Funn3r

That's a genuinely interesting story but you keep saying "warrantee" is making my teeth grind. You mean "warranty" surely? Or "guarantee"? You can't splodge them together into "warrantee". Again though, interesting insider post.

My entire career in IT, and I'm old. Still loads of NT4 in live use particularly financial institutions. Exact technology doesn't matter much because it changes so quickly anyway. This week it might be Docker, next week maybe Kubernetes, who knows, nobody can understand it all because too broad these days. Need deep specialists yes, but also people who understand basics properly and can get up to speed in reasonable time. So long as you know how to turn things off and on again, and don't drool too much, doubt you would problem.

Why did they only want 9%? Lending money to a company already in debt and zero prospect of profitability anytime next decade. Surely 9% seems too little for the risk involved.

Exactly. Why would anyone decide to be a new TSB customer when the existing ones are on telly all the time saying their money has vanished and they spend hours on hold when they ring up to complain.

It was a very funny time. I remember about 1979 naively asking at my local branch of TSB for a mortgage and the manager practically had a fit when he found out I had no deposit savings and kicked me onto the street. Slunk off and forgot about it but by 1981-82 things were blazing and I had no trouble getting 105% mortgage for an off-plan and never looked back.

Unreasonable to my mind that someone in their late 20s with middle-class job cannot live in a society where it's out of their reach to aspire to a a cheap house and average sort of car. She doesn't sound like a debt-crazy to me.

Have had same from a different EA it's not specific to Foxton. Early 1980s just as yuppy thing was getting going I lost my room in shared house. Had no clue never found myself anywhere to live before so seemed logical to ask an EA. Smarmy suited oily bloke treated me like less than human. Really shook me up as I was just a kid and knew nothing. Ironic today they would be 99% dependent on rental fees. That particular EA no longer exists but I am never going to miss any opportunity to p all over them, except if they're on fire obviously.

I don't think there is any point of another referendum unless this time it actually has some sort of legal standing instead of just somewhere for people to vent their dissatisfaction with government. Kudos to @thehowler for a constructive set of predictions. I too think a GE is inevitable but well before spring 2019.

I hope it works out for you! If I read DB correctly he was forecasting falling interest rates in a crash (which would be against you) but straightaway a rise leading to double-digit inflation and rates in the early 2020s ish (fantastic for you.) The "sheep" problem is not the mortgage fix itself it is the fact that if someone takes a new one out now it implies they are buying a house at the top of the market. A young couple I know socially have just FTB'd and if things crash as we all expect/hope then they will be seriously underwater for years. At the moment the banks seem desperate to sell any kind of mortgage fixed or not I get regular pleading emails from a broker I was with once.

A few carefully-engineered "accidents" involving yoof being fried with 350v 200A might deter that behaviour

A few years ago I met socially a German guy who was an automotive designer. I don't really understand cars but it was nevertheless a very interesting conversation. He told me the charging and range problems for electric-only vehicles were likely insoluble except for edge cases and most cars would always be a hybrid. According to him the 2-stroke had a terrible reputation thanks to Honda and everyone naturally regards them as greasy smelly things only suitable for lawnmowers. In fact they are incredibly well suited to the design of a 2-stroke/electric hybrid and that's the future.

That's what I'd do. Like NATO the UK was useful once but no longer needed. Devolved and smaller government would have much more chance of working better. What difference does it make which political party anyway. Once every five years I get a chance to waste my vote against an ultra-safe seat MP. Guess how much I look forward to that. In any case I think the traditional left v. right is also obsolete. Me for example I am anti-brexit anti-Tory but pro-Trump and pro Assange and Robinson. Nobody takes a defined position on the political spectrum any more. tl;dr I would vote directly for Corbyn if I could , which unfortunately in our system would mean voting for Labour which I swore I would never do again after Blair. Emigrating does sound better every day.

I always liked the idea of the hot waitress index http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/hot-waitress-economic-index.html I always checkout my waitress very closely in the interests of economic research

Heard a lot of talk about 10-year fixed rate mortgages recently. An interest rate rise with the hint of more to come would be ideal to drive the sheep into buying those.

I think it's wrong for people to have to buy spare properties to keep the price up. The government, wait no not them - the Bank of England should do it instead. Every time there is a dip in house prices the BOE should buy them up. If you were smart you could front-run it as well knowing that the central bank had your back and you couldn't lose. It's never been tried but what do you think? I like the cut of your jib about banging the rents up. You should try this BTL thing that's going to be hot hot hot.

I think you're wrong about México not paying for it. I would imagine they are seriously worried about Trump pulling outsourcing businesses back to the US. México is a huge car exporter and Trump has already scuppered Toyota and Ford's plans to move production. The Ford plant was already half built and they just abandoned it when he put pressure on.

The five pints in the pub beforehand are fairly static.

I have haemmorihoids you insensitive clod ? No seriously I did bike ride later when I realised I was in it for the long term. You don't get any less wet though. I once also x-country skied to the office during a snow and our security guards didn't know whether it was against the rules or not and were itching to do me for something, which was fun. No trews either I am too old for that schitt. Modern Style Citizen with a lease car here I come, eventually (I am happy right now with my existing car as I said.) I don't have any other debt so will treat myself. Tired of hanging around car auctions all day keep getting outbid because I am tight.

You know my ex-wife then? She used that argument on me. Then changed jobs to a location where she needed "our" (actually mine since we sold hers) car to get to work 5 days a week. Guess who was stuck with a 40-minute walk to work rain or shine? Lost count of the times I have wearily sat at my desk wearing a soaking pair of jeans. All my life I have recognised that cars are a waste of money no matter how you finance them and I always had bangers to minimise the financial loss. For years I had a Ford Escort XRI (Xtremely Rusty Indeed) ?. Even though I felt it was the right thing to do I still felt envious all the time of everyone else's Shinymobile with tinted seats and leather windows. My current car is 14 years old and I've owned it outright for 11 years. I'm still happy driving it but when it finally goes to car heaven I will go over to the dark side and try this leasing dooda which is so popular with these young ones.

A masterstroke from the government. If you are a wage slave running on the hamster wheel to keep up your shelter payments you are easily controllable. There is an economic ring through your nose. If you own your house outright and have even a small income then not so much, except for outright use of government force. TPTB cannot tolerate an increasing number of people of the latter sort so BOMAD is pressure to give up that wealth - ostensibly for now it goes to FTB/2TB but when the crash comes that wealth will just be a puff of smoke.

You're new here aren't you ? "Bit racist mate" or adaptations thereof is the only self-generated and internally viral HPC meme as far as I know. Believe we have @thewig to thank for that. Completely agree with your general sentiment though i.e. the tedious people who always have to turn everything into "it's immigrants innit"

That's my take on why they haven't done it yet. They are saving it for when they really need it, like say an October election.

Spyg*.* has a good point though. Even the mere possibility will frighten the BTL lenders something chronic.

It's been on the way down for a long time obviously, no doubt because of the reasons in that Evening Standard story, but I would be interested to know what specifically steepened the dive just last weekish. Funny that the decline started in 2014 just when that enormous Duke of Westminster property fund called the top and everyone thought they were wrong as prices still going up.

I wasn't sure which "Her" we were referring to (although had suspicions) but found it buried in a comment on previous page. No surprise it's this forum's favourite love to hate Diane Abbott. My 2p: firstly she's probably more familiar with casual racism than any of us on HPC. Shan't expand on that, on this highly-modded site. More importantly though I expect she was having a good old swipe at Finnish people. I am white and Finland has been the only time in my life when I was on the receiving end of racism and it was a shock. Very little wrong with Finns otherwise but they have always exported their people (Finland being a hard place to live and not traditionally attractive destination for immigrants.) Hence the stereotype of blond hair and so on which really is true. They are racist as anything - no matter what colour you are you ain't Finnish so know your place.