FTBagain

Interesting that they are starting an auction service as well. May be they see that as a growth area.

Look at it this way. With a bit of luck those huge trucks will all get caught up in the road works, never to be seen again. That way we'll be able to get from A to B without getting bullied by some ignorant 40 tonner (and that's just the driver )! Personnally I hope the government wins this one. I would like to see them cut taxes on alternative fuels to help get them up and running. We need clean, renewable fuels. Keeping fossil fuel cheap is hardly going to encourage new technologies and the much needed infrastructure to be developed.

When the majority start to agree, it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. The more the merrier then.

Interesting subject this. Many, many people seem to buy and sell at completely the wrong time and they are not all thick either. I have been dabbling in shares for a couple of years now. When I started I did OK, but then I got unlucky? and lost a bit. (Bearing mind I was only gambling with what I could afford.) I think I can claim not being stupid. I hold down an analytical job and I figured I could do alright. I watched a couple of stocked and signed on to an internet dealing site and made my move. It was very exciting, all those thoughts of early retirement and long holidays in the sun. As I said I did OK to start with, then I lost. Fortunately, I got out before I lost the lot. That made me sit back and revaluate my own capabilities. I realised that I was not very good at short trading, as I had selected a couple of stocks and then gone with the wrong one! DOH! As I said I am a techie analyst so I fell back on what I am good at, drawing on my life’s experience, rather than trying to be something I am not. I bought long. I was again unlucky because the company I bought into went and did a reverse take over thingy! The share fell hard, but I hung on because I had done my homework and they have an excellent product (in fact when I first bought into them the stock was just starting to rise). Since then I have bought more stock in the same company and they are turning the corner and I have been able to put together a nice little pile of stock. What I have done is learnt to go against the flow, something that is easy to say but hard to put is practise because we have a very strong herding instinct. It takes patience, nerve, homework, but above all know yourself.

Oh good. Now if the biggest city in Scotland is about to follow the rest of the UK downwards maybe we can finally get on with the HPC and get past all this 1.6% monthly price rise rubbish! :angry:

OK done a quick bit of rough research. Average unsecured household debt is in the region of £15 - £20k. Average house price about £167k based on the main measures HBOS, Hometrach, etc) If house prices are really say about 5 - 8% down on this time last year, observed on here, expats and RICS etc. @ £167k that is a gap of £8 - £13k. The gap is opening at about £1K per month. That would suggest HBOS would go negative October / November time. Number are a bit rough, but it fits.

I have not looked at the stats in detail, only noted the headline figures, but I am guessing that the the mortgage growth as indicated by the HBOS data is growing roughly inline with earnings. So buyers are still taking out mortgages to the maximum available to them (not very clever IMO if it above 3.5x). We can be pretty sure that house prices are fallen in some cases by as much as 10 - 15%, judging by the posts on here and elsewhere (expats). The gap between HBOS mortgage figures and observed prices provides indebted buyers an opportunity to clear their expensive CC debts. If this is a significant driver in the figures then we can guess that the HBOS / Nationwide data will go negative when the gap between available mortgages and house prices exceeds the average level of debt. Hmm...

The disparity between the HBOS figures and what we have been observing on the ground could be due to many reasons, but I believe that the huge debt that many are carrying is having a significant impact. It must be remembered that the banks, including HBOS, base their estimates of the housing market on their mortgage data. If you are a buyer, with outstanding credit card debt, then why not combine the lot into one repayment. Mortgages are still the cheapest way to borrow money. This would make it look like a buyer has paid £10 - £15k more for the house than they actually did. This idea is supported by the recent data from the BoE (I think) indicating that credit card debt is falling, peopling are suddenly paying off the credit cards. Although debit card payments are rising this could be indicative of people trying to avoid getting back into debt. Just a thought!

Read the full thread. Very negative. The Halifax figures just don't match wgat is being talked about on the ground. I can only assume that the market south of the boarder is so slow that the normally smaller Scottish market is skuing the figures. The good news is that the market in Scotland is slowing. That should let the values come down.

Hi Guys, Got some data that you may find encouraging. First I have been using Rightmove to monitor the number of 3 bed houses on the market, as an indirect messure of where prices might be going. You know the increased supply equals drop in prices idea. I have been doing this for nearly a year now. The graph shows the numbers under £300k, £275k, £250k, £200k. The thing to note is that the number under £300k include all the others etc. (Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs, but my labeling may not be very clear.) The data is centered on BA1. This next graph shows the monthly percentage change in average house price in Bath compared to the national trend, according to Hometrack. You will note the big 2% drop in August. With numbers rising sharply and prices apparently falling sharply and some observed examples of price cutting I think things are starting to develop nicely in our favour. Hope that cheers you. All the best.

I was a little disturbed to see the Americans were not even considering green energy sources. I've been doing a little research and it is getting to the point where putting a small wind generator and or solar panel on your roof, plumbed into the grid can pay significant rewards. Over here you can get grants to help out with the installation costs as well. Hooking up to the grid means that you can sell excess generated power to other users. You can also get battery packs or heat storage systems to store wind / solar generated energy for when you actually need it. Given it is apparently possible for every house to generate more than enough for current requirements we can solve our problems with the technology available now or at least soon to be available.

They will when it goes sailing £1.00 a litre heading to £1.20 or more! It costs £35 to £45 to fill up an Escort sized car, at the moment but it will get to £60 or £70 in the not too distant future. Then they'll notice. People notice change, the bigger the change the more they notice it and this is goning to be a big change. I think a lot of it is because the immediate news is rather more pressing and news worthy. After all, it is not often a US government is found unable to look after its' own people. Once all that dies down and the oil companies start reporting their damages then the business news will start to hit the front pages. The news coverage is following the usual pattern. Crisis first, fall out second.

Tim M, Amazing pictures. One of the chaps here in the office has just said that 10 ships fully load with fuel are already sailing to the US from Europe! It was on the news last night apparently. I think I'll fill up on the way home tonight before the prices go through the roof!

It looks like their graph is miss labelled. The data certainly looks like the numbers up until June 2005.

So that is why the Pound went up so strongly against the dollar yesterday. The power of words. It is a good example of why economies are so difficult to explain then mathematical models.

Measures or groups of measures. I think they are basically saying that the price of things, oil, housing etc are all trending in the wrong direction. Hence recession.

Just started to read the rest of the thread. I particualrly liked this; One for TTRTR.

"no recovery" Ouch! That makes most of us bears here look positively bullish!!

Gooner, I believe that they use a hub and spoke system (where a number of production rigs / wells are contected a major rig and all teir product is brought ashore along a single pipe) in the North Sea. Do they use a similar system in the Gulf? If so, could this cause more disruption? My feeling is that it could, especial if the hub rig is severely damaged.

Laonshark Agreed but Forbes quoted the number of rigs as being 591 in the Gulf area, pumping 1.5m bpd. The 20 missing rigs represent the extreme. It is all the other equipment damage, as we have both pointed out that is the problem. This could take far longer to repair if the damage is wide spread and extensive.

DOH!! Sorry in techie mode.

Marina The rigs are only equipped with life boats for self evacuation, just like on a ferry, and I would not want to be floating around in one of them in a Hurricane! The rigs rely on outside support from speciallist support ships and helicopters owned and operated by their own oil company or sub contractors. One company, BP, I think evacuated about 4000 staff and there are many more companies operating in the Gulf of Maxico. That is alot of people!

Smurf It won't be. My dad used to design oil rigs for a living so I know a bit about it (I will have a chat with tonight about and find out some definitve info.) but with my basic knowledge, even if the rig is still float there is the difficult problem of capturing it, towing back and reconnecting it to the well head which is a valve system on the sea bed. None of that easy and there is likely to be a shortage of big tugs with all the work (and possible losses amougst the tug fleet) and it assumes the rig and more importantly the well head is undamaged. Most unlikely. I briefly worked for a small company that used to design anchor winches for rigs. In heavy weather it was not unknown for the winches to get torn of the decks! So if nothing else they are going to have to inspect the rigs for hid damage or they will risk further damage and loss of life!

If you consider that rig losses are the extreme, then it is highly likely that there will be a distribution of damage across the 'fleet' ranging from severe to slight. All of which will delay the rigs coming back on stream. There are going to be some major issues here. One company has reported that there is a fire on the surface where its rig used to be! Thank god they all appear to have evacuated the crews!

Declan Curry on BBC news this morning @ about 7:20, let it slip that the US Coast Guard were reporting that there were abourt "20 oil rigs missing" in the Gulf of Mexico. If true this is huge! $100 pb any time soon! Interesting that one else is saying anything about it. I wonder if it is being hushed up whilst damage limitation messures (such as the US buying up evey drop on petrol on the market!) are put in place. Did Declan repeat that little gem later?