Topher Bear

Not sure he has got it right. Black Thursday maybe, but its looking like today might be recovered (through fowl means of course!)

A while back some mathematition tried to devise some predicion mechanism for stock markets. Based on chaos theory and past behviourial trend patterns. I believe that his theory didn't work out too well in the end (although IMHO it did at least get the general idea right, that we were headed for a big fall and then would pick up again....lots more to it than that I don't do it justice). But what he did say that during his research he had noticed a pattern, that volatility increased rapidly right before a fall. Basically the peaks and troughs would get ever increasingly higher and lower and with a reducing time period between them. This is what I believe we have been seeing in the markets for quite some time. There is a crises, it gets 'resolved' and everything appears back on track, then another crises hits, even worse than the last one, which gets resolved, but then even sooner a new one comes along... So yeah, this might get 'saved' but the last 'saving' only lasted 2.5 years, so this next one may only last 12 months, could they get another fix to last for 6 months? I don't know. when does it break down completely? I don't know. (I think this was this guys problem, he did accurately predict the swings, but not the break down moment...which of course is the crucial bit!) First thing I knew about was a dot.com bubble (there may have been something before this, I don't know), this blew and moved into a tech bubble. This blew up and moved into a housing/credit bubble, this blew and turned into a sovereign debt bubble, this has now blown, so what is it going to move into now? Each one has got bigger and bigger. So what is bigger than a soveriegn debt bubble?

Powering back up now. only 2.5% down. Move along. Nothing to see here. Shows over.

hmm. Just finished listening on iplayer. Firstly, loved the videos, shame I can't download them to show other people. Listening to both sides, it sounds like both come out badly, IMHO. Keynes Stimulous may help the economy stay afloat, but doesn't purge the problem, and seems to have nothing to say on how the government affords such spending. Seems to suggest growth will happen and can then be paid for later on using this growth....but if you have to use the growth to pay off the debt of the past, is that really true growth. Surely growth means you have more money to spend and invest. (this is where the proper keynes plan should be followed of saving up during the good times, to be able to afford to spend in the bad, and then you don't have the problem of pissing your growth away on debt repayment) Hayek's plan of let things slide, although pure capitalism, does breed resentment, and for a while people are poorer, and maybe the experts are correct that such harsh corrections leads to a rise in facism. However, the current plan of keeping things just afloat without fixing anything seems to be having the same effect, so it may have more to do with the outcome of a boom gone to bust than it is to do with the way it is handled. could be an interesting study that one for social historians. Then where does the growth come from? I guess it comes from those who were wise not to get drawn into the boom in the first place, and if too many were (such as in this case I would say) then it might be a case of scratch everything that went before, let everything go bust, no-one gets paid back and we all just start again from square one. My worry with Hayek is his lack of controls. My feeling is that without controls, peoples greed takes over and we don't get a proper allocation of capitalist funds, we just get booms as the few manipulate the system for their own ends. Controls are needed, to prevent any one person or organisation becoming so big that it can control the markets. I'm not sure I understand how Hayek prevents Boom/Busts. However, it does look like neither are being followed properly anyhow, so as to who's right it is a moot point. I personally think we need to do away with democracy. This only allows the master manipulators into to power. Those who know how to control the minds of the stupid sheeple of the country. The people who are too thick to understand reasoned debate, to easily manipulated into taking a point of view. This has allowed the greedy to rise to the top and take control of our country, right under our noses to the point where we put them there!! As has been pointed out, most of our top politicians are bankers of very close to the bankers. As has been said on here many times over, they have been stripping our countries into their own pockets. They did it on the way up in the boom times, and people didn't care because they all thought they were being made wealthy by their polcies (when in fact they were just borrowing from their own future) and they are, even more blatantly, doing it on the way down during the bust under the name of keynesian economic stimulous packages putting our tax money into their and their friends pockets. I don't know what we would replace democracy with, I still haven't come up with a new political approach (all others have failed in some way), but for me this current crises is where our experiment in democracy has been leading us since it started! This is new territory and I have no idea what the end game might be.

I've just had a knock at my front door salesman. 'obviously you own your property' 'what gives you that impression?' 'a lot up the street are rented, we thought these ones down here were more vendor occupied' ' there is no way I can afford my own property' And then they were off, must have been trying to sell some home improvement stuff. What with the massive increase on estates like mine of rental properties, they are not going to find many home owners who may want to do up thier houses!

Voting now, looks like the Yes may have it, but its looking very close! Definately passed now. Just the Senate to go....oh, please come to your senses and reject it!

At that rate of rental increase I think I'll pass! £200 a month on 13th April to £350 a month on 17th July!

Now, this is odd. News ticker saying that the Senate is planning to Vote on Tuesday. I thought it had to go through by midnight tonight? Are they planning on paying up anyway under the assumption that it will pass, and so forcing the senate to pass it or else set up a huge political crisis? (possibly bigger than this one)

Watching News24 at the moment, and the Republicans are crowing that they have won this showdown. Surely that will get the democrats backs up!? Is this really a done deal. Awaiting with bated breath....I think it's gonna be close!

My 10 year old philips died about a year ago. I considered a new lcd, then decided I preferred the picture on the old crt, so bought a 2nd hand one for £30. Have decided to buy a new lcd now though, prices are about £100 cheaper at the 32" size than when I looked last year, but I'll wait till we've bought a house first. So once again I make the message, if you want the economy to start moving again, drop the cost of housing then we can get on with our lives again!

I grew up in the south hams. Beautiful area, I was so spoiled by the experience that almost no where else in the south matches up with it and I can't find anywhere I would really like to live. Trouble is, there is no job for me in that area. There is so little industry, it's a very deprived are. So yes having visitors is important financially for the area. However, this also adds extra burdens on the locals, the council tax and water rates are amongst the highest in the country, the tourists come in such huge numbers that they use a significant amount of those resources leaving the locals to pick up the tab. I think it is entirely fair that second homes across the land are taxed double. Homes are supposedly in short supply so there should be a huge disencentive for people to own more than one, especially if it is not being put into the rental market and only been used as a holiday home. The idea of taxing tourists has a long history in devon, when I was there they tried to introduce a hotel room tax. It never got through, businesses complained. If people didn't own a holiday home, would they still visit? Of course they would, maybe not as often, but they could stay in hotels giving thier money to theses businesses. As for the idea that buying second homes puts this purchase money into the hands of locals is wide of the mark. Most often there places are inherited properties ( devon has one of the oldest populations in the uk) so the money goes to the kids who are most likely living it big in the south east!

Something I have been wondering. How much does america need to pay off on 2nd august? How much of thier overdraft limit have they got left? I'm trying to get am idea of how much economic impact there might be to a default aside from the inevitable downgrade etc. Also does anybody know what time this payment is due? It's crazy, if I had an overdraft limit of equal proportion to my income and asked the bank if I could borrow more in order to pay another debt I have a fairly good idea of what they will say! I really don't understand how the world has not recognised that homeopothy doesn't work. You can't solve a debt problem with more debt!

We all know he's wrong, and some here with good reasons why. For me, I can see his logic, with only a restricted supply of mortgage funding, reducing prices will increase volumes, but the amount of mortgage money coming to the market will stay the same and so the revenues for an ea will not change. This, on the face of it is a reasonable argument. However, he has forgotten about deposits. Now that buyers need deposits there days increasing volumes will also increase the amount of deposit money coming to the market and thus increase the revenue share for all ea's. Yes some of the recent buyers and mew's may go ne, but that might mean more houses on the market for more sales choice and greater volume sales. The ea suffers no penalty if a house he sells goes ne. Once sold, thats the end of the deal!

I don't blame individual boomers for taking the routes offered. What is galling is the way they: A) Refuse to admit that they have had it good Refuse to see how our generation have got it worse C) Get angry when it's suggested that since they have gained the most from the credit bubble that they should perhaps pay the most for repairing the problems D) Insist on meddling in the affairs of the thier kids trying to control them and mould them into carbon copies of themselves E) Refuse to admit that they still have it good! Take my parents in point. They have the audacity to say they need a 4 bed house even though my dad retires in a couple of weeks. They complain that after mortgage paid off thier overall net income during retirement will be the same as when he was working! In my eyes that is the holy grail for a pension! They say they can't provide very much in deposit assistance and yet talk openly of going on at least one cruise a year. They don't like visiting us as we don't have a spare room and don't like our sofa bed. Yet when we tell them we'd love to replace the sofa bed but can't afford to as all savings need to be kept for a deposit, they won't help. Yes I am angry with them, yes its a certain aamount of jealousy, but a lot of it is refusal to understand and then to blame us when we won't or can't do what they want.

I've seen this headline and heard it talked about, but no one is saying why they make this claim. Who is saying rates not to rise for 3 years. Hpc ers may deride it, but look at japan, they had low and zero rates for years also! The answer to this is crucial for me right at this moment. Thanks.

I heard the first 15 mins as I was late to work. It was interesting. What I didn't know is that the uk was on the gold standard from 1925. I found it interesting that being on the gold standard did not prevent the boom and bust, and to am extent caused the boom. So all those blaming the fiat system and saying we should go back to it are not quite right. It seems that mankind is able to **** things up no matter what financial system is used. Will try it on iplayer later for the rest. Interesting parallels to greece and the euro issue.

Yes, but we're not going to see any movement until the other chart starts showing gains. By the other one I mean the green one showing properties on the market.

Yes, but we're not going to see any movement until the other chart starts showing gains. By the other one I mean the green one showing properties on the market.

A good piece setting the records straight. And from a bank too!

Certainly noticed a lot of properties coming back on the market with sales falling through. Do know of one instance of seller pulling out. This was because the buyer wanted the sale to move 'quickly' (about 4 months) and seller did not want to be rushed! Also looks like it might have been a bit of not having found anywhere herself.

Well, they can stop propping everything up. Since it won't be financial armageddon after all!

Just heard someone from pwhc talking about it. Not only did he say levels of borrowing on housing was not good for the country, he also said that he had been renting for the last 4 years! Own up, who are you? Are you really workin for phwc, or did you just hang around the studios waiting to be mixed up with someone else?

Surely they can't stop the ratings agencies saying that pigs swill is shit? They can't stop me telling everyone I know not to invest in european sovereign debt. Would they arrest me for saying thier debt is worthless? If they insulate themselves anymore, their lining themselves up for mugabe style inflation, no one outside the eu will touch eu stuff , since it can't be trusted, since they have to say that cow muck is cordon bleau !

Interesting. I used to live next door to this place. Ok. Not right next door, but a few doors down, in the same street. Ours was a victorian 2 up 2 down. It has been the country's most expensive house for a number of years, I remember it being given that title 10 years ago. Heard it was some sultan that bought it and proceeded to do major renovations, including a marble drive way. A mad idea in our frost stricken country. Also afaik, it was never completed before it was sold on again. Get the feeling that house is the countries most expensive money pit!

And now the elderly can't be pushed out of thier job just for being too old, there will be even less jobs to go round! As I see it, we are doing the country a favour, bringing up kids to be honest and nice members of society, not taking up an extra job so that someone who needs it can have one. But this society doesn't see it like this. We really need to learn to be more selfish, and not just with the rest of society but with each other within the family too, it's the British way!