FallingAwake

Best thing we can do for young people is: Help them to draw their own conclusions. If they actually realized that high house prices are NOT in their interest, they're much more likely to become active and vocal about it. On the other hand, you can't just TELL them, "House prices are too high", especially if they've been heavily influenced by parents and the media that it's a good thing. Let them deduce this for themselves. Perhaps through questions that get them to think through the current situation, i.e. You: "Why are government offering this Help To Buy scheme? Is it because banks weren't accepting mortgages without a large deposit? And why do you think that was?" [etc] Or through little memorable soundbites that will stick with them, i.e. I love using the phrase "with interest rates at an 'emergency' 300 year low", or some such stuff. Little phrases like that might at least help them to think about what might happen if interest rates were to return to normal, both in their own circumstances, and to house prices as a whole. In short, help them to THINK FOR THEMSELVES

Not yet. It's funny how ONE DECADE can differ so drastically from the next. I'm sure 1929 had a very different feel to 1939.* Or 1998 to 2008. I don't assume the world of 2024 will be pretty similar to that of 2014. Things *could* change, and quite dramatically, even if we can't see it right now. If you don't believe me, imagine living in 1929 or 1998. Would you have correctly foreseen how the world would be 10 years later? * Not aiming for Godwin's law here, but I think these two years highlights my point rather dramatically

I'm sure productivity will improve as more and more jobs are mechanized, outsourced to sweat-shop factories in China, or taken by those harder working Poles and Romanians. You can afford to give a 5% pay rise when your workforce has shrunk by 10%.

The way I see it, voting for UKIP IS a tactical vote. Sure, it might be handing Labour a victory this time round, but if UKIP's percentage of the votes is high enough, it will send a loud and clear message to the Conservatives.... that if they ever want to get elected again, they must give people the opportunity to decide whether they want to be In / Out of that "ever closer union" that is now looking very different from the EEC voted for in the 1970's. If we claim to be a democracy, then really, it's only reasonable that the people should at least be asked! (Of course, technically we're a monarchy so the only opinion that actually matters is that of the Queen!) That I see constant headlines on the BBC or The Telegraph suggesting that if people vote UKIP the UK will sink into the ocean after the sky has collapsed, and that millions of jobs will vanish into the ether, suggests that certain political groups (and their media / economic backers) are actually a little scared Sorry, but if you vote for Labour or the Conservatives, you're essentially endorsing the status quo. If you vote UKIP, you're at least saying to the two main parties, "Do something about this, or else." Yes, it may be a protest vote for many... but if enough people protest "loudly" enough, things MIGHT change. If nobody protests, nothing changes.

And 14.9% is STILL not a bubble, Mr Carney?

Thanks for bumping this, oktup. I spent several hours yesterday (while recovering from violently throwing up right before New Year) reading all 22 pages of this thread. The original post was written in August 2007 so it was fascinating to read with the benefit of over 6 years of hindsight. It seems to me that, while events moved quickly in 2007-2008, so far governments have scrambled enough to cover over the economic wounds... for now... to the point where large numbers of people think we're effectively "back to normal" (yeah right... with interest rates at 300+ year lows, with national debts edging closer to WW2 levels, and with the Fed still printing tens of billions of dollars a month). I'm still not sure I'm *completely* convinced that cycles can be measured quite so easily and predictably, since they can't necessarily factor in Black Swan events... or maybe they can, and I just have to do more studying on them ...and they surely can't predict with certainty what the governments of the day will do. (Or then again, maybe politicians are simply products of their times. Would Thatcher have done exactly the same as Brown in 2007-2010, for example? I don't know... maybe. Politicians seem to be more reactionary than proactive, so I guess they *are* more predictable in that sense.) However, I accept the general cyclical principle, especially if we think of it more in "generational" terms, and that people sadly don't learn from history all that well, especially if it's "ancient" history like 20 or 30 years ago! That said, I wonder if it's easier to think in terms of BANK cycles... EASY MONEY... TIGHT MONEY... HOOVER UP THE ASSETS... RINSE AND REPEAT. That's what banks seem to be at, ultimately. By the way, I'm new ... but I've been reading this site for a good few years now. Thought it was time to "jump in". Gulp.