What a year it’s been in the UK. In fact, what a year it’s been globally! Obviously not in a good way. Quite simply financial turmoil, the likes of which have never been seen before.
When Northern Rock had their problems towards the end of 2007, no one was thinking that this was the beginning of what has happened since. Even when they became nationalised in February 2008, it seemed like it was just an isolated incident but since then, many banks have held out their hands begging for help.
A knock on effect of this was that the housing market started to fall. More difficult to get a mortgage meaning less buyers. Less buyers meaning house prices start dropping. This in turn means the buyers wanted to wait to see what happened making even less buyers until pretty much no house sales were going through. Also, builders working on new builds were beginning to stop their work as it was pointless building a house that no one was going to buy.
Companies started dropping left right and centre with the now household name “credit crunch”. They are still going now, most recently Woolworths and Zavvi. One begins to think if there will be any major high street stores left by then end of next year.
I could go on and on about all the problems that have happened this year but I would be writing well into 2009 before I got anywhere near the end! Here’s to a better 2009 in the hope that “things can’t get any worse” (touch wood).