Mal Volio

That line just needs to be bent a bit and it'll be clear that actually it's London + the immediate SE vs the rest of the UK; that's a real cultural and political divide, too.

Outside London and similar, that's been do-able for a couple of years

Not sure I'm seeing lots of c10% drops in asking price at the mo; it implies to me that EAs are being more successful, and bolder, in putting pressure on sellers. I agree that it may not quite have filtered into the latest RM index, but OTOH it just might...

mmm 250 might be the right price, but by going in low, early, you may run the risk of pissing off the vendor (who may still be in la-la land) and making sure any future offers are not taken seriously. I'd wait until TEH FEAR has set in, at least until into the autumn. If it sells before that then it's going to have gone for more than your 250 anyway.

This time it's different ?

The real falls have been scheduled for 6 months hence for the last 5 years, at least (and I'm a bear)

Did you have to go on the game then, MT ? :

You see, that's the reason people don't take you as seriously as you'd like, right there

Thanks for that insightful analysis. I'm convinced, for one. Course not, no The next step is to consider that other people may have done similarly, possibly come to different conclusions than you and that what you believe isn't necessarily the same as the absolute truth. You know full well that's not what I've said. It's pretty clear form this exchange is that the only opinion you're going to permit is a 100% private-sector society. That's not the only option.

I do, and I tend to point out what I see as its limitations when other people use it I believe that is permitted. mmm That's your personal political view again You need to maybe try to discriminate, realise that believing something yourself doesn't make it necessarily a universal truth

That's your own political view. It doesn't make it automatically so. The other way of looking at it is that everyone works and exchanges their labour for pay, which they spend. Spend through taxes or buying stuff - doesn't matter. <shrugs> Again, you need to separate out your personal politics from the possible. You don't like the idea - fair enough. That doesn't make it impossible It's better to have a mixed economy - for sure - but a totally private economy would be equally impractical in my view. But that's my view, and yours may differ. It's important to separate out what we'd like to see from what is possible.

25 k @ 4% ? edit: and 500k on a barn conversion ?? You could easily buy one with some land for that.

Probably, at the mo There are two houses there though - the farmhouse & a barn conversion - plus PP for a holiday let. It'd probably go for a tad under what she's asking if it were here, but I think Exmoor is considerably cheaper

How do you spread risk onto a bank ?

That was exactly the situation when we bought our first house, in 1989. It had ease a tad by 94, when we bought the second, but the bigger factor was wage inflation and career progression. Both Mrs MV and I had seen our salaries more than double in those 5 years.

Like I care whatever. There's bound to be differences depending on the political and economic make-up of a society; that's not relevant to the original point.

He was just on c4 News waffling about them now being free to form a workers' co-operative and compete for business Draw your own conclusions

They won't be missed, but it was pretty brutal I know a chap who works there who wasn't in work to get the email (how poor is that ? firing by mass email ?) and learned of his loss of employment from the BBC news. They sealed their fate when they lobbied against Tory policy in the election run-up. Dumbsvile.

Yes it does. The clue is in the first word of the answer

Yep. You could construct a model of a society which is all public sector, or one that is all private. I'd not much wish to live in either, mind, but with the appropriate degree of brutality either could tick along.

No, I'd included that You can also include the public sector, and its employees, buying goods & services from the private sector. That's there too For a value of "voluntary" that adds a certain weight to individual-level decision-making over societal, sure. I said that. That's nothing to do with the economic boxes I described; it's your own political viewpoint. Which is fair enough, but it's not the same thing.

You need to think about this by drawing boxes; boxes around the input and output. For a private sector company the money going into the box comes from ordinary people and organisations who by its products, and the money going out (wages, profits) goes to employees and shareholders For the public sector it's exactly the same, minus the shareholders. The difference is that the income is via tax given in exchange for whatever that organisation does rather than people individually buying stuff. So choice comes in to it, but that doesn't affect the economics. It's the same people - all of us - who pay for both public and private sectors.

I quite like Usk as a town; it's pretty. I take the point about the sex offenders tho'

Aye It was 650 at lunchtime.

Heh as if by magic, it dropped 51k at 22:24 tonight.