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Credit crunch ... or pop!
Like an NHS doctor in an epidemic, I have more and more Legal Aid clients struggling with debt problems and looking for help; for a way out. Over £1.4 trillion of borrowing in the UK alone. We have been sitting on a bubble of borrowed money that is based on thin air and the smoke and mirrors of hedge fund investments and the like. (You know it's bad news when the metaphors start flying.)
For months I have had clients having to borrow on credit cards to meet mortgage and other housing payments. Madness.
Residential mortgage options are evaporating as hundreds of thousands - maybe millions - of UK mortgage borrowers come to the end of their loans and find they might not be able to renew them at all as the lenders run increasingly scared.
Even the UK Government finally woke up to this last week and now predicts a crisis for real people like you and me who will face repossession and homelessness for them and their families. Kids will no longer have the magic space of their bedrooms and will be scattered from their childhood friends as social services departments and local authority homeless sections struggle to rehouse their families in the private-renting sector and what is left of the now decimated social housing stock.
And if people are homeless, the last thing they will worry about is repaying their creditors - secured or otherwise. And those who do manage to stay in their homes with negative equity or who get into rented accommodation will come to people like me who will help them solve their debt problems by filing for bankruptcy in the courts. The credit industry, and all the businesses and individuals relying on their borrowing as well as City employees (10,000 job loss forecast in the City of London markets in the next 3 months is tipped just to be the start ...), will buckle and break. That's why the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are throwing money at the banks - like there really is no tomorrow
Did anyone notice how this latest recession - for recession it is turning into - really started with the dollar being weak? Anyone believe that oil became more expensive because the dollar is weak and not the other way round as we are led to believe? Anyone think that the dollar was brought to its knees by the trade war the US started with China (the world's largest growing economy)?
Decisions made on Capitol Hill and reactions in Beijing are having global consequences. Credit bubbles are bursting all over the place as money was loaned and borrowed on "futures markets" that just aren't going to happen. Our economies are experiencing the consequences of reliance on foreign capital and investment
Who knows .... all those empty houses and offices will be ripe for squatting families and individuals and homegrown communities and economies may spring up. It may be positive anarchy. Or it may be brutal and violent chaos as current law and order disintegrates and becomes unworkable. Mammon wreaks its damage. Top tip - buy shares in baked beans: They are the future! (Speaking of which, I'm off to make my supper now ... while I still can ...)
For months I have had clients having to borrow on credit cards to meet mortgage and other housing payments. Madness.
Residential mortgage options are evaporating as hundreds of thousands - maybe millions - of UK mortgage borrowers come to the end of their loans and find they might not be able to renew them at all as the lenders run increasingly scared.
Even the UK Government finally woke up to this last week and now predicts a crisis for real people like you and me who will face repossession and homelessness for them and their families. Kids will no longer have the magic space of their bedrooms and will be scattered from their childhood friends as social services departments and local authority homeless sections struggle to rehouse their families in the private-renting sector and what is left of the now decimated social housing stock.
And if people are homeless, the last thing they will worry about is repaying their creditors - secured or otherwise. And those who do manage to stay in their homes with negative equity or who get into rented accommodation will come to people like me who will help them solve their debt problems by filing for bankruptcy in the courts. The credit industry, and all the businesses and individuals relying on their borrowing as well as City employees (10,000 job loss forecast in the City of London markets in the next 3 months is tipped just to be the start ...), will buckle and break. That's why the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are throwing money at the banks - like there really is no tomorrow
Did anyone notice how this latest recession - for recession it is turning into - really started with the dollar being weak? Anyone believe that oil became more expensive because the dollar is weak and not the other way round as we are led to believe? Anyone think that the dollar was brought to its knees by the trade war the US started with China (the world's largest growing economy)?
Decisions made on Capitol Hill and reactions in Beijing are having global consequences. Credit bubbles are bursting all over the place as money was loaned and borrowed on "futures markets" that just aren't going to happen. Our economies are experiencing the consequences of reliance on foreign capital and investment
Who knows .... all those empty houses and offices will be ripe for squatting families and individuals and homegrown communities and economies may spring up. It may be positive anarchy. Or it may be brutal and violent chaos as current law and order disintegrates and becomes unworkable. Mammon wreaks its damage. Top tip - buy shares in baked beans: They are the future! (Speaking of which, I'm off to make my supper now ... while I still can ...)
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