Orb

£20K though? If he likes EE women so much there's some for as little as £50 on Adultworks, and they come without the drama.

I just don't think they understand, and can't see they've been shafted. I've come to understand that people generally aren't critical thinkers, and are VERY easily manipulated. The prime understanding is that people operate on two fundamentally linked mechanisms: fear and desire, and that's it. The chancellor opens the gate at the bottom left corner of the field, the sheep run to it. He closes it and opens the gate at the other corner, the sheep run to it. I don't know why my amazement never ceases at this.

I feel continually drawn to permanent stealth off-grid motorhome living, moving on daily, especially near water - coastlines and lochs etc. Baron and isolated places would suit the most.

They'd probably introduce "help to compensate" and prop up house prices by lending you your money back at 5% interest.

Thanks for your reply. I'm going to do some research on this. I'm not keen on gold, and feel more traditional financial assets are too much of a gamble for my liking. I'm not one to panic, I'm normally very stoic, but I'm beginning to feel the first wisps of real concern. I think a lot of people are, and I also think this might explain the counter intuitive housing market activity, and apparent recent small price rises in many areas. People are probably looking to park their money in property. The fear is becoming palpable.

I'm trying to understand precisely the difference between an NS&I deposit, and a deposit in a savings account with a commercial bank. I understand leveraging and fractional banking, and how both the saver and mortgagee have a simultaneous claim to deposits in commercial banks. But how does the government use money deposited with NS&I? Don't they lend it? And couldn't the borrowers default? If they did, how would that affect say Premium Bonds? I guess I'm trying to determine how much safer NS&I is compared with commercial banks. I'm genuinely concerned about my entire life's savings earnt through much blood and sweat disappearing into the void.

How safe is NS&I? I've maxed out on premium bonds, and have a few tens of thousands in various Lloyds accounts. I thought to move this to NS&I but not sure exactly how secure even they'd be in a depression.

Opportunity knocks! Could be a gap in the market for sock darning kits.

I live in Belgravia.

I've never given my good-citizen reward scheme a second thought, and neither do I care. Whenever I see the word "credit" I always replace it with "debt", and it helps me keep perspective.

That's actually genius, but alas would cause a furore and hullabaloo in thus country if implemented.

I urge you to come to the dark side mate, it's strangely comfortable.

In line with the BOE's inflation calculator, £67.5k in 1997 was worth £127.4k in 2019, so around £130k this year. But that Peckham house is exactly TEN times that. We'd need a 90% drop in nominal prices to get it back on track. Jesus.

Being a somewhat misanthropic loner myself, I like to think humans are to planet earth's lifespan what one horrible cold is within a typical human lifespan: a nasty bug that the host's immunity destroys within week. The earth will hopefully shake us off in a relative timeframe, probably with an asteroid or a couple of super volcanoes erupting at the same time.

I'm sure one or two bought the whole house on credit cards