van hoogstraten

Speaking to a mate of mine over the weekend who still lives in Hale...seems like old YWCA in Alty has now been converted into a bail hostel - nice! Add in the number of Wythies now openly wandering around casing the joint in Hale/Bowdon/Alty and it seems like the place I grew up in has changed a little

Both those houses are almost in Bowdon Vale - a long way from the fleshpots & other delights of Bowdon/Hale/Altrincham

70s inflation is a red herring - that period saw price & wage inflation, driven by strong unions. Theses days the only inflation we'll see is purchase price inflation....but unfortunately to hugely indebted borrowers wages won't keep pace at all...or if they "do"...it will be to an inflation rate of the goverment of the day's choosing, which will bear no resemblance to reality. Now is absoultely the worst time to saddle yourself with huge mortgage debt, as your ability to ever pay it off will shrink over time

My mum lives in one of the bigger houses on Bower Road in Hale - my folks bought their house there in 1982 when it was a bit shabbier than it is now - and paid around $80k for it I think. I went to Alty Grammar and still keep in touch with a few of my mates from there & other schools in the area. Everyone went away to study and no one has moved back. Maybe on account of the silly house prices and maybe because the area is perhaps a little artificial and dull. Around where my mum lives a lot of the homeowners are either in or approaching retirement and therefore have no reason to sell. No one new has moved in (round Bower Road/Warwick Drive anyway) for years. If I ever felt the need to move back I'd look at the area around Byron/Bold Street (in between Ashley road and Hale Road) or round Stamford Park.

This idiot wrote the same column last week - it seems the Times not only pay him to write rubbish, but they dont even notice that its regurgitated rubbish.

The grants are just added to the asking price for property - they really arent of much benefit. When stamp duty is up around 6% it puts people off buying - if the govt are serious about stimulating the market this needs addressing.

I saw these people on the news - they were definitely not "middle class" - it was more like an old grannies and ferals outing. The biggest worry on the horizon for Oz is the damage Kevin Rudd and his inept chancellor Wayne Swan are going to wreak on the economy. Most of Howard's achievements are probably best forgotten but he left the public finances in pretty good shape, leaving the private sector to get into horrendous debt to fund grossly overpriced appallingly built housing and stock exchange gambling. Now rather than just letting these clowns reflect on their mistakes, clueless Kevin chooses to spend half the government's surplus on handouts to OAPs (to be spent down the pokies) and to ensure the poorer members of society can have a spend up down KMart on cheap Chinese crap in time for christmas. Next blunder on Rudd's horizon is to raid Australia's sinking superannuation funds for some "infrastructure" projects, although he isnt too sure what they are yet

The Ernst & Young club is about as accurate as Stevie Wonder playing a game of darts - I'm surprised a major firm allows its name to be associated with this bunch of consistently wrong clowns. As they have been pretty much a cheerleader for Crash Gordon's bubblenomics maybe there is some element of payback by ensuring E&Y's snouts are in first at the UK govt's deep and constantly refilled private consultants' feeding trough

A list of the people who didnt see it coming would probably stretch to the moon and back. Headed up by David Smith with his side kick Kaletsky the clown not far behind..

Hugely ironic that Kaletsky comes out with this, given that exactly the same accusations can be levelled towards him in regards to economics in general, considering he has put his name to some of the most clueless inaccurate rubbish over the past few years. The statement "it takes one to know one" was never more apt.

He's just a clueless bellend - the day after Paulson's "bailout" he wrote a column saying how America's recovery was now assured and what a great thing it was.

This buffoon called it wrong pretty much every single time. All the way along he has said nothing was wrong with an economy based on debt fuelled consumption, and would trot out his favourite platitudes....the downturn was just a blip, the goldilocks economy (one of the most inane phrases ever invented) would soon reassert itself, house prices would go up forever etc etc. Quite why the Times still prints his nonsense is beyond me - Kaletsky himself must wonder on a fairly regular basis as to how long he can get away with writing this sort of garbage and actually get paid for it.

If Kaletsky lived in New Orleans he'd be saying to everyone streaming out of town - "why are you all going - its nice and sunny".

Look on the bright side, at least there was no Brian May, Elton John, the Eurythmics, Mick Hucknall or other assorted middle of the road dinosaurs usually trotted out on such occasions - Jimmy Page has a bit of star quality

Too true, and they are still at it Have a look at some of the stuff here http://www.gainsville.com.au/product.asp?cat_id=4 - all you need to furnish your apartment in the Docklands or McMansion out in Narre Warren with some of the tasteless furniture that there has ever been.