Willy Weasel

When was the last time it was cheaper to be on the best fixed rate compared with the best variable rate? In the last five years I can't believe you would have been better off on a fixed rate.

Very interesting - what advice can you give for surviving a depression?

Maybe the pro-Israeli group on this site can explain why Israel refuses to acknowledge International Law on the matter of its own boundaries, its unlawful declaration of Jerusalem as its capital, its breaches of the Geneva Convention, and its possession of nuclear weapons (isn't it interesting how the West turns a blind eye to Israel's possession of WMD and starts a war with Iraq over the suggestion it possesses them) It really makes me laugh when Bush and Blair talk about upholding the rule of law when Israel flouts it with impunity.

The real solution is to pull out of the EU so we can impose a points system on immigrants like the rest of the first world. Unless they have skills we need they can't come in - end of story.

Assuming the average house price peaks at £200,000, I think the average price in three years time will be £170,000.

Inflation rises, interest rates rise, recession, depression, worldwide suicide pact

Fair enough - do you think your contacts could be persuaded to produce figures more appealing to us bears?

RB - I thought this story first broke last week when someone discovered the leak. I don't think BP will get richer by reducing output by 400,000 barrels a day

How come you already have access to this data? I telephoned the Land Registry this morning and was told the data wasn't being released until midnight. Have you made up the figures as a joke? - they certainly don't look realistic

RB - a Boosh fan I see

Here's a link to the overview http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publication...verview0606.pdf

I have tried to be sensible (my mortgage is only 1.5 times our joint income) so I'm confident I can ride out a recession but I don't believe it's in the interests of society as a whole for the financial system to 'unravel in a disorganized way'. If you've read the BoE report it has some pretty frightening albeit currently low probability scenarios. If some of these come to pass we will have a complete meltdown of the world banking system not just a bog standard recession

Bump

I'm as pleased as most on this forum about today's IR decision but I also spent a depressing couple of hours reading the BoE's Financial Stability Report and it seems to me that the stupid people out there who have helped push house prices up might now push us into recession as they all declare themselves bankrupt with the consequent effects on spending, growth etc. A lot of people on this site are laughing at those people but the joke could be on all of us if the financial system, to use a priceless BoE expression, "unravels in a disorganised way" ie the S**T hits the fan

Is there no-one out there who is able to get a handle on what they are doing and write an effective critique of the CPI calculations?

That's scandalous - what other products can they play that trick with?

I thought the Nationwide figures recorded a 0.9% monthly increase producing an annual rate of about 5.6%?

IF CPI is really only 2.5% and many of the items in the 'basket' are running at much higher than that, presumably some items are decreasing in price to produce the overall figure (or are the heavily weighted items in the basket just stagnating?) Can someone shed some light?

I bet the committe will vote 4-3 in favour of keeping rates on hold so that next month only one member needs to change their mind to put rates up. It will fit with the impression the BoE likes to give of being in control. As other posters have said moving from 7-0 for a hold to an increase will look like they were out of touch last month

The real question is who will replace Brown

Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd