Credit crunch
The whole of the world is having to cut back, and the same here too in the Philippines.
One of the dangers of moving here is that you can seriously under estimate your finance and before its too late your safety margin has gone. However when some people do not have enough for a bowl of rice the rest of us are very lucky to moan that we cannot go out for a drink or show.
One of my close friends is considering going home to his own country as the credit crunch is hurting him and his young family. Of course going home may not be the answer!!
Not normaly do we have personnal ads on this site, but today is an exception as the sale of this vehicle may allow my friend and his family to stay here and plan another way out of his problems.
THIS IS A WARNING FOR US ALL PARADISE HAS A FINANCIAL COST TOO
CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW FOR FULL DETAILS
Hi John,I don’t know from where your friend originates,but this is the latest economic news from the UK.House prices have fallen@ 20% so far this year and continue to fall every month,reposessions (foreclosures)are climbing fast,pushing up rental prices.Unemployment is steadily rising.Over the last 12mths,heating gas up 70%,electricity up 40%,and further increases this winter have beem announced.Food up 14% and rising,petrol up @ 20%.Chamber of commerce announced today recession is here and forecast hard times for the next 2yrs.Sorry for the bleak news but these are the facts,regards Chas.
Hi John. Basically the same here in Canada too. Prices of houses are starting to go south but foods, groceries, fuel, etc., are going north. Unemployment rate is going up. I see too many vacant commercial and industrial buldings and spaces vacant as I drive by. For lease signs are posted next to each other and in some places the whole block.
Hi John, well I can certainly support your post, I have just returned from the Philippines after a 3 week stint in country, and had the time of my life, I was back at my house and can certainly testify to your post, what a life, nothing to do and all day to do it.
However, I landed safely back in London’s Gatwick Airport aboard a freindly Qatar Airways flight last Sunday morning, and you would have forgiven me for thinking i had been away for 3 years or something, far from it, it kind of shocked me, when the guy in the kiosk near the trains asked me for £1.99 for a coke.
Yes you have to believe it, 1.99 UK for a coke, and even in Hong Kong I got 4 cokes for 30 dollars, that works out at 50p for a coke, and by their standards no doubt that is expensive.
The UK just seems to get more and more expensive year by year, and recently petrol and diesel has shot up to extortionate levels, sometimes i wonder where it will all end.
I just had 3 weeks of living like a King to coin Bobs phrase, wake up in the morning, my boxer shorts and clothes laid out by my maid, my breakfast taken on the patio, my mango shake put in front of me, a freindly voice saying “Good Morning Sir, coffee or tea ! ohhhhh I can hear myself groaning already.
But of course John is 100 per cent on the ball with this one, we have to be thankful because my only thoughts are “There I go by the grace of God” I saw things again in the Philippines that made me sober up to my own situation, where people cannot afford anything, not even a bowl of rice as John quite righly points out.
As much as I downright hate trudging back to London, to see that Petrol is 114p a litre and a coke is 1.99, and coming back to an empty Flat while wife is still enjoying her lif eback in Phils, at least I can earn a living and buy my own bowl of rice with little difficulty.
Thanks for your post John, very thought provoking.
Hi John, going “home” is indeed not the answer. In Germany it’s not much better. I receive daily emails through LiP of German nationals, planning to stay in the Philippines for good. Not as pensioneers, sometimes just 30 years ‘young”. Are they really “prepared”???
CHAS
I keep up to date with the BBC and am so painfully aware of whats going on in UK, also my friend is desperate to sell his house. Last year it would have gone in a week, now NO ONE even looks. The market is dead.
ERIC
The unemployment in Europe is going up much higher than is being told as all the figures are being massaged to stop people getting angry,but its only a matter of time before we see the riots forming again just like the 1980s across Europe
PETER
Glad you had a great time here and I have noted as I travel around Davao City that bars and restaurants are not as full as they were a few months a ago, but there is certainly more people on the streets begging and most of them are kids.Even though its tough here too I could not afford or even want to return to the UK yet.
KLAUS
You bring up a good point how is the western world going to cope longterm with the evaporation of pensions?
The economy is worsening everywhere but we are still doing well in most G7 countries.
What I am worried about is the coming baby boomers retirement crunch starting somewhere in 2012 and beyond.
In my opinion, today’s problems will look like a pic-nic to what is coming.
That is why, whenever I have an occasion, I say it to whomever whants to listen: be prepared, the financial tsunami is out there, we only have a few years before it hits the butts of of the unwary.
I am not a great authority in forecasting the future (even though I earn my living forecasting the movements of stock prices), I am simply telling you what I see on long term charts and they are all pointing to a peak somewhere in 2012/2013.
Please do not panic, it will not be the end of the world, simply a prolonged recession/depression. A few years of hard times.
Robert
As a baby boomer I can tel you that I am very concerned about the future pension projections