Pole

The question for many is this: If they can prevent the collapse for another 5 years, do you sit tight and wait those 5 years, because maybe there will be a sudden decline in house prices afterwards...?

Face it. Those three guys will always be very comfortable and I don't really think they care. They've chosen certain careers and are pursuing them for their personal benefit - it's got nothing to do with improving or caring about the lives of you and me. If the banks want a loaf of bread for £10, it'll be £10. It's got nothing to do with us I'm afraid.

I'm as bearish as the next fella, but the article doesn't make sense. His train of thought is correct according to the old rules. But... Has the guy been asleep since 2008? Has he not realised that applying rules and common sense to the financial situation of the world is no longer an option? It truly is different this time and all the facts are proving it. We all know that IRs are key here. Nothing will change if IRs remain ultra-low. I personally would like to see normal IRs. However, I don't see how the Bank of England can be forced to increase drastically the IRs. Most people wouldn't welcome it. And the economy of this country would go down the toilet. It would be far worse than any other option. The banks would end up with millions of unwanted repos. And they don't need that, so it's not going to happen. It's the banks that rule here not cautious savers. It's not going to change any time soon (as much as we hate the current setup). The UK has much more time than others to play that 'we're getting slowly out of this' game. That's why the BoE will wait till the very last minute with IRs rises. And that 'last minute' may arrive in 3 or 5 or 7 years. Telling people that the UK housing crash is around the corner is just wrong.

There's one thing that Britain forgot about since its greatness: discipline. Banksters, politicians and feral youth, etc. - everyone is allowed to do what they want without consequences (it's always someone else's fault, isn't it?). British engineering? Well, Edinburgh has been unable to build a few miles of a tram track... Unbelieveble but true. Almost £1bn flushed down the toilet - BBC Link. Do you think anything will happen to those banksters who wasted £££ of public money and politicians who flush public money down the loo (be it local or national)? Now, go to China and ask what would happen if a bunch of local politicians wasted £1bn on a failed tram system. As far as I know they hang fraudsters in China. That's why China will do so much better - they are organised and most importantly disciplined. There are no excuses there when one screws up - just like in the early U.S.

At least they had a hpc in the US.

Home is where the heart is.

It could be anything like heating, windows, attic development potential, garden size, garage, drive size, view, etc. The reason I'm always interested in square meteres is that when I go to look at a house and it says '3 bed' - it means nothing in terms of how big the house really is. I saw 2 bed houses that were bigger than 4 bed ones. Number of bedrooms is totally irrelevant to me. If rooms are massive - they can be divided into bedrooms no probs.

Ceiling height the same? One of the main reasons I don't like modern housing - low ceilings.

I've been seeing this sentence every year on this board since 2005. Are you sure you're talking about 2012? Don't get me wrong I wouldn't mind a little crash but after all those years I think the world will end first before we have a proper house price crash in the UK.

They will say: same old same old since the beginning of man. Nothing new under the sun... Which country are you describing? AFAIK, the banksters are the least worried group of professionals. If they run into problems, you'll simply bail them out. Nothing new under the sun...

I still can't find this story on the BBC Scotland website - very strange.

+100 Here are some pictures from the Great Depression in the USA showing people who experienced some real economic hardship. Did they smash other people's houses, did they set random buildings on fire to steal radios or other equipment? And how does that compare to the so-called 'poverty' in the UK of 2011?

That's becuase it wasn't their house or business that was set on fire.

Wow, that means that they can do the opposite. Earn the cash in the UK and move to Poland to spend it and live like kings! I imagine spending cash abroad should be easier than earning cash abroad?

What is a dead end job? Is being a postman a dead end job? How about a nurse, a barber, a fireman, a teacher, a sales clerk, a florist, a chef, a lorry driver, a bricklayer, etc, etc? Life is a dead end job.

+1 I wonder how many of those rioters were Korean, Chinese or even Polish? Probably too tired after work to bother with the riots... Many Poles I heard about were unemployed in Poland and arrived in the UK without any English to share a room with 3 other people and to do the simplest and dirtiests of jobs. After five years most of them now rent or have their own houses, work in offices and speak relatively good English. Did they enjoy the first 5 years? Not much. But they knew that in life there's no gain without pain. And of course there are some people at the top who have it easier, but there's many more in the world that have it far worse.

Canada, USA, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, etc.etc.

These days we have better toys and gadgets to play with. That's all. The form is nicer, the substance is gone. Let's face it - the modern world is full of nicely looking BS. Modern housing is the best example.

Not really. I knew loads of uneducated, unemployed Polish people who were doing silly things out of boredom back at home. Then they got on a bus and are now working hard and leading normal lives in Germany, UK or France. However, although they had done silly things in the past out of boredom - they well knew it was wrong and were always ashamed of it. In most cases hard physical work is the best cure for all silliness. However, there always will be lazy bums in this world. I don't think we should care too much about them - it's their choice. If you tell them otherwise - you'll print them a license to be lazy.

Don't tell me you're even slightly suggesting that the old days were better??? Are you, really??? But what about all the progress that we all fought for over the last 40 years??? What about the wonderful modern world??? Surely, we made a big leap forward, didn't we? It's progress, it's evolution, things get better, aren't they? Please, please don't push us back to those horrible&dark days of the 1950s when everyone had to be polite, dress smartly and obey rules. It was sooooo dull and boring... as they also didn't have soaps, xfactor, lady gaga and tracksuits were only worn during sport competitions.

Values and principals should be more important than anything.

[/qoute] The world in which I live tells me otherwise. You can buy kids respect - easy. They are being brainwashed that money is the only thing that counts in this world. Ask them as a parent to swap their Nike shoes for something for Primark trainers - and you'll see how much respect they'll have for you. Even you struggle to come up with an argument without reffering to such vague terms as 'wrong', 'abhorent', etc. Define logically good parenting. Define parental love and care. List down all the skills I need to learn (?) to be a good parent. Can I be a good parent if one of those skill is missing? Can I be a good parent if two of those skills are missing? List down all the situations in which a good parent should raise their voice. Give me logical reasons for not losing my temper as a parent. Etc.Etc.

+1 Thanks for that. I'm still learning.

And they should be met with a strict response that will be a walk in the park compared to last time.

You're letting a child to be the judge of why they should respect their parents. It means that as a child I don't have to respect my parents unless they earn it (e.g. buy me an iPad).