Anyone Watching Dispatchers?

[Papa Manual]

Lets just hope Mr Wood has found a different vocation. Imagine how many people are pissed at him! I bet there are thousands of stoooopid yanks that feel like right nobs for listening to him and people barking the same crap he was.

P.S. I have to say I bought Societe Generale shares in July of last year. I was a bit silly. They're a little over a third of their original worth now. Luckily I worked for them at the time and it was highly incentivised. I've only lost about 20%, but still! Damn Jerome Kervial set it off for those guys hehe. Think I'm just going to keep them a few decades until they recover.

[Extreme_biker0]

Lets just hope Mr Wood has found a different vocation. Imagine how many people are pissed at him! I bet there are thousands of stoooopid yanks that feel like right nobs for listening to him and people barking the same crap he was.

P.S. I have to say I bought Societe Generale shares in July of last year. I was a bit silly. They're a little over a third of their original worth now. Luckily I worked for them at the time and it was highly incentivised. I've only lost about 20%, but still! Damn Jerome Kervial set it off for those guys hehe. Think I'm just going to keep them a few decades until they recover.

I'm staying out of shares too at the minute, it's all so unpredictable! I'm only holding Morrisons at the minute which are down, but i don;t need to sell and crystalise the loss so like you I'll hold them until they recover (never!).

My finger was hovering over 'buy' on HBOS earlier last week when they were 120p, could have made a few quid there (though the TSB shares you end up holding are dropping like a stone too now!). Just don't have the guts.

Saying that they publisised the buyout price at 232 and the shares reacted only +30p so investors were skeptical of the deal going through, the alternative being another northern rock (total loss!). So I pussied out but with reason!

Edited September 23, 2008 by Extreme_biker0

[Papa Manual]

I regret not buying HBOS shares too (I was watching them for hours at work hehe). I just figured there's only so much risk you can take sensibly. I've got rent to worry about too, and the only way I could have done it would have been to take it out of my uni savings fund for next year. Would have been a nice extra lump for it. I guess there's no point in moaning about what could have been.

The frantic buying and selling of shares for personal gain is actually a fairly large contributor to why these companies get shafted once the downward spiral begins. It would happen sooner or later anyway though.

[Extreme_biker0]

No point moaning, but if what you say is true, i'd love to be able to say I had a hand in bringing down HBOS!

Well i never thought I'd be sat at work all afternoon talking shop on trials forum! And now it's home time!

Edited September 23, 2008 by Extreme_biker0

[Fish-Finger-er]

yea,but surely everyone saying people will have to cut back, and downsize their house etc, well surely, then they should do it... we dont need all the stuff weve got(including the stuff i reeled off in my last post), weve just come to expect. speak to your parents/older aunts/uncles (the people growing up in the late 50/the 60's)

no one spent half a weeks wages on a pair of jeans, when you learnt to drive you learnt to drive in your parents car, typically your dad had a car, your mum didnt, you didnt, unless you where working etc. the house had one tv, etc.

and this was when britain was supposedly still great, we still had a motor industry, and we still had engineering/manufacturing plants. and back then people had to make do.

now weve got idiots sittin in hot tubs, drinking echo falls, talking about how the audi a4's going to have to go- well of course it is, you only earn 23k a year. im fully aware of a family, whose dad put down £20k for their house, they live in a 4/5 bed semi, with a garage, a mass of land, drive a vw eos(convertible) 07 plate, and a 5 year old vw passat. theyve got everything, the dogs bollocks like, but theyve had to borrow £3500 to pay their sons uni tuition fees,as theyve just got back from barbados and moneys a bit tight right now.

its them kind of people that are going to be in trouble, but hang on, its not like this has just happened overnight, and they where well aware their son was going to university, should they not of looked ahead, and thought "hang on, where going to need £3,500 come september, should we spend £3000 on going to barbados"

people have relied on living beyond their means for too long.

as for the price of basic foods and the like going up, i tend to the weekly shop for home, and yes its gone up, but then some stuffs come down too, bread from asda(smart price bread) is down 37p to 30p, asda peppered steak slices(pasties) are down £1.19 to £1, which is now cheaper than when i first started doing the shopping 2 years ago, milks gone up about 15p per 4 pints, but i just get 8 pints from iceland for £2 now. lagers neither here nor there, used to be like £10 for a 24 pack, its more like £15 now, but quite often get offers, 3 packs of 18 cans for £20. which is 54 cans for £20, which is cheaper than it used to be.

if the cost of my weekly shop has gone up by more than £1-£2 ill be suprised, even with a large family thats only going to be about £5, so how about they lay off the fags or the booze one night a week, job done.

as for the low demand in work, and the loss of jobs, i agree its effecting a lot of people(builders, estate agents, car salesmen, people who work in car manufacturing plants etc)

but at the same time,your regular plumber who does repairs, as opposed to installs the plumbing in new houses, is doing ok.

the car maintenance side of things is picking up, as no-one can afford a new car, so theres more sheds on the road, requiring more work, the caravan and camping business has never been so healthy, as people arent holidaying abroad. its all swings and roundabouts.

[Papa Manual]

Well i never thought I'd be sat at work all afternoon talking shop on trials forum! And now it's home time!

Ditto, and ditto. Hehe.

[thefletch]

CAN I JUST SAY...I've grown tried of saying this to so many people, THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY HAS BARELY BEEN AFFECTED BY ALL THIS. Only HOUSE BUILDERS have been majorly affected. The likes of Persimmon and Barratt have recorded huge losses in profits and cut their workforce in some divisions by 50%.

HOWEVER, speak to most building contractors that have their hands in more than one pot and they are probably doing fine. I work for a building contractor and we have already secured enough work to double our turnover this year, and there is one quarter remaining. We have found a huge growth in the health sector and commercial sector. We are also part of a framework deal for the MOD which is 'recession proof' work (government funded and these assets (of which there are literally thousands, possibly tens of) HAVE to be altered/refurbed.

[M-i-t-c-h]

Thats interesting fletch, i work with building contracts, not just housing contractors (major ones, including gallifordtry) and they all seem to be feeling the crunch, price of concrete tripleing and other raw materials such as copper. Roofing contracts are doing ok, but general construction companies seem to be really noticing the crunch. This coupled with the falling price of there finished products eats their final profit margins. My business was built on the construction industry and general property, i have suffered, because they are suffering, and its this knock on effect that needs to be considered.

Edited September 23, 2008 by M-i-t-c-h

[Papa Manual]

Guernsey is a bit of an exception when it comes to jobs and housing because of the finance industry. There are over 1000 job vacancies in Guernsey at the moment and only 60,000 people living here. Check out this and this. It kind of shows you how much some property costs due to high demand and lack of space. The second property is probably the worst value house I've ever seen for sale in the island, so it's a bit of an exception. Not sure quite what they're thinking.

Construction has been booming for the past 15 years over here. A lot of the waterfront and many of the old hotel buildings have been converted into offices and high value apartments. This has come to an almost complete standstill in the last two years or so. A lot of the migrant workforce has gone back to Latvia/Poland/Portugal as the benefits of working in Guernsey are less prominent for several reasons (including the pound, new business etc). I used to work in construction (for 5 years in a builders merchants and a while labouring) and from what I hear now it's a whole different world to what I was used to. A number of the customers I used to deal with just lurk around the builders merchants not up to much in particular. In addition, they're taking smaller, less profitable jobs and downsizing their workforce. I'd imagine if this sort of thing is happening in Guernsey, it must be magnified in the UK.