ingermany

This is the problem no one has the guts to face. We can't afford to give the current older generation pensions or health care funded from taxation. Equity release is going to be the only way the old get medical and social care.

If they're freezing pay for the public sector, I assume they will try to reduce inflation (to avoid total meltdown in policing, health and education etc). A rise in IRs can't be far away now, coupled with job losses, austerity and VAT at 20%(for starters), falling LHA. HPI is over for a couple of years and I'd expect falls. Worse may happen if we do get big public sector strikes and weakening of government unity in the face of these. I don't feel like the budget accomplished much, but the size of the deficit and resultant tightening must depress the economy and house prices. HPI was largely driven by government spending. Reduce that and prices fall.

Actually, this is not the real question. It probably won't make much of a dent in the deficit. The same goes for cutting the expenses claims of a few hundred MPs....the proceeds may be chickenfeed, but the value in stemming public anger when ordinary people are about to see their wages and standards of livings cut far exceeds the actual figures involved. It's not about the arithmetic, its about public perception. Increasing taxes for those on PAYE and pensions while providing loopholes that allow the rich to get tax free gains from property will destroy the credibility of the whole deficit reduction effort. That's what the Mail on Sunday poll demonstrates and that's why CGT is an important battleground. I think if the govt. backs off on this the coalition will collapse.

Good. I don't think I can maintain my sanity if government launches housing market rescue vs. 2. It's bad enough reading the begging comments of HPI VIs. I can just about stomach them so long as government doesn't cave in again and open the safe for them.

No worse than Top Gear telling everyone to buy the next Aston Martin, and all those mock Train vs Boat vs Car races.........I think they are definitely fixed. I guess TG is a lot more entertaining, but the principles are the same. It's not News or Documentary and it doesn't need to be truthful. Most of the folks on the show are probably BBC employees posing as the public, like they do on Blue Peter.

"Lenders are now lobbying the government to extend emergency measures to support homeowners facing repossession. Adrian Coles, director general of the Building Societies Association said: "We are calling upon the government to maintain funding to help financially vulnerable homeowners at risk of losing their home" As predictable as it is nauseating. Make a few thousand more nurses redundant and use the savings to help the greedy over-extended house owners.Great use of public money. Repossession=cheaper housing= More transactions. Every repossession creates an opportunity for a current tennant to become and owner/occupier. What BSA want is to stop the game so that selected people can keep their winnings. Why should government get involved in this?

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. The Government's capricious decision to rescue borrowers using public money in 2008-9 was celebrated by home owners and the Daily Express et al. However, they should have realised that this sort of tampering distorts the market and leaves the way open for further manipulation at the whim of central Govt.............................enter the new CGT rules, or if not CGT then the ongoing insecurity of knowing that prices can be pushed up or down by government without investors being able to predict or influence what happens.

I'll have the devalued currency option please. Where do I sign?

Quote from telegraph article: There is no suggestion that Mr Alexander has broken any tax laws yet the headline and the amount of innuendo attached to it, of course, conveys the opposite. If the guy followed the rules (unlike Laws, who failed to follow them, but actually saved the taxpayer money by his ommission) then the TG should shut up. I respected the Telegraph for exposing a problem (MPs expenses). They now are fast becoming the problem.........they are undermining the agenda of an elected government, by working on behalf of a narrow and anonymous client group. It is an abuse of influence. I know we've already had similar from the Daily Express in its "the Duke of Edinburgh is a Cold Blooded Murderer" campaign, but that was mad enough to be harmless. This however, risks becoming serious.

I agree. The actual figures aren't that important. But just setting a limit that is arbitrary is the answer. The current system of relating it to average rents creates a positive feedback loop. It's not rent controls you need. The market will take care of that. What is needed is benefit controls...........limit the extent to which the State will subsidize excessive and unaffordable rents.

More likely to nuke BP's head office

Interesting. My initial reaction to the story was to assume that this crisis would be to BP what the ICESAVE collapse was to Icelandic banking.....that it would destroy the company, because even if not legally liable, their name is associated with what seems to be the planet's largest man made catastrophe to date. Irrespective of legal process, will the US government lean on its friends in an effort to destroy BP? Noises made by BP haven't helped. crass sh*t from BP CEO The statement that the spill was of "very very modest" impact because in volume the amount of oil was much less than the ocean into which it was released must have tempted Obama to alter the targetting parameters for the US strategic nukes. It's like saying a brain tumour has a modest impact because it only weighs a few grams in contrast to a body mass of 80Kg. (edit: or that the World Trade Center was only a small fraction of the land area of the USA).............it's offensive, and I think the words will come back to haunt BP.

No, I think existensial is an appropriate term in the context. That is: the Gulf of Mexico situation is a threat to the continuing existence of the entity called BP. Quite different from the philosophical and artistic genre of existentialism. As different as material and materialism, or impression and impressionism. As far as the OP's question: **** knows.

He'll probably resign as an MP and force a by-election. This would allow the LibDems to get a heterosexual MP in place at the Treasury....perhaps the one who was shagging the Cheeky Girls. That should keep the Torygraph quiet.

Lets be clear on this. The real recipients of housing benefit are not those whose names appear on the giros. It is a subsidy paid to landlords the purpose of which is to insulate them from market risk . Indirectly it also goes to benefit all those who own property, by pushing up prices. It is precisely analogous to the notorious EU farm subsidies (70 billion). EU subsidies. Nice to see that the Queen got 700K in benefits last year incidentally. Who says we can't be a fairer, more equal society.

Since 2007 the taxes of working people have been used extravagantly to bail out the rich and soften their losses. In fact, there would not be capital gains to tax if not for the bail-outs, the largesse of the State, given at the expense of working people in the public sector, many of whom will soon be unemployed due to the redeployment of State funding from public services to the financial services industry between 2007-2010. The State has more than bore the burden of failure, it has sacrificed itself to keep investors afloat. Having said that, I agree the proposals or CGT seem poorly thought out, and anything that discourages investment is hardly going to protect jobs.

He said "There is not a lack of demand for loans, but there is a lack of supply at rates borrowers are prepared to pay" The convoluted logic of a VI insisting that interest rates need to be reduced even further to keep the market going.

I did wonder that myself. BTL portfolios have already spent all or most of capital gains on re-investment in new property via equity withdrawal. They're trying to tax money that has already disappeared elsewhere.

and no bank will ever evict a nurse who is a single mum..............in fact they will waive the mortgage payments indefinitely. I guarantee it.

Or not................If they lose jobs the government pays the mortgage interest for at least 2 years. If the house price rises 20% in that time nursey has a windfall of 50K for zero investment. This acts as a deposit for 2 BTL properties, so they no longer need to work in the NHS. This scenario is of course complete fantasy, but it is still the way people think. Even if value goes down, they still have a house, and no bank will EVER evict a nurse. That's a fact.

Yes.............13 years of investing in the property pyramid scheme to the exclusion of all productive enterprise and invention has ruined the country. I suspect that if government interference stops the banks will see it is in thier interests to channel investment into enterprises that have potential to grow and produce real returns.

The pile of manure can't be cleaned up until government lets go of this. I've noticed that political and business journalists have already adapted to the notion that banking is just another function of government like policing and public health. They've already forgotten that it was once a commercial business. Now, when a bank has insufficient capital to meet demands for loans it is assumed that government has a duty of care to step in. When banks' customers can't meet their contractural obligation to make interest payments this has also become a government problem to solve. I am in favour of the welfare state, but realistically it cannot fulfil the task of financing mortgage lending, and can't assume the costs of citizens' irresponsible over-borrowing and the poor judgement of lenders. I hope Cameron lets go of this as soon as possible.

The only lending controls needed are market forces. One presumes that bankers have some concept of accounting and balance sheets. The problems now are entirely caused by recent political decisions to make banking and lending a function of HM Government. Saturday's article in the Independent highlighted that banks have insufficient reserves to support mortgage lending next year, and proposed that it was Government's responsibility to provide the necessary liquidity. For God's sake, why? I am not a Tory but I hope that the Conservatives introduce the concept of free market economy. Maybe without theThatcher level of pain for those who are vulnerable, but at least with enough honesty to say that when the money has run out that we need to cut spending, rather than just print more money.

I'm sure you're not alone in this position. The government is using your money to out-bid you and force up rents beyond your reach. And yes, private rents will be, naturally, determined by LHA/HB rates. Forget correlation, it is causation. It is a government financed scam, and sadly you are, through no fault of your own, one of the victims. It's an awful situation, but your best bet is to engineer a situation where you get entitlement to full housing benefit. It's probably more valuable than promotion and a better job. It is the incentivisation of waste and failure. Why aren't there riots?

Also in public services. I'm going to sell one of my kidneys to a chap in China. I can pass you the email address for your family to use. Sounds like it might come in useful. It's the only way I think we can export our way out of this mess.