This website is about House prices. As such, I cannot understand why there are so many people who want to bang on about:

- Conspiracy theories
- Survivalism
- Far right policies
- Far left policies
- Other Fringe politics
- Doomsday scenarios
- 'New World Order'/Bilderberg etc


I am beginning to think the only common connection is that nutters, on masse, are all badly paid and cannot afford houses.

Discuss.....

Ha couldn't agree more. There's way too much far-right ignorant nonsense being spouted on this site these days.

Let's stick to talking about house prices. (Or far-left nonsense if you must.)

Suspect we're all just a bit bored of being proved right.

Simon

Fora attract people who share a common central belief - in this case the debt culture is a con that will end in tears and has driven house prices up to a precipice - but while they're here they want to chat about other things as well.

The non-core subjects covered here are more varied and esoteric than I find on the football fora I frequent and probably reflect the cynicism created by seeing a massive con perpetrated on the Anglo-Saxon economies.

I do worry when peoplel talk about stockpiling rice, but if it keeps them happy good luck to them.

I'll think you'll find nearly all internet forums attract a fair amount of nutters, usually single men with no friends

Just a couple of years ago a few "nutters" very accurately predicted the things happening now

I don't see any nutters?

http://www.brunopow.150m.com/website/

LOOK there are more nutters who bought new build flats on 125% mortgages, believing thet would double in value in a couple of years.

I think the answer to this is religion. Economics is one of the greatest invisible forces influencing everyone's lives... while we all think we understand what we are doing on an individual or local level, the systemic effects are extremely complex. Throughout history, when faced with concepts that are difficult to understand, people have craved simplified answers. Greek/Roman gods; monotheistic deities; tribalism etc. (in fact all the ideas mentioned above) follow the same pattern... a desperate attempt to identify someone to blame and hold accountable for whatever undesirable outcomes defy simple rational explanation within the adherent's current mental model for the world. A way to answer the hard questions and stop searching for rational answers.

I think that there is something genetic in people which makes them want to believe that the world we inhabit is controlled... I think it is to do with a need to feel safe. Karl Jung (the psychologist) argues (if you allow me to vastly simplify his beliefs) that people exhibit a collective unconscious - that is synonymous with god. In an age where the Church's dominance has lost much ground to modern cultural influences, it doesn't surprise me that alternative ideas about how the world is ordered are being adopted by the public in greater numbers.

but, but, you are all my friends

Being shown 5 hours of property porn on all channels, your friends and family urging you to buy, your work collegues boasting anout their BTLs, and the Mrs nagging about the "nest", is enough to drive anyone NUTS.

have a think about it. how many of the things you mention might be influenced by a shift upwards or downwards in the price of housing?

You can put "goldbugs" in the title, don't be shy.

Check this organisation out - I enjoyed going to the lectures for a number of years..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Economic_Science

Thats the funniest thing I have read on here for a while. Are you trying to be ironic? Are you American? Do you think I am a clown, here to amuse you? are you an EA ?

Precisely.

lol, thats me.

i would also add that forums are generally populated by loosers. Most people that have a life or anything to loose do not uses forums that much. they are busy doing stuff in the real world.

im off to cut a bit more flesh off this ho i have here lying on a plastic sheet before she dies.

i desperatly need a nice house with a large back garden with soft easy to dig soil for, er, my interest in survivalism and growing food. lol. not for burying ho's at all as i preffer eat them. Out of interest, does anyone know what the most common traits amongst serial killers was? Other than being single males with higher than average intelligence and an interest in house prices?

Actally what i dont like about this site is what i think of as 'baiters', people that start a topic on a subject they dont really care about but what they hope will draw attention to themselves. For example, - 'oh, i just accidently brought a BTL in Manchester, can anyone give me some advise on how I find tennants?' when they havn't brought anything and probably dont even know where Manchester is, whereever it is.

Hmmm... my first reaction was to make me apprehensive... I'm not scared that I could be brainwashed, but - similarly - I resent being "trained" and feel that I'd be uncomfortable with this "school" on that basis.

Then... I read this...



and almost fell off my seat laughing. I ask you: how can any self-respecting secretive cult 'penetrating the corridors of power' ever have ties to the Liberal party? They are more likely to be found trimming their beards, comparing sandals and letting other people get on with making diabolical policy errors!

omg, thats so funny. Some one somewhere, is, er, mentally unbalanced.... i like it.

Jesus, I rest my case. Yes, I am an EA, a great big American lizard EA who is going to control the internet and stop you buying gold!

Your ‘user name’ is deeply ironic BTW. I think you intend it to portray you as someone who can see through the crap of our consumer lead society and as such avoid becoming ‘one of the sheep’

The reality is that you are obviously a sucker for any bizarre concept that anyone peddles on the internet, thus making you more of a sheep than you could ever imagine.

Ironic huh?

Yet another topic started to try and stifle free speech.

Yes we all know there are a few extreme views expressed here. But I find people who call others "Nutters" when they know little of them, quite extreme too. Particularly when they post lists of subjects they feel are not relevant.

This house price bubble does have geopolitical dimensions (central banks/government monetary policy and the benefits and failings of free market capitalism for example), and potentially has huge socio-economic and cultural ramifications. I don't see why they can't be discussed, and frankly I'd rather read the occasional far out conspiracy, and have freedom to express and exchange views, than to be told what is acceptable by a self proclaimed "Non-nutter".

It's called free speech... Get used to it!

It`s very stressful refusing to submit to the cultural norm. I make up my own mind about things and I enjoy seeing my analysis being proved correct.

Where did you get the idea about lizards? It's brilliant, we should make a movie about it.

Thats Bruno - he has nearly 500 videos on youtube about STRs etc. Hes been around since the start of HPC


http://www.youtube.com/user/jamesgrantson

A HPC legend [nut] !

Economically the definition of nutter has definitely shifted from the renter to the house buyer.

Also being a nutter will get you a long way...Tony B & Gorden B, Hitler, Stalin, Any scientologist actor you care to name there are many. To be fair it's rather hard not to find a country without a nut job in power. That must tell you something.

Before dismissing all conspiracies out of hand it's worth reading a little history..start with the sinking of the lusitania and move onto the Russian Revolution and then the reichstag fire. The history of britain is also a rather good series as you can follow our industrial and and imperial history. The internet is a double edged sword many legitimate facts are regarded as conspiracy these days. And some how people think events similar to those I just mentioned could never happen again. Except human nature has not changed so inevitably similar events will occur.

I have been banging on about a HPC since 2000. In retrospect, I called it a bit early I saw prices start to shoot up and I just could not work out where the money was coming from.

This site (which I been visiting for about 5 years I think), along with The Economist, Motley Fool, The FT, Money Week, City Wire etc etc provided me with the explanations that helped me understand how the whole credit bubble came in to existence/functioned, for which I am very grateful. I could have bought a very nice house any time in the last five years, but I have been saving and expect to be able to buy an even nicer one in the next three to four years with a v small mortgage.

I work with a whole bunch of very smart people in one of the worlds most successful companies. A lot of people I work with also have felt the market has been a bubble for the last 5+ years and have also not purchased - although to my knowledge they do not visit this website.

So I disagree that just because a HPC is now happening (was was blindingly obviously going to happen) all of the weird and wacky views on this site are somehow justified.

I come to this site to hear about housing market/economic news - not to hear paranoid ranting from pot smoking schoolboys about 'the internet being shut down by 2012' FFS

Pretty much none actually however house prices might be shifted by conspiracy

Thanks for making me laugh after a sh&t day at work.

Best post today....

Its the people and goverment that bang on about "global warming", "carbon footprint" and "CO2 emissions", go "green", "recycle" yadda ya every bleeding day. Real nutters they are - sea levels rising, global famine, melting of the ice caps, end of the world as we know it???

Don't believe in global warming - its a big conspiracy by the real nutters!


Worms out of tin now.

ahhhhhhhhhhh, fantastic.

Thanks for the link. The guy is a "naaaaaaatter", but his videos are flippin' hysterical.

So you're such a purist that you resent any topic of conversation that deviates from house prices crashing? I think in your opinion some of the views are whacky and unless they are way off topic then free speech and freedom of expression should be cultivated and tolerated. You don't have to view threads that you feel are not in perfect alignment with the raison d'etre of the web site.


I think the threat to the internet is very real - it has been for some time. Seems relevant to me, considering the number of times this site has been down in the past week and other curtailments of internet freedom of speech . Freedom of information doesn't serve the interests of powerful media, banking and consumer goods conglomerates because they don't sell as much "stuff" and you are more difficult to fleece if you are well informed - this site, as you have pointed out, is poweful testimony of that. If you don't believe that things are changing (and not in a good way) there are a couple of links below that back up the views I've expressed.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/04/sweden_wiretap_bill/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7450627.stm

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/new...ernment-decides

I'm right with you on this one Pond. Just cos we've been proved right about HPC doesn't make us the authority on everything. Smugness was an unattractive trait shown by property owners who'd been proved right by rising prices and it's no more attractive coming from us now.

And why is it that people who spend so much time boasting about how individual they are tend to end up in groups of other like-minded 'individuals'?

Simon

I can see numerous posters writing as their name is in italics. Uh oh - more nutters are posting!

A lot of people on this site are failures/losers who like to blame their despair on others, some people may be in their 50's and missed buying over a 30 year period and now like to blame the NWO's/Bilderbergers for their plight.

Anyway, I'm off, I've got to fill my petrol tank up with half water/half unleaded.

I think the majority of people on here have seen through the global wide plan to tie us in to generate wealth for the minority, which is excellent.

The thing that bothers me though that when the price is right they are all happy to hop onto the conveyer belt they critice !

Surely you're not suggesting that house prices are unaffordable. Do you believe the earth is flat too?

Which of these groups are NUTTERS?

A ) Unmarried couples that don't love each other, have children, and take out a HUGE mortgage together. Dummies who think that house prices can only go up. Couples that take out MASSIVE mortgages on a houses, worth half of their current values, and who won't finish paying until they are elderly. Those with unhealthy obsessions with house prices. Celebrity loving sheep, concerned about some FOOLS in Big Brother, rather than REALITY. The blind leading the blind.

OR

B ) A group of individuals who question EVERYTHING, and not accepting things on face value. People who reject what their government tells them. People who reject what the media tell them. These folks don't follow their peers into a ditch!

Yes, there are some head-cases on here, but that applies to every forum on the Internet. I saw Christian judgement on a forum for ..... computer consoles

when they are, why back in, why tie all you equity and hence freedom to some bricks. Perhaps you are all sheeple it is just the price to buy you ??

Houseprices to fall 50% - I am a nut, NEVER HAPPEN

Houseprices to double - I am a genius

Baaaaah

Lets discuss then, what is a nutter? If you want the establishment view you can watch the BBC, if you want the view of the man in the street you can ask him. So why are you here?

I assume you are here because you dont just wish to know house prices, which can be seen in any EA window. You are here because you wish to know future house prices. To do this you must understand the factors that move those prices. There are clearly many factors involved and different people give different weightings to them leading to the differing predictions.

So conspiracy theorists, these are people that say there are organized groups involved in the manipulation of prices. Well you have no evidence to suggest there are not. So you listen to their arguments and decide if believe them.

Survivalists are simply extreme pessimists. These extreme bears offer as valid a viewpoint as extreme bulls. If you listen to only the one camp you will lose your shirt as the BTL investors have found out.

Far right people are usually independents who believe they can go it alone. Far left people are those who want a central authority to tell them every move.

Doomsday scenarios are always worth listing to if you dont want to be caught with your pants down. If you go into any project without considering what can go wrong then you will fail. Its easy to consider the optimal case where everything goes to plan. It is considering all the cases where something goes wrong that takes the time.

New world order cases are considering the role of major players with a vested interest. Central banks etc are major factors since they set interest rates. You cannot have an accurate prediction without considering the actions of these players.

I get the impression you do not wish to think. You are looking for someone to tell you what will happen. You have a problem because you are so used to believing what you are told. Now you are presented with people saying many different things and do not know what to believe.

You should stop coming here then, either you are a nutter or trolling by your definition en masse

I think you are confusing a Left/Right bias with an Authoritarian/Liberal perspective.

I think it's important to understand the context in which the House Price Bubble and Crash occured and that context is political and economic one.

When you understand this wider context you'll be able to navigate the future a bit better and you'll be less surprised by such things happening again. But I get the feeling that most people here are just waiting till they can buy a house thenthey'll leave (nothing wrong with that as it's called 'housepricecrash.co.uk' )
which is too bad since there is a lot more to learn from the people here.

The reason I'm here for example is for the information and wisdom about that wider context as I'm not interested in getting a house untill I want to start a family (10 years from now at least) and can pay for it myself completely.

I'm very wary of anyone who derides others for not being normal. Just look at what is considered normal in the western world: Do well in school, work as a wage slave while numbing yourself with TV and Computer entertainment, drugs and alcohol, till you retire to do all the things you REALLY wanted to do with your life. Oh yeah... and indebt yourself with a mortgage along the way. If that's normal then I'd rather be wierd and crazy (which people frequently think I am).

Since my early twenties I've realised that the vast majority of people in this world are full of s**t and have no clue about how the world works. Love, money, health... most people are automatons that don't take a moment to think for themselves, and then they wonder why they feel depressed.

Either a lot of people are incompetent and thick, or they are malicious greedy and power hungry. I don't know what's worse to be honest.

Just look at some of the following scenarios:

Fishermen complaining they are not allowed to fish as much as they used to... yet forgetting the fact that if they continue the way they are there will be no fish for anyone!

Nobel Prize Winning Economists investing in Long Term Capital Management (google it + Smartest People in the Roo) and almost causing the collapse of the whole financial system in the 90's because they thought they could calculate the odds of random things happening in the future.

Gordon Brown wants to reclassify Cannabis despite experts saying it shouldn't and conveniently ignoring the most damaging drug: Alcohol.

Competely barmy war on terror and war in Iraq.

From the average joe to the our elite leaders: normal = retarded.

Nah, this Forum is like the most popular West End Show, all amateurs seeking their 15 minutes of fame.

idiot

that is an outstanding post, bravo!

I can sell you some magnets which you attach to the fuel line, it aligns the molecules in the water and splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen - hydrogen to burn and oxygen to provide an oxidant. It also sets up a cold fusion reaction. Gets you 20% more fuel economy. Only $99.99. I've also got tin foil hats for sale to stop the government spy satellite reading your mind.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

excellent points

Humour not one of your strengths then?