2020 Potential Economic Collapse

[diamond lil]

That's true Jansman. Awful state for a country to be in.

[grenfell]

Honestly doesn't bother me in the slightest. Barter is still alive and well where we live. Even with folk like the village mechanic. The rest I'm sure I could figure out as I go!

Same here. Barter goes on every day more than people think.

I do barter work as well but it would be interesting to know what proportion of people's income comes from that. Personally mine is perhaps 2% of my income but that is dwarfted by the amount of bank transfers i get. I get a fair bit of cash and a few cheques too. As mentioned earlier cash is welcomed by the self employed , that's for cashflow fluidity obviously , nothing else of course.
Frankly i feel that if cash were to disappear tomorrow it wouldn't be replaced by more than a fraction by barter. It's fantasy to think that in the presence of a fully functioning monetary system people would turn to bartering to a large degree. As it is something like 85% of transactions are electronic and involve no physical currency , i wonder what percentage barter takes up . Perhaps we should ask those in retail like jansman when someone last offered to pay with a bag of onions , logs or sand?I
I'd like to say that i don't really want a cashless society because i'm not in favour of putting all one's eggs in one basket. If there's a computor problem then cash will still work largely. Fraud and crime will still happen whether we are using electrons , pound notes or leaves but otherwise if there's a functioning digital system people will use it.

[redskies]

Honestly doesn't bother me in the slightest. Barter is still alive and well where we live. Even with folk like the village mechanic. The rest I'm sure I could figure out as I go!

Same here. Barter goes on every day more than people think.

I do barter work as well but it would be interesting to know what proportion of people's income comes from that. Personally mine is perhaps 2% of my income but that is dwarfted by the amount of bank transfers i get. I get a fair bit of cash and a few cheques too. As mentioned earlier cash is welcomed by the self employed , that's for cashflow fluidity obviously , nothing else of course.
Frankly i feel that if cash were to disappear tomorrow it wouldn't be replaced by more than a fraction by barter. It's fantasy to think that in the presence of a fully functioning monetary system people would turn to bartering to a large degree. As it is something like 85% of transactions are electronic and involve no physical currency , i wonder what percentage barter takes up . Perhaps we should ask those in retail like jansman when someone last offered to pay with a bag of onions , logs or sand?I
I'd like to say that i don't really want a cashless society because i'm not in favour of putting all one's eggs in one basket. If there's a computor problem then cash will still work largely. Fraud and crime will still happen whether we are using electrons , pound notes or leaves but otherwise if there's a functioning digital system people will use it.

I think a lot of self employed folk, and those on the fringes like us would do exactly that. Bear in mind also that we live in a very rural, remote location, so rather than use money, it's often easier to barter. And whilst barter is supposed to be declared, I sincerely doubt many do!

[Bosworth]

I love the idea of barter. But even for those of you on this thread who are actively bartering, are you seriously saying you could properly opt out and rely on barter? all food, drink, fuel, energy?

Hats off if so but it feels implausible.

[redskies]

I love the idea of barter. But even for those of you on this thread who are actively bartering, are you seriously saying you could properly opt out and rely on barter? all food, drink, fuel, energy?

Hats off if so but it feels implausible.

Theoretically possible. Particularly if you physically remove yourself from society.

[Arzosah]

As we no longer make anything, we no longer have an ‘Economy’ so debt is the New Economy ‘.

I've been absolutely horrified at the extent to which "saving the economy" has meant "open up the hospitality sector". Shocking.

[diamond lil]

Me too Arzosah. Sickening greed, Keeping the taxes coming in. They seem to forget that if everybody gets covid then the last thing they will be doing is rolling into the pubs to eat & drink. They'll be too busy lying at home trying to breathe. But the one thing to take away from all this guddle is never rely on TPTB to tell you what to do

[Lemne]

I do barter work as well but it would be interesting to know what proportion of people's income comes from that. Personally mine is perhaps 2% of my income but that is dwarfted by the amount of bank transfers i get. I get a fair bit of cash and a few cheques too. As mentioned earlier cash is welcomed by the self employed , that's for cashflow fluidity obviously , nothing else of course.
Frankly i feel that if cash were to disappear tomorrow it wouldn't be replaced by more than a fraction by barter. It's fantasy to think that in the presence of a fully functioning monetary system people would turn to bartering to a large degree. As it is something like 85% of transactions are electronic and involve no physical currency , i wonder what percentage barter takes up . Perhaps we should ask those in retail like jansman when someone last offered to pay with a bag of onions , logs or sand?I
I'd like to say that i don't really want a cashless society because i'm not in favour of putting all one's eggs in one basket. If there's a computor problem then cash will still work largely. Fraud and crime will still happen whether we are using electrons , pound notes or leaves but otherwise if there's a functioning digital system people will use it.

Our is only now and then as we have money to rely on. Take the physical money away and something else would evolve along the lines of barter. Obviously not in major shops but we've done a days labour and been paid in meat. Smaller shops would thrive.

There have been schemes in the UK where people trade skills on a credits basis. You earn so many credits for providing a service and these can be traded for other services/skills.

[redskies]

Our is only now and then as we have money to rely on. Take the physical money away and something else would evolve along the lines of barter. Obviously not in major shops but we've done a days labour and been paid in meat. Smaller shops would thrive.

There have been schemes in the UK where people trade skills on a credits basis. You earn so many credits for providing a service and these can be traded for other services/skills.

We're pretty open to barter, and make that clear. Folk will take that where they can.

I wonder if everyone remembers what happened in Greece a few years ago? The population disagreed with the government to the extent that there was a thriving black market purely to keep taxes out of the equation. Different circumstances, but I wouldn't be surprised to see similar here should we lose cash.

[featherstick]

No Deal Brexit more likely than ever following today's announcement. Check your preps. And yes, the country probably will collapse.