dgul

What is interesting is that there seems to be some that are buying outright. The suggestion is that this is because of barriers they've introduced for BTL. But another way of looking at it is that investors are no longer thinking of capital appreciation, but just of the longer term return through the rent. There might also be a concern about a slight risk of capital loss -- if you're thinking only of the rental return then a slight capital loss on its own is bearable, but a capital loss with a highly geared investment might lead to what is effectively a margin call, with resultant loss of all of the capital and the rental return.

The politic is perfect, though. People seldom miss what they've never had. Even if they'd been 'promised' it, they don't complain that much. People absolutely, definitely moan, protest, revolt about things that they used to have but no longer have. If the government had stiffed the boomers we'd have had a revolution by now.

Bitcoin would be suitable for a transfer within a capital-controls state. If he was preparing for that eventuality he'd be best off moving money offshore in a more conventional manner, while the transfer potential is completely free and unfettered. Unless he wanted to speculate in bitcoin, of course -- but that would be an entirely different matter.

This is signalling the opposite -- those close to the system are loading up on debt as they intend to inflate it away.

You've just worked this out?

Yup. I've put myself onto scammers' 'mug lists' for professional reasons, and received (and gone along with) many calls. They are professionals, and extremely good at what they do. If you've received calls and worked it out, don't go thinking that you're clever and invulnerable to their techniques. They've just not chosen the correct approach yet.

Maybe, but perhaps this is backwards... For a margin based business VAT doesn't make so much difference. If you make money reselling stock then you'd claim VAT on the input costs, so the 20% VAT might only add 5% to the prices (say, if operating 25% margin). There's also lots of paperwork anyway, so a little more VAT paperwork wouldn't be a problem. But for the mobile hairdresser, the main cost is manpower. Here there isn't an input VAT to offset the VAT-to-customer. So the impact of these changes (assuming constant 'wage') will be to increase prices to the customer by 20%. And as the prices (should be) are set by the willingness of the customer to pay, going onto VAT will only reduce income. Also, this person won't have much in the way of paperwork (no staff, simple input costs -- they might even swallow some costs because they can't be bothered, which is never really an option for a margin based business), so the VAT paperwork might be a real hassle.

Yup. it is all about strengthening their only current tool, 'forward guidance'. Perhaps one more (0.1%, though) rise in Feb/Mar, then that's it. It'll be send down again by 2019 (ish).

They're like me -- predictions are 100% accurate, only the timing is out.

The economy is booming! They'll raise interest rates next week!

This is going to be a disaster. But not before there are a couple of 'wives' from each NHS trust who become significantly wealthier.

No. They'd say they can't do it and park up until they could.

I agree. I think the electric bike is going to have a massive impact (the trouble is at the moment they're seen as 'cheating'. I don't understand why. ] That's because these days bus routes, times & costs are designed around pensioners' needs.

IMO they're mucking about with the GDP deflator. And the reason why they're doing this is because they need to increase interest rates (as a result to geopolitical drivers) but have to pretend that it is merely responding to changes in the UK economy.

Bitcoin pretty much completely fails the KYC regs. I can't see how a solicitor could sign it through. Even if you had £375k in bitcoin and sold them to fund the purchase, your cash would fail the regs. Now, that isn't an insurmountable problem -- you could get a mortgage, then pay off the mortgage using the bitcoin sale, but that wouldn't be buying the house with bitcoins, just paying off the mortgage with them. As it stands, bitcoin->house seems a difficult legal journey.

Ah, okay, just used as an armour around the battery. Suppose that would work. Hardly a major component, though. [I couldn't read the whole article as it is behind their paywall]

Stainless is a very poor choice of material* to use to make a car. Plenty of better options. [eg, expensive, suffers brittle failure, more difficult to work/machine/stamp/etc]

They've been trying for 10 years to stimulate a bit of inflation to do the above. The problem is inflation is more complex than a bit of monetary stimulus. There've been quite a few studies that show that inflation is more linked to inflation expectations, and that leads to a lag effect -- so they've probably given far too much stimulus (because the inflation just doesn't come), and next they'll be struggling (and actually not able to) control it when eventually the inflation does come.

Seems like the last one (http://www.winacountryhouse.com/) did okay --- sold 500,000 tickets at £2 (apparently) to cover a place that was previously for sale for £650k. As much as I think it is all a nonsense (and I doubt the legality, and this is no way to allocate housing, etc, etc), it appears to have been successful for the owner. [he was prepared to sell it for £650k, but got about £1m. Even with costs, etc, he's £300k up, just on this stupid approach to selling. And all because the housing market is completely buggered. ]

High house prices are a tax on the young to pay for the lifestyle of older people. Young people pay loads of money (everything they've got, really), older people with houses prop up the economy with consumption. Moreover, some of what is left over is used to by housing by their descendants, so providing a prop that stops the whole system finding a different (lower) equilibrium point. It is actually quite a clever system -- and young people are all too willing to pay what is an extortionate tax rate just to live somewhere. If houses are sold to pay for care, then this tax on the young will also be used to pay for 'healthcare'. I don't really like the idea of people with substantial assets getting stuff for free when everyone else suffers (well, stuff for free that won't be free by the time I get there), but this Tory's suggestion is the worst of all possible worlds*. Better to have lower housing costs and higher overt taxation rates -- at least everyone suffers a little that way, not just the young suffering a lot. But they won't do that, so we're stuck with what we've got. [*it is bad enough as it is. Why is there a 'shortage' of nurses and teachers? Older teachers/nurses/etc have got years of index-linked pay rises, rock solid pension and no housing costs, so can afford to go down to 3 days/week or retire early. Young people can't afford a decent lifestyle on teacher/nurse/etc starting salaries, so don't enter (or leave when they realise they can't afford anything). It would be so much more healthy for the economy if older (50s say) people had to keep on working while younger people could have a decent life on normal earnings. The entire economy is completely buggered up]

I think they'll raise. The BoE (and others) have made a big deal about their new superpower -- 'forward guidance'. But trust is wearing a bit thin, in that they never actually follow through. This is a great opportunity for them to say 'see, we told you' even though they're really only correcting their mistake from last year.

How come pensioners get to incur interest at the gilt rate (2ish%) for their government sponsored loan, while students have to pay RPI + 3% for theirs?

http://theconvent.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/CONVENT_INVESTORS_BROCHURE_UPDATED.pdf They were trying to get people to invest for 5%. IMO you'd have to be mad to invest in that for 5%. Oh, sorry, typical returns would be 20%. Only they weren't.

Yet it is being talked about. eg, this was today: https://www.ft.com/content/296227f0-9966-11e7-8c5c-c8d8fa6961bb Neil O’Brien, Conservative MP for Harborough and a former adviser to Theresa May and George Osborne. [IMO the reason they kept base-rate IR deductions for BTL was to give an entry to allow deductions for OO in the future.

Same as the intellectual rejection of quantitative easing, reducing interest rates to zero for 10 years, governments buying banks? If the need arises it'll all suddenly turn into accepted wisdom.