Anthony

17,000 approvals in a month. Assuming this is amongst the 200 biggest towns, cities and districts (each with over 100,000 people http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uk_topcities.html) in the country, thats about 85 new mortages per city in a month. There's probably several times more estate agents than 85 in a town with a 100,000 population.

Morning, As someone who's worked in Norway last year, one of the things I didn't do was open a Norwegian bank account. With currency rates in summer 2007 around 11.5-12NOK/£ is was a good opportunity missed. The (very) brief surge in the value of Sterling against the NOK two days ago to 10.9NOK/£ had me sorely tempted to look back into the possibility of moving my money into what I see as a relatively safe currency. So, the trouble is opening a Norwegian bank account. In order to do that I need to be a registered resident in Norway with my own personal ID number (similar to our social security numbers). But I'm not a resident, what other ways are there of getting some cash stashed into the NOK? I have colleages in Norway, but agreeing to stash my cash in their bank accounts can be somewhat risky! Anthony

A year ago was the last time I did a regular weekly shop in the UK. Back then, it was £20 to stock up on a week of food, and it had been that way for the last 6 years. Now I just buy a few bits and pieces of food at tesco before flying out to norway each month. Nothing special: granary bread, cheese, fillings and baked beans. It came to £15 for basic staple food! Last year cheese (mature cheddar) was £2.50 for a slab, in october it was £3.75 and last november it was £4!! I'm wandering what it will be next time I'm back in the UK. ... Mind you, my weekly food shop in Norway comes to £100 . Again, nothing special in that basket.

Nice one! Are you lined up for any further debates on prime radio or tv soon?

I'm a physicist by education too . Now in the oil and gas industry as a control systems engineer, and homeless - which saves me a fortune. Travelling the world is part of my job, and personally I reckon job mobility is the strongest asset anyone can possess in weathering a serious recession. Scotland Yesterday, Norway today, Singapore Tomorrow

Living in Norway, I used to think that this was one of the safest countries on the planet for financial stability. The revenue from their oil is not spent today, but placed in foreign investments for their national pension fund to secure an income when the oil runs dry. I'm wondering if this foreign investment fund was spent wisely, or whether it will suffer the same fate as the townships leveraged investments. The news about Narvik and other townships in the national papers gets worse almost daily. So now they've missed a payroll for some of their council workers... Worse is that the Terra group is owned by a large number of small local banks, and I'm beginning to wonder if their assets will be seized to compensate the townships. I haven't heard talk of a run on any banks here yet, but I won't be suprised.

Whether or not to hide it under the mattress depends on whether the coming recession will be deflationary or inflationary in nature. If it's deflationary in nature (e.g. 1930's USA, Japan 1990's) then the mattress is a good place for it (providing your home contents insurance covers it ). If it's inflationary in nature (e.g. Argentina 2001, Gemany 1920's, Zimbabwe now) then the buying power of your savings will get reduced. In this case, alternative investments should be considered if you want its value to be maintained.

I wasn't thinking of a full freeze on accounts, but a partial freeze on accounts is certainly possible. Usual transfers would have to carry on, but as soon as say you wanted to close your account and shift all the money elsewhere, you may find measures being but in place to stop you doing that. It would prevent a bank run, but be put in place in the name of fraud prevention - rather than emergency banking control measures, should an unfortunate banking event happen. I myself am probably going to emigrate if I'm successful in getting a transfer in my company. I'd want to SWIFT all my money out of the UK in one go. I certainly wouldn't want measures put in place to stop me doing that.

I've been reading the news about the loss of these two hard disk drives, and it smells rather fishy to me. There are all the problems lurking in the banking system, and the possibility of accounts being frozen like they were in 1933 in the USA and more recently in Argentina if banking problems get worse. There is the thought in my head that it would look rather convenient to freeze all accounts now, on the premise of preventing massive fraud as a result of todays news. It seems like freezing accounts in the name of fraud prevention will conveniently prevent any serious run on the bank. Am I the only one wandering if this "theft" was setup all along by someone high up in Government?

There was a news mention on radio 4 today about it. Apparently what is happening is that people are downloading the title deeds and signature and then using these to claim power of attorney over the mortgage (or at least that's the jist of it). They convince the land registry to have the deed transferred into their name and with that they then obtain a mortgage against the house. Before the real owners know it, they have an eviction notice served on them for defaulting on a mortgage they never took out. It's pretty sinister stuff. It happened to one couple and they couldn't even convince the police that a crime had been commited against them. It was apparently for the mortgage company to complain of a crime, as they were the victims. This was of no comfort to the couple when the bailiffs were turfing them out of the home.

Am I the only one thinking this? My suspicion is that all our savings will suffer from a bad bank. I'm not thinking about sccounts with individual banks and whether they are safe or not. I'm thinking about the very real possibility of hyperinflation taking hold. Think about it, if inflation exceeds the net interest rate that your savings earn, then the value of your savings will reduce in real terms. My real concern is that the government is getting itself into hot water gauranteeing northern rock savings. The money we're talking about is £20bn, and this is an unplanned budget expenditure out of the blue in a short space of time. They will tax us heavily to fund this gaurantee, and when they can no longer tax us .... then they will ramp up the money printers and inflate our way out of the problem. All our savings will be worthless, because after it is taxed it will be based on a currency with no value.

I've checked out rentals in Aberdeen over the last couple of months, and on-off for the last year. It's quite disheartening to be frank. Searching for ASPC properties under £800pcm (which are not flats) reveals less than 10 properties. This, in a city with over 1/4 million people. At one point I saw just 4 properties available. It goes some way to explain why the rents are what they are.

Hmmm, that stinks! But I just found that Rjukan is dirt cheap! This house for £30k: http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/object?...amp;WT.svl=Link and then some spare change for a new car!

Interesting, I don't think I've seen this arrangement in the UK. How did this collective debt arise in the first place, and what can make this debt continue to grow? Is it an arrangement that is designed to keep the headline price of the flat down? Will additional communal service charges be applicable on top of the Fellesgjeld?

Yes it is an expensive country, your experience of food prices is pretty similar to mine ..... and you forgot to mention the price of cars! My corsa would cost about 20k brand new over there! At least the diesel is cheaper though. Trondheim and other big cities and boom towns are expensive places. But as mentioned its the smaller places that can still be afforded for houses. The price gradient can be very steep.