Credit Crunchies - With milk on...
Credit Crunchies is just now getting it's snap and crackle to pop into place. Once that is done we will be taking a fresh look at living on less and doing well in a degrading economy. What that should mean to you is - we are on your side.
Stand up to the Banks Right now banks around the world are charging very high rates of interest even though many are getting 0% loans themselves. This selfishness coupled with some American banks charging 30% or more APR on credit has sparked outrage. Add to this mix the new media of youtube and blogs and suddenly the banks have to answer to the people.
Bankrupcy Laws in Russia
How a country deals with bankrupted and struggling companies can have a huge impact on teh way the country recovers. For example if the company can be sold or restructured rather than broken up the realisable value is higher (meaning creditors get paid) and people get to keep their jobs.
The credit crunchies early UK budget report
You can follow developments fairly live on twitter.com #budget09 and #budget. There is a budget summary from the BBC.
The truth of matters is that the economy is shrinking and so there is a squeeze going on. This budget while not very dramatic mirrors this.
There was a serious economic situation like this after the Great War (World War One) and the first country out of that got ther by spending hard and giving away bread. Also they grew the army to make jobs. That was Germany and e all know how that ended up.
Have your say.
Eddie Izzard and Kevin Spacey on Free Theatre Tickets.
Eddie Izzard and Kevin Spacey have lent their support to the Labour Government’s new free theatre scheme. At a time when things are getting tight it's good to know that you can get some things for nothing at all. Good things too.
"A Night Less Ordinary" launches in the week of 16th February and will offer 618,000 free theatre tickets to under 26 year olds in over 200 theatres up and down England (UK). You can (apparently) find out where your nearest participating theatre is at www.anightlessordinary.org.uk.
Blue Monday
They're calling it Blue Monday and officially it is the most depressing day of the year.
Believe it or not this can only be good news. It means that this is the low point and the only way is up (baby).
The guardian.co.uk has some reasons to be cheerful including Celebrity Big Brother is over - so it's not all bad.
Photo Credit: kimberlyfaye
Life on £1.00 a day.
David Masters of Fair Home (dot co dot uk) reports: Credit crunch inspires sustainable living revolution. This is something we have been talking about here. Simply put we are all learning to live within our means.
The alternative would be to end up living in our cars (if we even on one) or buying less organic foods.
However few can say they have beaten the crunch more than teacher Kath Kelly who lived for a year on just £1 a day (that's about US$1.48).
If she can do it so can I - actually that's not me taking the challenge but it is me seeing if I can figure out how to do that.
Share your thoughts on how you might do that right here.
How to overcome a student debt and profit from it.
If you leave university with a debt of, say, £21,500 in student loans (as my sister recently did) you will be facing for august 2008 an interest payment of £85.37 but 9% of the threshold earning rate is only £25.96 per week or about £103.84 for the month. so you are slowly paying off the borrowing but most of that is interest.
Now what makes this particularly bad is that at no point is it made explicit that the interest is charged from the beginning so for a whole length of time compound interest was being charged making the numeric size of the debt grow bigger. It's scary.
Especially as the websites seem to go to great pains to avoid talking about the rate of interest and the fact that it is charged from the onset. This strikes me as somewhat dishonest and something that you should be aware of. It is wrong, in my opinion, to assume that a student has any idea how things are going to work. It is the duty of the lender to educate the borrower and not to mislead in any way.
Should one panic though?
The short answer is no and here is why. Assuming that you are able to save some money each month into an savers account that pays more than the base rate of interest you will sooner or later reach a point where you earn more in interest than you are paying for.
» Continue Reading: How to overcome a student debt and profit from it.
What's your focus during the credit crunch?
With Christmas upon us the BBC turns to mater of pressent and climate change with respect to "the credit crunch" (you saw that one coming didn't you).
Daniel Emery and Andrew Webb talk about what games to get this season while Richard Black, Environment correspondent, tell us "Climate talks hit stumbling block" as green issues take second place to the god of money (or maybe the oh-god of no money).
Where have your priorities been this season?
The Russian answer to the credit crisis
The Russian answer to the credit crisis has been to paint the windows black and tell them the train is still moving judging by the output from profy.com. While it is not all bad there has been significant attention given to the press.
It looks like here in Russia the authorities have already figured out how to cope with financial crisis by influencing opinions of people living in the country.
writes Svetlana Gladkova on profy.com [...] the government has been trying to pretend that the crisis is not here and the government is perfectly prepared to help businesses cope with the crisis. Unfortunately, the measures that the government has been undertaking here have not been efficient enough and everyone now understands that many industries have already been affected - and many more will follow.
However before you cry censorship Gladkova tells us that publications distributing information that is not reliable and can damage the financial situation will face appropriate penalties.
Which sounds like sound reasoning in a time of mass panic.
However, with so many other controls being pushed in the British and American population (and others I have no doubt) is it something that we would find acceptable?
We're not earning more regardless of claims by Halifax
According to the Telegraph and a large number of other papers poor places such as Thanet top the Halifax table for 2003 to 2008 wage increase (£18,769 to £29,956 an apparent 60% jump). The problem here is that presented as they are the figures seem to indicate the opposite to the truth.
In an article for the Thanet Star entitled "How they came up with the £30,000 a year lie" I explain how these figures are doubly pointless as a pound in 2003 is not the same as a pound in 2008 due to inflation. Assuming an average inflation rate of 4% the 2003 figure would actually be £22,835 in real terms which is only a 31% increase.
What is worse is that the selective sample actually allows us to see the dire state of the underlying situation. In short it looks like we are all earning more but actually only the well paid are not losing jobs.
» Continue Reading: We're not earning more regardless of claims by Halifax
