Salty

It wasn't lack of regulation, i.e. too few laws and government bureaucrats dictating to business, that got us into this mess.

What would we replace the Mafia with?

I got one of these Chinese mortgages. It was pretty good, but an hour later I wanted another one.

Basically, the Muslims have the right idea.

Those lovely young ladies would never marry you, bring all their family over here, suck your assets dry (and not in a good way) and then divorce you as soon as they get a passport, right?

Hang the pediatricians!

And it's all headed up by this guy in his white Fiat Uno:

I'm surprised they didn't also want a urine sample, DNA test, and the right of jus primae noctis. I'm a renter and didn't mind letting my landlord have a look at my bank statement to see that I'm not a deadbeat, but would never dream of going to the hassle of providing guarantors, character references and the like. A landlord who demands that sort of detail also sounds like the kind of person who'd be spying on their tenants.

+1 The vandalism being done to our economy by the criminal gang that is the present government is classic scorched earth tactics. There is absolutely no way that the next Conservative administration will be able to avoid massive spending cuts, huge layoffs in the public sector, and sharp interest rate rises to curb the inevitable inflation which will follow recent monetary policies. The alternative is that Britain becomes a colder version of Zimbabwe. The only way houses will retain anything like 2007 values in the years ahead will be if we're all millionaires anyway thanks to hyperinflation.

Multiple governments within a country would have the same effect as multiple tumours in one body. Government IS the problem.

I'm sure the state media in Romania were singing the praises of Nicolae CeauÅŸescu right on up till the moment he and his harpie wife were dragged out and shot.

It's amazing how financially naive people, especially young people, are in this country. Maybe if our rotten, useless state educational system gave youngsters a few classes on debt and money management it would help stop these people from having to learn through painful experience.

The government can no more keep house prices up than they could keep Britain in the ERM. You can only defy financial gravity for so long. We're heading into a period of massive unemployment and prices will fall much further than they have already.

You know what REALLY gets my goat? A goatherder.

Also, all foreign "aid", which is our corrupt government giving money it stole from British taxpayers to other corrupt governments, should be immediately scrapped.

Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't realise I was conversing with an idiot.

England isn't heaving with Irish immigrants on public funds, though. Irony only really works when it's actually ironical. Otherwise you end up with an Alanis Morrissette song.

I'd cut the whole lot. Privatise all education. Sell off the NHS's assets and permit a free market in healthcare. Sack civil servants and other parasites by the million.

Ireland is heaving with immigrants, many of whom will no doubt qualify for some sort of public funds. They should start deporting them.

Who would they whinge and moan at then? The Welsh? The NornIrish?

Mark Thomas strikes me as a perpetually angry, swivel eyed socialist bigot in the Michael Moore mould, but less funny.

I'm in the same situation as you. I'm financially far better off renting than buying and as long as that situation continues I shall keep renting. I also have no debt and have no intention of getting into mortgage debt until the economy stabilises (could be in for a long wait) and asking prices come right down. At the moment there's a phony war going on in the housing market with sellers determined not to crystallise their losses and ending up chasing the market down by a series of derisory reductions in their unrealistic asking prices, all the while unsold housing stock builds up and the worsening economic situation creates more distressed sales. Some people think we're in for a Japanese style decade of house price deflation. My gut instinct is that there will be a tipping point over the next couple of years when employment reaches 3 million and inflation starts to seriously affect the average household budget, at which point the sort of people who are currently attempting to shore up the bubble via their asking prices will no longer have the option of doing so. It'll be a painful period of reckoning indeed.

Making reality TV shows?

Yes, this is a good thing if it encourages people to stop using credit cards.