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Hard times? What hard times?


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A few years ago, whilst lots of you were out getting 100%+ mortgages, I decided I needed a career change.

 

I had some skills with computers but realised that to gain employment in this field I needed the paper to prove it. I took a course at college and gained that important piece of paper.

 

I quickly realised the next stumbling block was experience. I decided to offer my services for less than the advertised salary. This tactic worked.

 

After 3 years working my way up and several large pay rises later I'm happy to say this credit crunch and talk of hard times hasn't hit me one bit.

 

I'm more financially sound now than ever.

 

Bully for you. Must make up for the fact you haven't had sex since 1994.

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A few years ago, whilst lots of you were out getting 100%+ mortgages, I decided I needed a career change.

 

I had some skills with computers but realised that to gain employment in this field I needed the paper to prove it. I took a course at college and gained that important piece of paper.

 

I quickly realised the next stumbling block was experience. I decided to offer my services for less than the advertised salary. This tactic worked.

 

After 3 years working my way up and several large pay rises later I'm happy to say this credit crunch and talk of hard times hasn't hit me one bit.

 

I'm more financially sound now than ever.

 

Good for you!

 

It was Friday night, and the self made men were just warming up to their favourite theme....how fantastic every thing they do is.

 

The funk of Smugness hung so thick in the air, you could have cut it with a knife.

 

These guys were so far gone, they had begun to imagine people were jealous of them.

If they could mistake disdain for jealousy, what would they imagine pity to be? Admiration? Probably!

 

The way I read the OP, he wasn't crowing about how well he'd done, but sounded relieved that his efforts to support himself had borne fruit.

 

Sometimes you win - and sometimes you lose, but if you don't bother trying, then although you probably won't starve (and you'll still be far better off than about 95% of the people in the world) you will lose all the time.

 

Has anyone been blaming the hard working?

 

There's certainly a lot of blame to be shared around, but the reckless investment bank speculators and their political puppets must surely take a large share of it.

 

Those who overextended themselves by paying silly money for houses in the expectation of "free money" (prices only ever go up don'tcha know) I would certainly class as wannabee low-rent speculators.

 

Merely cut-rate parasites when compared to the big boys but there are an awful lot of 'em.

 

'Reckless investment bank speculators'. Nothing new there. Do you remember the 'Junk bonds' of the early 1980s? - Effectively they were unsecured loans. People (who should've known better) jumped on the bandwaggon to try to take advantage of the (often ridiculously) high interest rates and lost a load of money.

 

Do you remember when (supposedly) prudent investors (including many Councils) bought Icelandic bonds (which were paying over the odds interest rates, because they had little backing) and then lost a load of money?

 

The recent housing loans fiasco could have (and should have) been prevented by government regulators (in the UK, in the US and elsewhere) but those regulators turned a blind eye. - Presumably because their political masters felt they would stay in power if they could persuade the people they were well off.

 

Mr Smith - and many hundreds of thousands of people in similar circumstances, people who could not afford huge mortgages were persuaded to buy houses they couldn't afford to pay for.

 

The demand for mortgages was huge - far more than the existing mortgage lenders could fund - so new sources of funding had to be found. The existing loans were packaged and sold on to other investors.

 

(You might take a mortgage with company A and 3 months later, find that you now had a mortgage with company B, who had bought out your loan from company A.)

 

Caveat emptor! It's an old saying, but it still applies. Apparently in many cases, the 'Company Bs' who bought out the mortgages didn't even know what they were buying! They were so keen to offload cash, they simply bought. They were buying potentially bad debt - but it was debt which (in many cases) had been issued at ridiculously low interest rates.

 

A number of governments wanted people to buy houses (the feel-good factor wins votes), ignored their own role in controlling overspending and couldn't be bothered to regulate (govern.)

 

I doubt that the traders who sold the packaged mortgages were being reckless; many of them are paid commission only and if the market in the financial instruments they normally sell is slow, they either think of something else to sell, get another job, or starve.

 

The blame doesn't lie solely with any one group, but (IMO) since most of us live in societies which have formal systems of government and since those who do the governing (make the laws which control us) get paid for doing that (and they don't do very much else) then the lion's share of the blame should go to the governments which failed to regulate the people they are paid to govern.

 

Most countries have at least some financial problems. Given that the governments of those countries were the people who were largely responsible for the problems (by negligence, if not misfeasance) then - IMO - it would be a reckless person who would rely on 'the government' - the entity which dropped him into the hole - to dig him out.

 

The OP decided to rely on himself. It worked. I'm pleased (but probably not as pleased as he is.;))

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Yes, you declare how loaded and successful you are, but here you are on SF on a friday night, just like me. Only I haven't come on to announce how fantastic my life is. 'Oh what a fantastic time i'm having telling people on the internet how successful I am.' :hihi::hihi:

 

That's deep. You are an inspiration to us all. :hihi:

 

Working away. Success takes sacrifive.

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You could just make it up like Tony and post your self worth to see what reaction you get.

Tony's saying he feels financially secure; not too hard to believe if Tony is unmarried, child-free and has a lifestyle that's easily supported by his income. After all, he's not said he's sat in his mansion eating his dinner off the backs of his servants, has he? ;)

 

Let's hope that Tony's particular combination of qualifications, skills and experience are such that he continues in his happy position, secure in his immunity, and that his company (and others in his chosen sector) remain equally confident.

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just ignore the jealousy Tony!! as i said lots on here are expecting everything to come to them without the effort...... right off to do another 12 hr day to keep the unwashed paid !

 

I don't expect everything to come to me but so far a lot of the good things have :D

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