Can the East Dulwich micro economy survive a recession?

[Jeremy]

Quids, I've worked in equity and rates derivs for around 5 years - admittedly in a peripheral role.

The companies I've worked for have sold products to clients, which they use to gain exposure or manage risk. They are instruments... tools... with well defined payoffs. The clients know what they are buying and can guess pretty much how much commission we take above the fair value, I don't believe it constitutes ripping anyone off, so that's why I objected to the pyramid selling analogy.

Mortgage derivatives are a bit more of a grey area, but still... I think the pyramid comparison is not accurate.

[lard]

???? Wrote:

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> The house of cards that has underpinned the UK

> economy for 20 plus years, Financial Services (15%

> of UK GDP) and especially the very high value add

> bit eg Investment banking - and clever associated

> investment vehicles - has, in case anyone hasn't

> noticed, been exposed as a long running pyramid

> selling schemes on a global basis. London's

> position as the global finance centre is now

> outdated and f*cked and the associated jiggery

> pokery (auditing/legal/venture capitalism)which

> underpins much of London's wealth and income is

> also f*cked...and yet East Dulwich is somehow in a

> unique position to escape the carnage that will be

> the next 2 years and the slow overall recovery of

> our economy hopefully into new areas of enterprise

> that will be the next 10? Pray how? We are mostly

> in for a decline in real incomes, massive falls in

> asset values (houses, pensions, endowments)that's

> going to last a fair old bit....this isn't a

> recession it's a fundamental shift......hey, maybe

> we'll be better people for it...

ssshhh don't let on.

People have got to realise the shift for themselves in order for it to be a shift.

The pyramid of the whole UK economy, not just the city, based on debt needs to unravel.

GB is doing all he can to maintain the pyramid by trying to keep the house prices high. Service the debt until the debt is unservicable. Escape before the d?noument.

The city was theft on a grand scale, but this greed is why we all exist anyway so it is perfectly understandable. The altruistic gene was eaten by a T-Rex a long time ago. So when the shift comes we may "think" we are better people, but we'll still be the same as we ever were.

[macroban]

Someone you all admire thinks Lordship Lane might be recession-proof.

[Huguenot]

Offtopication:

Can you believe her daughter and mates? Complaining about where she bought the flat????

When I finished my A-levels, that was it. No more money. Nothing. My Dad bought me a PC once as a 26th birthday present. Apart from that, nowt.

Ontopication:

Where do we get this 'banking is theft' thing from? Is it the same place as 'property is theft'?

[Brendan]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Ontopication:

>

> Where do we get this 'banking is theft' thing

> from? Is it the same place as 'property is theft'?

Silly innit? It is the type of emotionally driven, un-joined up logic that completely discredits any valid anti-capitalist concerns someone may have.

[*Bob*]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Offtopication:

>

> Can you believe her daughter and mates?

> Complaining about where she bought the flat????

Yes.

Who wants to live opposite their parents when they're 20?

[ibilly99]

The headline figure that really brought it home to me was that from WW2 to the early eighties the US financial sector was roughly steady at about 18% of GDP - from the early eighties to last year when it hit a staggering 42%. The UK tracks the US pretty reliably - we have bet the house on a debt fuelled Ponzi scheme of financials and services.

Some commentators have said we have brought forward up to 20 years of consumption - the problem is credit it?s that we are saturated with credit and our leaders want to keep the party going with a continuation of this madness. The financials took over the system and have literally run it into the ground.

Globalization ? pah we can?t compete with Chinese workers with no employment rights working for $80 a month and living 8 to a 1 bed apartment and with hope in their hearts.

A whole generation ruined ? it really is amazing that there weren?t tumultuous riots last week.

They?re debauching the currency, looting the pensions, and ravaging savings to keep the party and the financial oligarchy going ? wake up folks ? the middle classes are being sacrificed here, we are eating the seed corn.

Can ED escape the carnage ? of course not ? none of us can. .

[louisiana]

Ah, pensions....

First I heard that my retirement age had increased from 60 to 65.

Then I was told it had increased from 65 to 66.

My company scheme (the biggest in the UK) looks each month more like a basket case.

So I'm banking on there not being much around in the way of pension when I get there, wherever 'there' has moved to by then. I think it'll be growing some carrots and spuds and catch the occasional rabbit.

[snorky]

As much As I agree with your sentiment/ causes Ibilly, everyone who has joined in wth the party has a responsbility for the fallout we see

we happily slap each other on the back for getting into the housing market while it made financial sense, yet on the other had expressed crocodile guardian reader tears for those who were not able to get in early and rack up ( unrealised ) profits

I open the papers at weekend and am confronted with a never ending monologue of hand wringing self pity from those were have been caught out becasue they invested their cash in a bank halfway across the atlantic / bought a Romanian farmouse and find that its on the flood plain of the Danube / invested their childrens dowry in asbestos & albanian tobacco share funds / blah blah blah - when the real crime here isnt the bankers or the pension managers, but the Criminal lack of common sense exhibited by most people- some of which were umlike to be in full receipt of the facts and are not 100 % cuplable, but most were happy to gamble and chose to ignore the potential downside

Will The ED micro economy survive - of course it will - whilst people are blinkered wenough to waste their income on valueless facile tat, the it will find a way - like a cockroach after a nuclear explosion

[ibilly99]

True snorky - but we are just the little people foraging for scraps from the rich man?s table - I don't blame the children for the sins of their fathers. Maybe we are entering the end times for benign civilisation - it didn?t really last long for us and for the majority of the world it never really existed.

Like Icarus we flew to near the sun ?

[Mick Mac]

I saw Icarus perched outside the EDT on Saturday - he was slightly pink, a mild burn, but he's not gone, the East Dulwich Icarus will be back.

[ibilly99]

Wasn't Icarus but may have been Phoenix ....

[SeanMacGabhann]

The tragedy of Icarus is of course not what happened to him, but that no-one observed it

[Moos]

Quite

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

[cupid_stunt]

Couldn't be bothered to read the four pages of comment beforehand (well, they do call me cupid stunt for a reason) but my addled points are these:

Ask someone on a limited fixed income how the recession has altered their life and they'll tell you, it hasn't ie, i was skint last year and nothing's changed....

Benefits haven't increased in real terms, food's gone up and those lil stealth taxes - car, tv licence, etc, - have held or increased in price.

East Dulwich's micro-economy is to my mind, about as safe as free chicken in Peckham's KFC, ie not very.

No doubt some over-priced and pretentious East Dulwich shops will close down but that's because they are serving a tiny minority of people whose disposable income has now been curtailed. Though i don't wish redundancy or lay-offs on anyone - having been a casualty of it myself - one thing i've learnt this past year is to make sure you have some sort of contingency plan. That said, a blank space on a CV is no big deal but i digress...

My only hope regarding this econmic situation is that it'll force us all to really examine the money in our pockets and how we spend it, ie actually purchasing things based on their 'value' and not their 'price'. Once we have confidence in the value of things across the board then things might just start picking up...

[Huguenot]

Great one CS ;-).... "My only hope regarding this economic situation is that it'll force us all to really examine the money in our pockets and how we spend it, ie actually purchasing things based on their 'value' and not their 'price'."

It does raise a few obvious questions:

Why should you care about other people buying expensive goods, it's their money?

Why do you think that your idea of value is the right one?

Why do you want to force other people to follow you?

I remember a debate over my sixteenth birthday present with my Dad, who wanted to buy me three polyester ties instead of the single silk tie I had chose for the same price. A disagreement about 'value', I reckon.

Life is about more than functionality. It's populated with symbols of self-expression, of culture, of beauty, of shared ambitions and most particularly of education and achievement.

I suspect therein lies the problem with ED's arts and crafts shops.

Disruptive kids at school try to ruin the educational process for all, because these idle wasters realise that they'll only have a power base if everyone is as f*cked up as they are. Most often they fail, and end up at the bottom of the pile, with limited choices and a reservoir of resentment to rival the Hoover Dam.

I wonder whether people who resent the arts and crafts shops do so because they remind them of the wasted indolence of their youth, their failed strategies to achieve a kakistocracy. A government of the shittest.

These impoverished misanthropes despise the people who shop in trinket emporia because they worked hard, gained qualifications, cultivated their careers, respected the system and came out on top. Knick-knack browsers earned the right to buy products that didn't just work, but were aesthetically rewarding and improved their environment.

For those left behind by their own design, it must feel like everyone is rubbing their noses in it. It must be equally galling to discover that, as it happens, life's hard working winners don't care.

The winners believe that the antisocial tendencies displayed by these retail-luddites is just another manifestation of gambo spitting in the classroom. It achieved nothing then, and it'll achieve nothing now.

I hope ED's arts and crafts shops survive any recession, because life deserves to be about more than just the daily grind. A lot of the stuff I find in them doesn't appeal personally, but some does, and that's good enough for me. Without such variety the whole three score and ten would be such a waste of time.

[cupid_stunt]

Hi Huge One,

(Yes I've heard the rumours about you and seen the pics) thanks for the reply...

To answer your points, my thoughts are these....

Why should you care about other people buying expensive goods, it's their money?

Part of the problem was that most people bought expensive goods (cars, houses, holidays) on credit, ie it wasn't their money! This is why the majority of us whom were prudent are all up sh*t creek without a paddle economically. We are all in the same boat :( The buy now, worry later ethos is officially dead. That's why i say know the value of everything not simply the price. I'll be paying, my kids and possibly their kids will be paying out for the mess this economy is currently in for a while yet...

Why do you think that your idea of value is the right one?

My idea of value is simple. When i purchase something i ask myself: do i really need it or do i simply want it? My idea of value is by no means the 'right' one but hey, it works for me!

Why do you want to force other people to follow you?

Like Michael said, 'I'm a lover not a fighter'! I'm not asking anyone to follow me but i think that we're all in this mess because the idea of 'me' instead of 'we' ran rampant for too long. It'd be nice to think that we could all learn from the mess we're in but what do i know? I'm a cupid stunt :)

Disclaimer Alert! And for the record... I?ve lived on both sides of the coin. I?m a well-educated, postgraduate corporate executive, who worked in an emerging technology for many years. About 10 years ago I got bored with my oh-so?fantastic pay packet, went into a creative industry and now make a comfortable living being an artsy ponce. I?m not bitter or resentful about anybody doing their thing but some of the stuff I see selling in LL shops, makes me SMH (Shake My Head). You couldn?t give away some of that stuff on eBay!

Message to Admin:

The Organ Grinder says: Admin, sort out your servers! Feed the monkey who?s grinding away keeping it chugging some more nuts!

[Huguenot]

Hmm yes possibly, but if you're going to come over all Mazlow on me then you're probably being a wee bit disingenuous.

A hearty shag is in the 'want' area rather than the 'need'.

In fact if you've even got a sofa in the front room then you're in the 'comfort and convenience' area where everything becomes a little bit grey. Did you choose the cheapest sofa, or were there other criteria? Paint on your walls?

Besides, an indulgence in ornaments wasn't the cause of our current issues, it was banks over-extending credit to rather unsuspecting individuals who were buying houses with debt they couldn't hope to repay in their own lifetimes.

Frustratingly, this falls into the 'need' category rather than the 'want' - the price was driven by financiers, not by the buyers who wanted to pay the lowest possible price.

You could argue that excessive consumption created a high environment cost, but that's not the same thing as cash price, because by definition you'd expect environmentally friendly goods to be more expensive (you're paying for the full cycle of production).

Regardless of that, those impressive mortgage payments probably did much to stem disposable income for knick-knacks.

[cupid_stunt]

Huggie,

Besides, an indulgence in ornaments wasn't the cause of our current issues, it was banks over-extending credit to rather unsuspecting individuals who were buying houses with debt they couldn't hope to repay in their own lifetimes.

Hmm,

Whatever happened to self-restraint? No one had a gun pointing at their head (or wallet) as far as I can work out.

i'm sure we'll beg to differ but surely we as indivuduals have to take responsibility for our actions, as do the banks for theirs... One group will struggle to come to terms with this, one never will...

As for the rest of your post: word!

[Brendan]

cupid_stunt Wrote:

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> Hmm,

>

> Whatever happened to self-restraint? No one had a

> gun pointing at their head (or wallet) as far as I

> can work out.

>

> i'm sure we'll beg to differ but surely we as

> indivuduals have to take responsibility for our

> actions, as do the banks for theirs... One group

> will struggle to come to terms with this, one

> never will...

You've not really thought more than 2 steps back and/or forward on this isue have you?

[cupid_stunt]

it's all in the name

[????]

???? Wrote:

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> I think the situation in East Dulwich is trivial

> and irrellevant...the whole country is @#$%& for

> 10 years plus

Only 5 more to go

[uncleglen]

And don't forget we are going to run out of gas very soon!