There is a perception that we will be scraping the very bottom of the barrel if Moody’s does indeed downgrade our debt to the dreaded Junk Status – that ‘There’s no way to go but up’, that ‘This is the beginning of our rehabilitation process’ and so on. Regrettably that’s not so at all. If our economy continues to go the wrong way there could be much worse in store for us – have a look at our table of the various categories used by Moody’s in its “Investment Grade” and “Non-Investment Grade” rankings. We discuss the implications, and our way forward.

Financial scams have always been around but their scale in today’s world is truly amazing – estimates of annual losses in the USA alone reach $120 billion. The good news is that there are positive steps you can take to protect yourself, and perhaps the first and most important of these is getting to grips with the different types of “con” and how they work. First question we ask ourselves therefore is “What is a ‘quick con’, and what distinguishes it from a ‘long con’?” Then – the really important bit - we look at what types of people are most vulnerable to the con artists. Make sure you aren’t one of them!