The Credit Crunch

[Guest]

im hopin i still get me ?2k bonus in may/june. Successful year and the company i work at are wethering the storm well if we are to be believed.

 

Personally not feeling the pinch too much as yet, i rent, have no savings/pension and skint as fook all the time anyway! Forward planning is not my forte.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

I haven't seen any prediction/commentary that guesses/predicts/outlines

 

How it will end

When it will end

 

Aside of people stating that it will end by X DATE without any justification.

[ZiggyStardust]

Is it obly me that finds it ironic that someone from a bank (who have been given a huuuuuge handout from the govt, and started the whole problems in the first place) is wondering what the fuss is about.

We're about 32% down for the period oct-dec, and we project that next year our sales will be down around 50% as companies cut back their IT spending. I've been closely checking the Insurance polocies regarding redundancy cover.

[Guest bwfc devon]

Is it obly me that finds it ironic that someone from a bank (who have been given a huuuuuge handout from the govt, and started the whole problems in the first place) is wondering what the fuss is about.

We're about 32% down for the period oct-dec, and we project that next year our sales will be down around 50% as companies cut back their IT spending. I've been closely checking the Insurance polocies regarding redundancy cover.

Hope your ok mate

[Sluffy]

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

I haven't seen any prediction/commentary that guesses/predicts/outlines

 

How it will end

When it will end

 

Aside of people stating that it will end by X DATE without any justification.

 

 

I think the truth is that nobody knows.

 

There as never been anything like this before where the banking system of the western economy have basically collapsed and have had to be nationalised.

 

Now that means that the Governments have used our taxed money to underwrite the banks debts - much of which are based on quickly depreciating assets.

 

To explain the problem very, very simply - the banks have borrowed money based on assets to lend even more money. People and businesses have borrowed this money (or taken on extended credit) and have put up further assets (or taken out repayment insurance) to guarantee that they will pay the loans back. In turn banks have borrowed more money to lend and people have borrowed it and put up further assets / insurance to pay back and again the banks have borrowed further money........and on, and on and on, etc, etc, etc.

 

Well what as happened is that when it came to paying the banks back people started to find they could not so their assets (their home usually) where repossed - or their business went wrong and their insurance company covered the loss to the bank.

 

Not a problem usually but too many silly loans where given by the banks (mainly in America) and so many house where repossed that it affected the housing market to such an extent that houses prices began to fall - so the value of the banks assets against the loans they give became negative. That means that if they sold off all the houses they had as assets now that the market had become depressed then there was no longer enough money to cover the loans that they had paid out - which in turn (and this bit is very significant) meant they could no longer pay back the people who they borrowed the money off in the first place).

 

So when the banks had to pay back the loans that they took out they could only do this by not giving out any further credit to people (mortgages, loans, credit) and to businesses (investment, cash flow, etc).

 

Then the unthinkable happened banks started to go bust eg - Northern Rock (which the Government saved), Lehman Brothers that the US government didn't.

 

So even banks stopped lending to each other - which again in very simple terms is the basis of the banking system.

 

So how does that affect the likes of you and me?

 

Well the company you work for as an income and expenditure - if it sells its goods or services then you will get your wages - but it needs people to want those goods or services in the first place.

 

The banks can no longer give companies credit as they need to pay back their own bank borrowings - so companies such as Woolworths have had the tap turned off and gone bust.

 

The banks no longer have the money to give for mortgages - so people cannot afford to buy new homes - so house builders are laying off workers. Estate agents are shutting down.

 

People have begun to tighten their belts - it might be their turn next - so they aren't spending money like they used to. They aren't getting car loans - the world?s carmakers are now having massive losses. They aren't booking summer holidays - if you've got the money there will be some fantastic holiday deals soon! Businesses are seeing that their goods and services will be affected (if they are not already are) and taking steps accordingly - such as getting rid of temps.

 

So the banks have no money to lend to businesses who in turn are seeing their sales begin to go down and they are now becoming very vulnerable.

 

It was said just before Christmas (and after Woolies and MFI) that at least 10 national / regional chains of shops will fail - four have gone since then - don't be surprised if stores such as House of Fraser, Debenhams, French Connection, Iceland and Hamleys start to wobble (they are all owned or part owned by the Icelandic company Baugur which must be having a very tough time itself).

 

And that is just the high street shopping sector - what other businesses are finding it tough?

 

So what do I think. Well until the banks can get themselves sorted then we are going to be in a mess. The banks have had to have the government to bail them out for now - the government if you like can be seen as a business - other countries see GB PLC as now having high debt levels and low interest rates and such do not think we are a good risk - so that is why the pound as crashed against the dollar and the Euro.

 

Banks / the Government are not going to get out of this mess any time soon - so forget about 2009, so more businesses are going to fail over the next twelve months.

 

The best jobs to be in for now is the public sector - they are safe for now. The rest of us are vulnerable.

 

As long as people keep spending then we will make it through this as quickly as 2010 - but if people don't then we could be in for a rough time for the next few years I'm afraid.

 

Let me give you two examples from businesses I know personally.

 

One as budgeted for his business to make a loss next year - that means that he will work for a whole year without taking a wage - simply to keep his business going.

 

Another friend as invested ?200,000 of his own money into his business because the banks will no longer give him credit. He believes his business is in good shape (and the banks probably agree also) but the banks do not have the money to lend him.

 

A bit of a gloomy forecast from me but the good news is that many people will not be affected by the recession at all - I sincerely hope that you are one of them because I for one are finding things tough at the moment.

 

But to end on a lighter note - a famous economist once said "in the long run we are all dead" - by which he meant no matter how much you might worry we are not going to live forever - so not much point in worrying at all!

 

Que Sera, Sera!

Edited December 28, 2008 by Sluffy

[SatanGreavsie]

Surely the easiest thing to do would be to make all mortgages null and void and say that we all own our houses now and have nowt to pay on their debts, so go out and spend money. Better than giving money to banks and just have it get shunted into bonuses for the gits that caused the problems in the first place.

Mind you, the sum total of what I know about economics could easily be written on a bumblebee's bollocks, so I may well be wrong

[Sluffy]

Surely the easiest thing to do would be to make all mortgages null and void and say that we all own our houses now and have nowt to pay on their debts, so go out and spend money. Better than giving money to banks and just have it get shunted into bonuses for the gits that caused the problems in the first place.

Mind you, the sum total of what I know about economics could easily be written on a bumblebee's bollocks, so I may well be wrong

 

Thing is, is that the money does not belong to the 'gits that caused all the problems in the first place' - as you put it but to all sorts of investors - including other countries banks / governments. So if the banks / our government let everyone off their mortgage repayments they would still have to find the money to pay back the original bank borrowings.

 

Writing off such debt is not implausible though - many countries's (including ours) did so for many millions of pounds of third world country's debts (Remeber Geldorf and Bono making all that fuss awhile back?).

 

The thing is though that it's country's like China and India that now have all the big money these days - who knows, one day soon they might well become the worlds top dogs - and the likes of us the new 'third world' countries - crazier things have happened!

 

Perhaps we should get brushing up on our Cantonese and Hindi?

Edited December 29, 2008 by Sluffy

[Ani]

on 'have i got news for you'

 

noddy holder 'so where has all this money that has been lost gone ?'

 

hislop 'it never really existed'

 

holder 'so why are we bothered about losing something that was never there in the first place ?'

[Traf]

I'm sure I also said that earlier in the year!

[fruitbat69]

This credit crunch excuse is bollox. The media spout on about this and as usual creates panic. How many people can honestly say they have been hit that seriously in the pocket?

 

OK if you have no mortgage and savings in the bank. Not me

 

Ok if you were doing shedloads of ot 6 months ago but no longer available

[SatanGreavsie]

Thing is, is that the money does not belong to the 'gits that caused all the problems in the first place' - as you put it but to all sorts of investors - including other countries banks / governments. So if the banks / our government let everyone off their mortgage repayments they would still have to find the money to pay back the original bank borrowings.

Yeh but what if they just said "fcuk off" to everyone the banks borrowed from?

Seriously - we've got nuclear weapons for fooks sake.

[cureforsanity]

If I might add my two penn'orth, this credit crunch/global warming/recession may just be a good thing. For me, I've been tightening my belt (ha ha yes, I know I'm a fat bastard) and trying to minimise my fixed costs.

 

I'll be letting one of my warehouses go at the end of January saving me quite a bit of outlay, and two company vehicles contract hire terms are up in feb/march and already we've been inundated with a 'phone call with good deals on new vehicles.

 

As a small business I think we can move quicker than these bigger high street leviathans and meet the demands my customers place upon us in the new year, also by diversifying we can offer different goods and services but still make a good profit. A strange old man once told me: "turnover is vanity, profit is sanity" and I've always worked on that principle, seeing as now hes got several million in the bank and lives in a lovely Italian villa overlooking Elba. Once more of the larger competitors have gone to the wall we hope we will make more profit as these jokers have been offering goods at daft money for the last six months just to get their sales up so their rebate is lower, which in my book is just plain daft!

 

This was the case of a recent long established Manchester company going to the wall after months of selling goods cheaper than they could buy them so they could pay their staff and overheads with their rebate - something which doesn't happen if nobody's buying so you're basically galloping up diarrhoea drive without a saddle either way....

 

It also has made me look around for alternative suppliers as we've been quite lazy for the last six or seven years in our comfort zone, then when they decided to hit us with a delivery charge and four price increases in the last year we decided to look elsewhere and even though it's a bit of a ball ache sourcing from five other suppliers we can get goods cheaper and make a better return without the fear of trying to get new customers which make my credit control department (mrs cure) go purple!

 

Big retailers have had it too good for too long and even though I feel sorry for those folks who are losing their jobs I think it will streamline and rationalise the way some firms do business without hopefully wasting a shed load of cash on daft ideas.

 

What I can't stand is the same organisations giving their directors big bonuses though, surely this will be remembered when they've frittered it all away and go to the government cap in hand?

 

Mate of mine is in the property business and they needed to make four out of eight redundant but in the end they got their heads together and took a small pay cut and less hours so in the end they only lost two. On the other hand another mate of mine was moaning that he lost ?30K worth of value on his shares in Northern Rock when it went went tits up, but as I pointed out to him, he's had many times more than that in dividends over the years, so he can't always have it his way.

 

I could go on but I'm sure of me bleating on.....

 

Better not say bleating in front of Widders though......

[Sluffy]

on 'have i got news for you'

 

noddy holder 'so where has all this money that has been lost gone ?'

 

hislop 'it never really existed'

 

holder 'so why are we bothered about losing something that was never there in the first place ?'

 

It's not as simple as that unfortunately.

 

I'll try and explain.

 

To make a market - someone as to make / produce something, and someone else has to buy it.

 

Say I was a company making wellington boots, there is not much point of me making hundreds of thousands if when I've made them there is a mild winter and no one wants to buy them - so I don't take the risk. However if I don't take the risk and there is a very bad winter then the few wellington boots that have been made would sell for loads of money because everybody wants them.

 

So to get over this problem a 'market' is made where I agree to make so many thousand of wellies and have a guaranteed buyer who will buy them at an agreed price at an agreed 'future' date. So if it is a bad winter he makes a killing but if it is a good winter he makes a loss.

 

However he does not want to make a loss - so he takes out insurance against that - he has 'hedged' his bet.

 

So if it is a wet winter he wins and makes money less what he has hedged. If it is a dry winter he does not make a loss because of his hedging.

 

The insurance company would have worked out what the chances would be to have to pay out on a dry winter and have charged the appropriate insurance rate.

 

So now my job would be to make the wellies in the first place. To do that I would need to have a factory - so I would go to the bank to lend me money to build it. The bank would lend me the money because they could see that I'd got a guaranteed buyer.

 

The buyer however would need to find the money to buy the wellies, so they would go to the bank. The bank would lend him the money because they would see that he had taken out an insurance against not selling the wellies because the winter might not be wet enough!

 

The bank therefore cannot lose - It lends me the money against a guaranteed sale. It lends the buyer the money against a guaranteed sale (he either sells the wellies at a profit or the insurance he has taken out will cover him against the loss).

 

The bank may even provide funds to the hedge fund knowing that the chances are that it will be a wet winter and the insurer (hedge fund) will probably not have to pay out anyway.

 

So the bank as basically done three separate deals (taking commissions from each of the deals) without really having any money in the first place (what I mean by that is that there are no assets on which it as borrowed the money it will lend against - as I am guaranteed a future sale and will pay the bank back once I've been paid - the person buying off me will pay the bank from its sales of the wellies or from the insurance if it does not sell the wellies - so the bank can't lose!!!)

 

So in a sense the money was never there in the first place and everything was going along grandly - markets were being made, futures agreed and hedged.

 

What's gone wrong though is that the worlds economy as gone bust. The hedge funds do not have sufficient monies to cover all the bad debt, so if it is a dry winter it cannot cover the loss of the person buying my manufactured wellies. Worse than that though is that the person buying my wellies cannot sell them even in a wet winter because people no longer have the money to buy them because they have all started to be made redundant. And to top it all off the bank is saying to me even as I'm making the wellies in the first place, that they are not giving me as much credit as I need to build the wellington boot factory in the first place - even though I have a guaranteed buyer in the first place!!!

 

Now it's changed to me having to fund my own manufacturing to produce an order that the agreed purchaser probably no longer wants because he can't sell them at the price agreed and with his hedged insurance going tits up!

 

A bit of a mess.

 

But much, much worse than this is that no one in their right minds will enter into a futures market from now on - so trade will start to get less and less - so the goods and services you are currently producing where you work now might very well not be required anytime soon!

 

It's not looking too rosy - the collapse of world-wide future markets and hedging as never been affected as badly as this before - and no one really knows what is going to happen.

[Sluffy]

Yeh but what if they just said "fcuk off" to everyone the banks borrowed from?

Seriously - we've got nuclear weapons for fooks sake.

 

So have they!!!

 

It was actually rearmament and the second world war that eventually overcame the effects of the 1928 Wall Street Crash.

[Ani]

It's not as simple as that unfortunately.

 

I'll try and explain.

 

To make a market - someone as to make / produce something, and someone else has to buy it.

 

Say I was a company making wellington boots, there is not much point of me making hundreds of thousands if when I've made them there is a mild winter and no one wants to buy them - so I don't take the risk. However if I don't take the risk and there is a very bad winter then the few wellington boots that have been made would sell for loads of money because everybody wants them.

 

So to get over this problem a 'market' is made where I agree to make so many thousand of wellies and have a guaranteed buyer who will buy them at an agreed price at an agreed 'future' date. So if it is a bad winter he makes a killing but if it is a good winter he makes a loss.

 

However he does not want to make a loss - so he takes out insurance against that - he has 'hedged' his bet.

 

So if it is a wet winter he wins and makes money less what he has hedged. If it is a dry winter he does not make a loss because of his hedging.

 

The insurance company would have worked out what the chances would be to have to pay out on a dry winter and have charged the appropriate insurance rate.

 

So now my job would be to make the wellies in the first place. To do that I would need to have a factory - so I would go to the bank to lend me money to build it. The bank would lend me the money because they could see that I'd got a guaranteed buyer.

 

The buyer however would need to find the money to buy the wellies, so they would go to the bank. The bank would lend him the money because they would see that he had taken out an insurance against not selling the wellies because the winter might not be wet enough!

 

The bank therefore cannot lose - It lends me the money against a guaranteed sale. It lends the buyer the money against a guaranteed sale (he either sells the wellies at a profit or the insurance he has taken out will cover him against the loss).

 

The bank may even provide funds to the hedge fund knowing that the chances are that it will be a wet winter and the insurer (hedge fund) will probably not have to pay out anyway.

 

So the bank as basically done three separate deals (taking commissions from each of the deals) without really having any money in the first place (what I mean by that is that there are no assets on which it as borrowed the money it will lend against - as I am guaranteed a future sale and will pay the bank back once I've been paid - the person buying off me will pay the bank from its sales of the wellies or from the insurance if it does not sell the wellies - so the bank can't lose!!!)

 

So in a sense the money was never there in the first place and everything was going along grandly - markets were being made, futures agreed and hedged.

 

What's gone wrong though is that the worlds economy as gone bust. The hedge funds do not have sufficient monies to cover all the bad debt, so if it is a dry winter it cannot cover the loss of the person buying my manufactured wellies. Worse than that though is that the person buying my wellies cannot sell them even in a wet winter because people no longer have the money to buy them because they have all started to be made redundant. And to top it all off the bank is saying to me even as I'm making the wellies in the first place, that they are not giving me as much credit as I need to build the wellington boot factory in the first place - even though I have a guaranteed buyer in the first place!!!

 

Now it's changed to me having to fund my own manufacturing to produce an order that the agreed purchaser probably no longer wants because he can't sell them at the price agreed and with his hedged insurance going tits up!

 

A bit of a mess.

 

But much, much worse than this is that no one in their right minds will enter into a futures market from now on - so trade will start to get less and less - so the goods and services you are currently producing where you work now might very well not be required anytime soon!

 

It's not looking too rosy - the collapse of world-wide future markets and hedging as never been affected as badly as this before - and no one really knows what is going to happen.

 

i have an honours degree in business studies and i preferred Noddy's explanation/

[Smiley]

Little indicators of how its affecting my business.

 

Year on year - do a particular job for a large holiday company. Not a big job - but usually invoice it at ?950.

Year on year, we like to budge the price up slightly. This year we've had to do it for ?850.

No big deal. But a 10% cut all the same. Who'd fancy a 10% salary reduction this year?

 

Another year on year job for another holiday company usually nets us around ?15,000.

This year, they've not cut back our costs, they've simply cut back the size of the brochure.

Thus we'll make about ?5,000 from the job. A loss of ?10,000.

 

Another client has cut their monthly advertising from ?1,000 to ?150.

 

How do we combat this? Well we've picked up new clients to offset some of the losses - but more so, we've not invested in our equipment this year, which we have done considerably for the previous 4-5 years. Therefore there is a knock on effect to our suppliers.

 

In addition, we are now shopping around abroad for much print work rather than using EXPENSIVE UK suppliers. Therefore, we're f?ckin' up our economy to make more profit on the work we're getting.

 

In addition, rightly or wrongly, we're offering certain clients a cash discount price - which we then pay no tax or VAT on. Not good for the economy either.

 

I wouldn't say we've had it too easy over the last few years - but, errr, I guess we have. And now we have a challenge on our hands and its all about fighting for survival.

[Traf]

Little indicators of how its affecting my business.

 

Year on year - do a particular job for a large holiday company. Not a big job - but usually invoice it at ?950.

Year on year, we like to budge the price up slightly. This year we've had to do it for ?850.

No big deal. But a 10% cut all the same. Who'd fancy a 10% salary reduction this year?

 

Another year on year job for another holiday company usually nets us around ?15,000.

This year, they've not cut back our costs, they've simply cut back the size of the brochure.

Thus we'll make about ?5,000 from the job. A loss of ?10,000.

 

Another client has cut their monthly advertising from ?1,000 to ?150.

 

How do we combat this? Well we've picked up new clients to offset some of the losses - but more so, we've not invested in our equipment this year, which we have done considerably for the previous 4-5 years. Therefore there is a knock on effect to our suppliers.

 

In addition, we are now shopping around abroad for much print work rather than using EXPENSIVE UK suppliers. Therefore, we're f?ckin' up our economy to make more profit on the work we're getting.

 

In addition, rightly or wrongly, we're offering certain clients a cash discount price - which we then pay no tax or VAT on. Not good for the economy either.

 

I wouldn't say we've had it too easy over the last few years - but, errr, I guess we have. And now we have a challenge on our hands and its all about fighting for survival.

 

I'd be careful posting stuff that like that if I was you.

 

Sluffy works for the VAT.

[Idiot Wind]

It's not as simple as that unfortunately.

 

I'll try and explain.

 

To make a market - someone as to make / produce something, and someone else has to buy it.

 

Say I was a company making wellington boots, there is not much point of me making hundreds of thousands if when I've made them there is a mild winter and no one wants to buy them - so I don't take the risk. However if I don't take the risk and there is a very bad winter then the few wellington boots that have been made would sell for loads of money because everybody wants them.

 

So to get over this problem a 'market' is made where I agree to make so many thousand of wellies and have a guaranteed buyer who will buy them at an agreed price at an agreed 'future' date. So if it is a bad winter he makes a killing but if it is a good winter he makes a loss.

 

However he does not want to make a loss - so he takes out insurance against that - he has 'hedged' his bet.

 

So if it is a wet winter he wins and makes money less what he has hedged. If it is a dry winter he does not make a loss because of his hedging.

 

The insurance company would have worked out what the chances would be to have to pay out on a dry winter and have charged the appropriate insurance rate.

 

So now my job would be to make the wellies in the first place. To do that I would need to have a factory - so I would go to the bank to lend me money to build it. The bank would lend me the money because they could see that I'd got a guaranteed buyer.

 

The buyer however would need to find the money to buy the wellies, so they would go to the bank. The bank would lend him the money because they would see that he had taken out an insurance against not selling the wellies because the winter might not be wet enough!

 

The bank therefore cannot lose - It lends me the money against a guaranteed sale. It lends the buyer the money against a guaranteed sale (he either sells the wellies at a profit or the insurance he has taken out will cover him against the loss).

 

The bank may even provide funds to the hedge fund knowing that the chances are that it will be a wet winter and the insurer (hedge fund) will probably not have to pay out anyway.

 

So the bank as basically done three separate deals (taking commissions from each of the deals) without really having any money in the first place (what I mean by that is that there are no assets on which it as borrowed the money it will lend against - as I am guaranteed a future sale and will pay the bank back once I've been paid - the person buying off me will pay the bank from its sales of the wellies or from the insurance if it does not sell the wellies - so the bank can't lose!!!)

 

So in a sense the money was never there in the first place and everything was going along grandly - markets were being made, futures agreed and hedged.

 

What's gone wrong though is that the worlds economy as gone bust. The hedge funds do not have sufficient monies to cover all the bad debt, so if it is a dry winter it cannot cover the loss of the person buying my manufactured wellies. Worse than that though is that the person buying my wellies cannot sell them even in a wet winter because people no longer have the money to buy them because they have all started to be made redundant. And to top it all off the bank is saying to me even as I'm making the wellies in the first place, that they are not giving me as much credit as I need to build the wellington boot factory in the first place - even though I have a guaranteed buyer in the first place!!!

 

Now it's changed to me having to fund my own manufacturing to produce an order that the agreed purchaser probably no longer wants because he can't sell them at the price agreed and with his hedged insurance going tits up!

 

A bit of a mess.

 

But much, much worse than this is that no one in their right minds will enter into a futures market from now on - so trade will start to get less and less - so the goods and services you are currently producing where you work now might very well not be required anytime soon!

 

It's not looking too rosy - the collapse of world-wide future markets and hedging as never been affected as badly as this before - and no one really knows what is going to happen.

 

So, to summarise, we're all fucked coz we can't accurately predict whether or not it will be a wet or dry winter hence being unsure of the demand for wellies.

 

Global warming you see......them tree huggers were right after all.

[Sluffy]

I'd be careful posting stuff that like that if I was you.

 

Sluffy works for the VAT.

 

Just for the record I don't - I own a marketing business.

 

About a third of my work came from estate agents - I hardly get anything from them now.

 

How do I cope with a reduction in work - my employees have taken a pay cut AND work less hours.

 

If business doesn't get better very soon there will be job losses.

 

Not a happy time.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Sluffy

[Widnes Two Hats]

And my mortgages in American dollars has shot up this year

 

The thieving bastards

[Smiley]

I'd be careful posting stuff that like that if I was you.

 

Sluffy works for the VAT.

 

Haha, of course I only put that to add some bravado to my post and appear to be "one of the lads!".

Everything's above board and accounted for m'lord!

[Carlos]

i have an honours degree in business studies and i preferred Noddy's explanation/

 

If only because it wasn't immensely patronising.

 

I hope Mr Cure is right and this gives the smaller businesses a chance, the larger ones have been fcuking us over for years.

[Sweep]

The thing is though that it's country's like China and India that now have all the big money these days - who knows, one day soon they might well become the worlds top dogs

I don't think those days are too far away, China has already overtaken the Germans to move into "3rd place" just behind the Japan and the US. They will soon overtake Japan, and will have the US in their sites. It will be interesting what happens when China does become the largest economic powerhouse in the world especially as their domestic currency is still "soft" - once it firms up and becomes a "hard" currency then the USD could be well and truely fcuked.

[Whites man]

It will be interesting what happens when China does become the largest economic powerhouse in the world especially as their domestic currency is still "soft" - once it firms up and becomes a "hard" currency then the USD could be well and truely fcuked.

 

When they do Chinese exports will become more expensive, it's not something they will be doing anytime soon.

[Traf]

When they do Chinese exports will become more expensive, it's not something they will be doing anytime soon.

 

Chicken Fried Rice is already ?4.50. How much more expensive will it go?

[Sweep]

Chicken Fried Rice is already ?4.50. How much more expensive will it go?

it depends, if you factor in the sliding pound, the strength of the Euro, as well as the firming up of China's own currency the Yuan, as well as the expected cold winter and impending duty hike on consumables, I woulkd expect it to be touching ?5.00 or possibly, in a "doomsday" scenario, it could go all the way up to ?5.55 - either way, I'm already stock piling