MississippiJohnHurt

You definitely should

are you having trouble sleeping Sibs? Love the quoted lines btw, good job.

Wow. What a spectacular mansion. I think I'm going to spend my £1m on this immediately. This and the Market Harborough apartment are my faves so far.

Yep, spot on. This level of co-ordination will never happen and Brown knows it full well, but he's just getting his excuses ready "well, I did say we needed global action, and despite our best efforts this hasn't happened....this is a global problem and only global solutions will work".... (etc).

It does have "fully-integrated Gaggenau appliances and American-style fridge-freezer" you know. Such quality doesn't come cheap! Loving this thread, keep em coming

"We scaled back on the renovations as much as we could. I was going to have a beautiful new oven, but I am keeping the old one. We were going to have two chimneys and fireplaces in the living room, now we are just having one. " Words fail me. Someone above was spot on when they said about f*cking his chances in the new job, he'll be an absolute laughing stock in the office after all that. What sort of balloon would put up with a woman like that?!

Thanks for letting me know.

OK here’s my offerings and I challenge anyone to beat the absurdity of the first two….. 1) Zone 5. 2 bed flat, 600k. I can see why it’s priced this way though - it has “underfloor heating” and “exterior views”. Comedy flat 1 2) My personal favourite. Utterly, utterly ludicrous. It is so laughably priced that I even called the agent to check whether it’s a mistake; apparently not. Comedy flat 2 3) 3 bed bungalow for 600k anyone? Comedy bungalow 4) And finally, 150k for what appears to be a converted public toilet…. Comedy unidentified inhabitation

Well I thought I'd heard some delusional viewpoints but that takes the p*ss. They've had it on the market for 18 months with no price reductions and they won't accept less than 10% of the peak price - yet still go through the hassle of showing people round etc?? Is this house on Mars or have the vendors been backpacking round Afghanistan for 18 mths or something?!

Is asking price similar to peak? If so they're saying that they want you to overpay the market by "at least" 10% without even taking future expectations into consideration....so basically they're openly saying they're looking for someone who was born yesterday.

OK I'm taking the bait...... TBH your arguments seem a little panicked. Do you have a big exposure to property? And are you sure you're not Sibley

It's great fun to watch isn't it

I'm an STR and the temptation is sometimes there to try and get a bargain, but then I just think where we are in the cycle, the real chaos only started 4 months ago. With the speed things are unravelling, house prices are kind of an irrelevance, but in any case here's only one way they're going. If I were you I'd just chill, find somewhere cool to rent and wait for a year. If you really need to refocus just take a look at the graph on the front page .... that line is going way under the trend just like in every other boom. At the bottom of that cycle, property will be a pariah .... my buy signal will be when the majority of people I speak to tell me what a bad investment housing is! This latest Rightmove asking price figure is laughable. Typical bloody estate agents and greedy vendors to fall into that old analysts' trap: it's ok now because it's new year

Injin, I know you're somewhat of a polemicist, but leaving aside the economic ideas here, do you think this is a desirable idea in any way? Bloody hell it was enough for the bankers to be on "performance" related pay, can you imagine the possible turn of events if the police were?!

Sorry to be your cheerleader today Steve, but I have to say that once again you are absolutely spot on. New systems, old systems, etc etc, debated infinitely on here. All b*llocks. We are one step up (or across) from apes.

Loving your considered macroeconomic view Sibs. Still, sounds like you had a fun weekend

Yeah I hadn't thought of that aspect, nice one ....

I always wonder what the goldbugs think will happen in this scenario - worldwide breakdown in social order, armageddon mad-max style, but a fully functioning gold exchange in place in order to realize the "gains" on their gold?? In all likelihood, in this scenario the people sitting on a gold bar or a bunch of gold coins would simply not use them cos they'd be too scared to show they had any, and/or they would not be able to split them into a useable form in order to trade for eggs, or bread, or whatever. Those that did try and use them would quickly find themselves being targeted and robbed. I'm with Steve Cook on this one - buy tobacco (and my fave, tea) and other resources which would actually have a value and be transferable in an armageddon scenario. The only point I see to holding gold is if the world economy very nearly collapses (and a lot would argue that's where we currently are....)

Best to speak as you find really. Negative news sells newspapers and books. Undoubtedly there are problems with NHS and other services, some of them structural and some of them solveable. And I think Labour's 10 years have been a litany of wasted opportunities and false promises. But to say the NHS and Police force are not functioning is to do them a great disservice. On a personal level, I have nothing but praise for the NHS in the times I or my family have had cause to use it. I do hear a lot of people ranting about things and then when they're pressed, they have to admit it's based on a newspaper article rather than personal experience. These people tend to be the ones who are angry with some situation but seem to think that sitting in their armchairs/the pub ranting with other people of the same mindset is in some way helpful (not categorising you in this way, btw...) . I agree that it's hard to think of what you can do, but even some information gathering, ie letter writing to local MPs and health care trusts, could be a good way to start. At least that will give some balance to the negative opinions constantly peddled in the press.

It's really strange isn't it. I got almost laughed at by my old neighbour when I STR for 15% off peak last Nov. He smugly told me that the "intrinsic value" of our flats was 200k. You guessed it, this was the peak price ever achieved in 2007 and basically that I was a mug who would end up having to house my family in a static home. When pushed for analysis he couldn't offer any except that 200k "was" the correct value, our area was special (blah blah blah). The cheeky f*cker was so smug, and so sure that I was doing it out of desperation, that he even asked for 1st refusal if I sold my car! Turned out later he had owned 2 flats and sold one at the peak, before leveraging himself up to buy another 2 properties. At the peak. Funnily enough, last time I saw him he'd gone quiet about property.

"Half price"? What do you mean - half of the most expensive price ever achieved for these "good properties"? Yes - I think that is what Bootle's saying. I've been thinking 40% from peak for a while so I'll also stick my neck out now. It's a strange phenomenon amongst property bulls that the peak price of a property suddenly becomes "the" price or the "intrinsic value" or whatever. It really makes no sense.

Race to the bottom.

It's brilliant this, Ashworth strikes again. I think my fave bits are where she recounts the recent sale of a crappy little 2 bed terrace in Putney which apparently was inundated with offers because it was *only* 425k. Brilliant, sign me up for some of that. And then the part where some , errr, expert says that although there's no green shoots, the "seeds are being watered". So....prices are still in a cold, dark, wet place then! Ashworth really is a ******wit isn't she. She shd go out for dinner with Kaletsky, they'd get on well: Ashworth: I think I'll have the 3oz steak, it's only £75 - that's a bargain. Last time we came here it was £76.25. Kaletsky: That steak is lovely, no problem at all with it. Not sure why everyone's worried about the steaks here. Ashworth: And this wine is good value at only £185 a bottle, it used to be £187. I'm buying it for the cellar, before hordes of Middle Eastern gentlemen come to the restaurant and clear out the stocks. Got to get in quickly in these situations. These bargains won't last forever. Kaletsky: That steak is dangerous! It will kill you! Don't order it - there's an imminent meltdown in the kitchen! I told you so! (etc)

I see what you're saying but not sure it's applicable as such to medicine - if you have a ruptured appendix, you're in no position to take a view on someone's competence based on their past credentials, testimonies, demonstrated skill on a dummy (etc etc). You're just screaming at them to stop the pain. For situations like that you need a system that takes the burden off you and allows you to go to someone quickly and with the peace of mind that they're not a fake or an outright lunatic! However I certainly agree that paper alone doesn't make an effective system. It would have to be backed up with some continuing oversight to be effective, and then we're into a different debate about effective regulation and how/whether that can be achieved....