eurozone bank support plan will be sufficient, or when it will come to fruition. And there is equal doubt as to whether quantitative easing will work, or how much more will be needed before a sustained improvement in the economy can be seen.

What is certain is that we are into the terrain of “unknown unknowns�. Nothing can be assumed to work in the manner of conventional expectation. What’s sure is that the quantitative easing move has met with scepticism as to how much, if any, of the extra liquidity in the banks will feed through in additional new lending to the non-financial business sector.

Across the SME sector in Scotland I cannot recall such a depth of scepticism about an increase in bank lending. The stories I continue to hear are of loan request rejections and, more worryingly, the continual re-writing of loan terms and conditions. With a large percentage of business loans coming up for renewal over the next 18 months, small companies are terrified the banks will take every opportunity to change the terms and conditions to their advantage and the borrower’s cost. Little wonder there are calls for the quantitative easing money to by-pass the banks and to be made available to business borrowers by some other means – insurance companies perhaps through venture funding.

I cannot vouch for the statement that this crisis is worse than the 1930’s. But certainly King’s comments have been a more accurate guide to our economic reality than the Bank’s own inflation forecasts and the predictions on the economy from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Both have missed by a mile.

My biggest concern now, after the prospect of a disorderly Greek default and the continuing “too-little-too-late� series of responses in the Eurozone, is the UK outlook for next year and the implications for the SME sector.

Growth forecasts for next year are being shaved down to between 1.25 per cent and 0.9 per cent, against the OBR’s 2.5 per cent prediction. If this is how it pans out then the government’s deficit reduction strategy is as good as gone.

Tim Morgan, economist at stockbroker Tullett Prebon, calculates that if growth were to total just eight per cent in the period 2009-10 to 2015-16 instead of the officially projected 16 per cent, such an out-turn would hit tax revenues by some £65 billion, increase debt interest by £13bn, push spending up by a minimum of £11bn and mean that the deficit will not be cut by £134bn as hoped but by just £45bn.

That is, by the end of the period we would still be looking at a fiscal deficit of eight per cent of GDP instead of the officially projected 1.6 per cent.

Now consider the impact on thousands of small firms which have been clinging on for three years in the hope that 2012 would bring a strong and sustained recovery. On current showing, that is not to be. It is shaping up to be a third year of depressed consumer demand and barely discernible growth. This may be the last straw for many and could trigger a spate of administrations and liquidations – many at the hands of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) desperate to ensure that it claws in all money due. How cruelly ironic that the government should pose as the saviour of the small firm while HMRC is put under pressure to maximise its revenues – if necessary by pushing firms to the wall.

This is an appalling outlook. And I am not sure which is the more depressing: the failure of the Eurozone to provide some means of cauterising this crisis before a true debacle unfolds, or our utter inability to do anything about it. We are helplessly trapped in this, unable to see through the Eurozone storm and unable to see any reason for confidence to turn. We seem helpless. Little wonder King describes it as the worst financial crisis we have seen. In this I fear he may be right. It is going to take a radical slashing of business taxes or National Insurance contributions to jump start a turn in confidence. Until this happens, there is little we can do but hang on in. We are all in the Fingernail Club now.

[lutonlagerlout]

bah,a billion is a million million i n my book
the yanks only changed it so some of their people could call themselves billionaires :;):
stuarty I know the position you are in mate,but at least you are independent and free
LLL

[seanandruby]

I only need to know how many pennies in a pound and how many pounds in a tenner

[DNgroundworks]

Sounds like were screwed then!

There is no one on this planet worth a million million lol

[Dave_L]

The power supplier have just written to me this week telling me that my energy bill will be rising from Nov 1st

BT wrote to me last week saying rental is increasing

This is all in a time when many haven't had a pay rise in 4+yrs

And my family wonder why I've turned into a power-consumption tzar......I'm finding myself turning lights off, the tv off when everyone is upstairs etc etc

Thank the Lord that interest rates haven't risen. I think if they did, many would have to bail out.

I'm dreading the next elecricity bill.

[DNgroundworks]

In our house we have no gas, no central heating just two wood burners, no normal electric bills just a thing you top up like a phone - works out way cheaper. fuel for the fires is free, pallets from work etc.

Like LLL says the resourceful people among us will be ok i think.

[Dave_L]

Like LLL says the resourceful people among us will be ok i think.

Hmmm yeah I think you're quite right.

I might dig my driveway up and find the MDPE gas service pipe and chuck a cheeky tee connection in and bypass the meter!

[DNgroundworks]

Lol i heard of a guy that tapped into a lampost on the pavement outside his house and used the leccy for years untill they renewed the lamp then he got screwed, not sure how true it is though!

[Dave_L]

That is certainly possible :err: but I'm not sure the current available through the street lighting cable is up to much though.

[parishpaver]

Heard the one about the farmer who had pikeys knock on his door saying they could bypass his gas meter for two grand.

Started digging at road side and hey presto.....come lunchtime a new connection is offered into the house and he could fire up all his gas appliances and sure enough....a static meter. Paid em in readies there and then.

Happy as a pig in shit for the next couple of days, with the heating cranked to the max then all of a sudden....no gas.

Not being able to phone the gas board now, he had to call a mate who might be able to help. Mate comes round and they set off down the road to investigate. Digging up the pikey excavation they suddenly hear a dull clang. A little more digging reveals a (now empty) calor gas bottle a foot down with a length of pipe attached, running to the house in a shallow trench.

Who's he gonna call? The police, and complain after he was attempting to steal gas in the first place? I don't think so.

As DN's story, can't vouch for the authenticity but is a good story nonetheless.

[DNgroundworks]

I like that, might make a few quid eh?!