Ah-so

Cameron is the more likely to beat Gordon Brown at the ballot box.

I always wondered who bought all the multi-coloured trinkets and junk from the tat shops in the high st...

Growing wealth is most closely connected with reducing the birth rate. Take China's neighbour, Japan, where it was common to have very large families in the post-war period. now the birthrate is down to about 1.2. China's policy will probably mean a reduction of a few hundred million people or more in the population, which fortunately for us and them slows the reduction in fixed resources. However, in the future China will have the problem of having a very distorted population distribution, with far more old (and non-productive) people than young people. Those of working age will have to work increasingly hard to support them. It will be an exaggerated version of the problem faced by the West. It will limit growth. The growing imbalance of boys to girls, mentioned elsewhere, occurs with those in rural areas who are allowed to have a second baby. All the girls will go to the city when they are older to work or marry leaving unmarried men in the fields. The problem would then get worse. China will need to ensure that the policy is removed before the imbalance grows too great.

Your scheme only works on the sale of investment properties, so a landlord who does not intend to sell would not be affected. What if the landlord then gives the property to his wife? Who is liable for capital gains tax? How would this affect holiday cottages for rent or hotels? Taxing and banning your way to solutions will create as many problems as it solves.

I use bbc.co.uk for news, as do most people. However, does it have any right to such a huge web site when it stifles competitors who have to raise the funds themselves?

How can you call endless repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps a waste of space?

In addition to having a higher percentage of the adult population working, which undoubtedly has had the effect you describe over time, we also have a far higher proportion of our pay to spend on things beyond bare necessities (food, clothing, heat etc). Some goes on luxuries, but some will also go on increasing the price of illiquid assets, such as housing. Housing does fall into the "bare essential" category, before you mention it, but the effect is much the same as having the extra income. This goes to explain why the value of housing over time rises by more than the rate of inflation. It does not explain why prices have doubled in the past 5 years, except that they were below trend then and above trend now.

FTB buyer too. Sooner the better I hope. How about a poll?

To quote you earlier: Seems more like a policy than an unfortunate event. You are able to secure rental contracts because other people do stick to the contracts they sign up to. The payers subsidise the non-payers, like fare evasion. Your non-payment is intentional so a form of theft (although not criminal) and helps drive up the total cost of rent for all honest tenants (the added risk of a non-paying tenant would mean that this needs to be factored into rental prices, just as those with poor credit ratings need to pay higher rates of interest). I will have to confess that in the past I have not paid my last month's rent, leaving the deposit to take care of that and so have also broken the terms of my contract.

This is probably true of other areas, not just stock market traders. To start your business you need to be a risk taker. Some of those who take that risk inevitably become very wealthy. However, the vast number of business start-ups flop, despite the entrepreneur also being a risk taker. We only hear about the few who do make it big and forget about those who fail, leading us to believe that taking risks is the path to success. By and large it will be the path to despair for all but the few.

...or be honest!

I understand that you are not keen on the banking industry and I am not a huge fan of French banks, but I would hardly call the BNP nutters. While I first learnt about money creation during A-level economics, it has never struck me as a huge conspiracy. Despite its existence and the apparent ability to lend so much, annual money supply growth is quite limited.

I only log on to Rightmove to find out the latest overpriced dump in my neighbourhood and to find out how much people have over-paid for their flats. But then again, I do have a pretty high "interest in the housing market", even if my interest is to see it fall.

A large increase in women in the workforce means that there are far more 2 income households than before. One side effect of this is that this can drive up house prices as 2 incomes are bidding for the same property, fuelling the house price boom. The benefits of having a more economically active workforce no doubt outweigh the disadvantages, but it is certainly more difficult these days for a "traditional" family, with a stay-at-home mum to get on the property ladder. While all would like to have their dream house before reproducing, it is nonsense to say that people cannot "afford" to have babies. How that this be a serious comment when we see babies starving to death in Africa?

I agree with much of what you say. We have lived beyond our means and must pay at some point. But even allowing for rhetorical exaggeration, aren't you getting a bit carried away? The UK still has the world's 4th largest economy - not bad for a country that has been in decline for 150 years and has a limited manufacturing industry.

It is still Watford, so how "elite" can it be? Also the house in question is not huge. There may be 4 bedrooms, but they are pretty small.

I really doubt that the average salary is £27,000 nationally. Even if it is, it is always distorted by the top end who earn mega-bucks. I would expect the typical salary to be much lower. The figures used in the BBC would give a salary of about £22k, which is nearer the mark, but I doubt it is typical out of the south east.

In other words: "This time it's different"

Just had a water cooler chat with a junior chap at work. Talk turned to property and the astronomical costs in London where we work. I thought I had a potential ally and then suddenly he began to babble on about BTL city centre exectuive apartments Wolverhampton which he was planning to get involved with (he's a Londoner). I suggested that Wolverhampton was not a city, a dump and that the market for such properties was going to be tiny. He nodded attentively, but his eyes had glazed over. The BTL fever is now so ingrained in our population and especially the young, that it will take a massive crash to get it out of their system. The half-witted herd continued to throw money into tech stocks even after they had started fallingand the same herd will continue to throw money into BTL even while falls gather speed. Choppy waters ahead!

Is your caps lock stuck on?

Pretty accurate. The administrator is there for the benefit of creditors rather than shareholders. If all creditors get paid, it is an added bonus if shareholders get something back. Also, it is no longer necessary to lay of everyone. Particularly if the core of the business is sound - it can be sold on as a going concern. I think that the tax man's creditor status has been reduced to that of general creditor now and the administrator gets first look in (he wouldn't do the work if he didn't get paid).

Or economic growth.

Try the Postoffice: http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/cont...38&catId=500110 order

I wonder if they are singing pigs.

The taxes he pays are only from money that was taxed in the first place from the private sector where it was generated.