neon tetra

Yes, this is basically it. It’s a middle class totem. Look at my refugees. The worry is that people get them in for the boasting factor and then resent having them there.

I would like them to stick with the spirit of the policy, but redefine the earnings figure to compare like with like, i.e. picking a basket of actual salaries and tracing their rise, rather than taking all the salaries, the make-up of which has changed quite significantly.

I am neutral in this argument, but it does appear that the chart says food is at 2011 prices, albeit rising rapidly. An index is just a unit-free measure for comparison.

Agree that there have been some one-off effects (that if they are to undo it will take a long time - 50 years plus). Firstly, there have been significant changes to family structure affecting the demand for housing (see slides 4 and 6 here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/Assets/Documents/bsps/events/Explaining-changes-in-family-size.pdf). This can’t continue at the same rate, and it will take an unwinding of societal attitudes to put the genie back in the bottle. This adds to pressures from immigration, and is at least as big a contributing factor. Secondly, the housing market has become increasingly clever at, in effect, borrowing from future earnings. So we have brought forward more and more future income to pay for current spending, and we have borrowed from our children’s futures. There is no (easy) way back from this, short of wealth / inheritance taxes. It would take a seismic shift in political opinion to change this. I think that we’re stuck with this for our lifetimes. We might get the odd 10-20% correction, but nothing to undo what happened in 1995-2007.

+1.2% MoM, +7.5% YoY What recession?

I will take it when I can, but will continue to take precautions even after I’ve had it, until a significant proportion have had it (e.g 60%) or the case rate has fallen significantly. In case it doesn’t work for me. I am not worried about the vaccine, I am worried about complacency caused by it.

Glad to see it back. I was feeling bereft without it.

Down since Thursday night - about 2.5 days. That’s the longest outage I remember in over 12 years.

Bejaysus. WTF is going on there?

BoE have just printed another 150 Billion.

I hold identical views, am identically the same age, but had a 40% deposit. I bought in August. I hate the debt I now have, but I’ve got a roof over my head. Wish I’d been able to wait another couple of years. But family reasons.

I am assuming her 3 kids have flown the nest? Otherwise she might struggle with the 4.5 x salary.

*THEIR name Non-binary dontcha know.

South east or east?

That buyer is going to make a small fortune... having started with a large one.