My sympathies go to anyone who is losing their job. I had redundancy 3 times in my working career and it ain't funny, especially as I had 1 occasion where my wife lost her job the same time. However, all I can say, is that things did change eventually and we moved on.
I agree that senior bankers have to take their share of the blame, but they are by no means the sole culprits. Many businesses were encouraged to take pension holidays, and expand far more than they should have done. They went along with it, becuase they were all scared that if they did not, they would be left behind. They were also encouraged to swop assets for debt as a means to avoid take overs. That was great as long as profts kept rising, once they stalled, then the loans became due. We also had a general population who believed that they could have everything today, and to Hell with tomorrow. Just get another credit card and it would all work fine. Some people stated several years ago that we were heading for a disaster, but they were all told they were wrong. No more 'Boom and Bust' was the expression I believe. We have had a Government for the last 11 years that has presided over de-regulating everything in the interest of getting fast bucks in taxes, which they then blew. We reduced our manufacturing base as it was easier, and richer to pass paper around and pretend we were working. As a consequence you will have noticed that the public sector has remained immune to any downturn and is gaily hiring more and more diversity coordinators, or whatever. So, we outside this blessed society will be paying more and more to keep them in gold plated lifestyles, while the rest of the 'workers' fall beside the wayside.
The answer as they say in the song is 'blowing in the wind' and I know that this recession/depression is going to last a lot longer than our illustrious masters have so far told us. That is because we have no back up plan apart from the Zimbabwe policy of 'print and more print'. I think it will be 2011 before you see any 'green shoots' and by then an awful lot of people will have suffered badly.
If you have any nest eggs at all then consider moving out of the UK as the opportunities will arise sooner in other countries. Unless of course we build another false bubble on credit. If you are at the top of a Ponzi scheme you can be rich very fast. Alternatively, get yourself on a reality TV Show. Talent is not a requirement.
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