Let's start off with a Dad joke...
What do you call a woman who throws all of her bills and debt letters in the fire?
Bernadette...
Now I do indeed realise exactly how bad that joke was, but please don't hate me as I may just have some helpful advice for you today. This post may have found you at exactly the right time!
We are still suffering the humongous effects of a global crisis and the severe backlash of a global pandemic. Let me tell ya folks, the worst is yet to come. Many of you will already be thinking this and see the ramifications up ahead that I want to detail today.
Here in the UK back around March time the first visible effects of what was happening, like many places, was the severe, unprecedented panic buying of toilet rolls and pasta. You can well imagine, this started a tsunami of literal 'toilet humour' and toilet tissue memes.
This was soon followed by far more serious ramifications that I do not need to outline here as you have all lived through these times in your respective countries and in many and varied ways. I gotta say that if your governmental advice is anything like that issued by our PM Bumbling Boris... Good luck!
Advice here was so utterly confusing and contradictory that most people had no clue if they were coming or going. Stay indoors, but go to work, but don't go to work but do stay indoors, unless you can't, but you must!!! I am not kidding when I say this, it seems ludicrous but is what we have been living with as far as governmental advice goes.
HOWEVER... None of this is the reason for my post, but now you have the setup, let's move on...
The second a governmental furlough scheme was even muted, before the entire infrastructure of our country was put in to enforced lockdown even before the financial markets were essentially placed in hibernation, I made an exclamation immediately and I have not changed my thoughts one iota save to say I am even more negative and pessimistic in my long-term economic outlook. My exclamation was this...
Oh F#@# we are gonna be paying for this for a long, long time!!!
Those of us who have one eye on the markets, bank of England base rates, jobless figures, GDP shrinkage, dividend cuts and sell offs were already of the mind that the biggest recession since the 1930's was an absolute inevitability. The oversold, overbought markets were bulbous and ripe for freefall. The market could not possibly struggle on under an illusion of wealth and affluence that did not reflect reality.
Essentially we were heading to the largest redistribution of wealth seen to date. This has happened on a cyclical treadmill since markets were established.
The picture goes like this. After a recession, the average citizen is a little cagey about big purchases, home buying and taking on credit, HP and loans. The greedy, grasping overbloated financial institutions need and want your money so they start offering great interest on credit, savings and loans. Remember subprime mortgages? More and more people enter in to such deals as the rates are so good right and become fooled that the good times will run and run and run.
Essentially, the working class start to acquire wealth, property and investments and begin to move toward or in to the middle class due to their new net worth. There has long been a belief that this is allowed to happen by those who control the financial system and through their lobbyists who also effectively control governments.
Then comes the redistribution of wealth opportunity for the mega-wealthy. Homes, vehicles and large purchases are repossessed/foreclosed auctioned off and bought by those with huge reserves for pennies on the pound. Financial markets tank and those uninitiated in viewing market cycles panic sell at a loss and those same people who bought the homes, but top quality stocks, shares and bonds at knockdown prices knowing that all they have to do is wait out the recession and cash in when optimism begins rife as the whole sorry cycle repeats itself...
The current situation however made and will make things infinitely and exponentially worse. If accurate figures were reported from the pandemic, which I highly doubt I believe the worsening of this impending crash would be something akin to 10X. I believe with fake reports and manipulated numbers and global governmental cooking of the books we will likely see an almost apocalyptic 50X - 100X
The post you are reading now has been writing itself in my head for a week or two BUT a figure that jumped out at me yesterday is that in the UK alone 730,000 jobs have been lost since the start of the pandemic, this prompted me to get round to writing this today. I am sure that people from every corner of the globe are hearing similar, slightly scary numbers that when compounded and stacked in to a global figure, paints an incredibly bleak picture.
What this means for the average person is well... You can see already, right?
I have spoken to many people who have burned through their savings while they have been unable to work or at best had to live on a reduced wage, here in the UK it was 80% of basic wage, elsewhere the figure varied. Many of these people have also cashed in their investments to keep their head above water. Essentially destroying any net worth they had built up for retirement or a rainy day, the rainy day came of course, but unfortunately it hearkened the start of monsoon season!
Think about it, these were the responsible people who exhibited delayed gratification and actually prepared for the future, for hundreds of millions more, probably more like several billion, the picture is far, far more depressing.
This will, I have zero doubt lead to a mental health epidemic, a huge spike in suicide all around the world and bring many relationships to an end that's even before mentioning the far reaching, economic/ implications for 'the new normal'.
Make no mistake, this will force wages down in material terms. If this doesn't come to pass in the numbers reflected in your hourly, weekly or monthly salary it will leave your pocket in other more surreptitious ways.
We are all increasingly familiar with taxes that are not called taxes in recent years, right?
People will be backed in to ever increasingly desperate corners and situations to even get close to the situation they experienced before.
We WILL pay for this for many, many years to come and we WILL see a mammoth redistribution of wealth on a scale we could never have even guessed at before this situation.
We WILL also have a crippling burden of debt placed upon our shoulders with no end in sight and be expected to carry it for many years and even pass it on to our children I have no doubt.
More importantly in my opinion. We will also, interestingly enough, begin hearing more rumors that our global economic system actually crashed last September, long before the pandemic was even heard of. More on this in upcoming posts.
I know, I know for someone who usually makes posts tempered with positivity and optimism this is certainly a departure from my self improvement posts.
I have painted a picture today that seems like we have no hope whatsoever BUT that is not so, If you read part 2 when I post it later tonight or tomorrow morning at latest, you will see my thoughts on flipping this system on it's head, applying a little lateral thinking and building yourself a titanium plated flak jacket to push through what is to come.
I am on the side of humans, at this moment in time I have no other allegiance and want to help as many people as possible negotiate a safe and empowering path through the coming economic minefield.
I feel as though this is one of the, (if not the) most important posts I have ever written. I write a lot of incredibly long posts as I like to fully explore an idea once I have raised it. This time, because I really want you to read this synopsis, I have broken it in two to ensure as many people as possible reach the end.
IF YOU HAVE READ TO THE END OF PART ONE, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE WITH THIS NEGATIVE ASSESSMENT OF OUR NEAR FUTURE IN YOUR HEAD. PART TWO WILL BE THE SECRET INGREDIENT AND BATTLE-PLAN FOR COPING WITH...
The new abnormal normal.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!
Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!
Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the so-called real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...
