BuyingBear

We didn't really change, a pound was still a pound, we simply changed the denominations, and even then shillings just became 5p.

It's a matter of expectations going forward, think about 10% compounded for 3-4 years on the trot, this is how it played out in the 1970's. Today children we're going to learn about exponential functions!

I can remember back to the dark days of 2002 when he was seen to publicly visit the MPC to warm of the impending 'deflationary' spiral, the MPC then cut like crazy. Gordy is very much complicit, he poured more fuel on to the fire with £70k public sector hand outs for housing, shared ownership pap and doing absolutely nothing to lift restrictions on house building, if anything they made things worse by only allowing the building of high density 'luxury apartments' which turned out to be BTL investment boxes rather than family homes. Gordy is an absolute shower, he knows the score.

Quite, as we know the MPC like to talk tough but actions speak louder than words, they will bail out the housing market come what may, HPI is a one way bet.

Yes, they're going to teach him a lesson.

Probably less than simply sitting on your ar$e on a pile of bricks in any region of the country. 'Work' is quite a noble and self-sacrificing concept in a speculative bubble economy.

Good, let the fun begin, Labour governments always end in an inflationary/strike ridden mess, luckily for them they managed to buy off the fire fighters a couple of years back (they kicked off the public sector strikes in the 70's) but trouble is 'a brewing.

Two pictures from the original article :- Before :- After :-

I wouldn't count on it, we've been here before in 2005 and the MPC bailed out the market. Remember the housing market = economy. Economy = housing market, it will be protected at all costs.

New build is hardly the enviable green suburbs these days, in fact with section 106 most new build estates desend into a chav infested social housing nightmare. Anyway, new build is like a new car, you pay for that newness and it soon fades.

It passes for a job in a bubble economy awash with cheap credit.

It was a simple outpouring of pure greed, I'm sure the sheer recklessness even frightens them in the cold light of day.

They gambled, they lost. If things had gone well they'd be boasting of their superior investment prowess, when things go wrong they look for others to blame. We live in a free country, nobody forces anyone to pay for bilge like Inside Track or mortgage their home to buy off-plan apartments 400 miles away.

Quite, if you fulfil the terms of the loan they collect interest on money issued out of thin air and if you default they just grab the collateral. They risk that there won't be enough suckers about to borrow even more money into existence to buy the asset of them at the amount of the outstanding loan. No debt = no money in the economy. If everyone paid down their debts (which is mathematically impossible anyway) we'd be truly screwed as a country. Debt is fine provided it's other peoples' and not your own, your pay packet is someone else's credit card, MEW, corporate bond or gilt.

It's called 'military keynesianism'.

Quite, banks write off bad debts against tax

CDO's mean the reserves are now virtually unlimited, the bank only needs to retain a small equity stake and it can then sell the remaining tranches then use this cash as reserves for new loans. Debt begets debt, more borrowing = more CDO's issued = more money to lend = more CDO's ...

Obtain some pictures of a prominent politician in a precarious position, then apply for a licence. One man did actually set up his own bank to this end, he was jailed for tax fraud.

There is no tolerance for pain, we had the poll tax riots and the UK is a very different place from even back then, today things are going well but public order is pretty much on a knife edge. The Met want a fleet of water cannons. All Labour governments end the same way, with raging inflation, unemployment, widespread discontent and trouble on the streets, I fail to see how it can be any different this time, there is far too much brewing beneath the surface. As we've seen with the public 'debate' on housing it has totally taken ministers by surprise as they are preoccupied with CO2 or whatever the latest middleclass moral panic currently is, it has taken a bunch of fascists winning council seats for them to wake up to the reality on the ground for the vast majority of the population that doesn't have £500k secreted away in an offshore hedge fund. NuLabour will just continue to cut and privatise the public services and tax as much as possible until something breaks. Remember, if it ain't hurting it ain't working! Up the working man!

The US is increasingly importing the finished product, I'm not sure if we send stuff over, we did after Katrina.

Everyone knows immigrants just sleep in parks, they are just worker bots that do not require the comforts of flabby UK workers.

Somebody called my name?

I dunno, is your girlfriend fitter than mine? It's as if life revolves around love and money and the status it confers.

Quite, they are simply people responding to rational market incentives. If it pays to be a chav then millions will thus become chavs.

People think society cares, it doesn't. You're on your own, nobody is going to help you, people mistakenly believe the government or 'the council' has some sort of obligation to take care of them, people expect too much, in reality you are entitled to nothing unless you work for it, even that is no guarantee of success as the fruits of productive labour are leached upon by the "entitlement" brigade. We have a welfare state of counter-incentives, no wonder wider society now reflects these warped priorities.