peemac

Where's casual observer when you need him. He should be along any day now to calm us all down and reassure us that IRs HAVE peaked for the current cycle. Move along, nothing to see here folks.

Get lost Nazi.

well that's the beauty of the first past the post system isn't it, the proportion of vote doesn't neccesarily translate into seats in parliament. It's quite possible to get the majority of the vote yet not win a single seat, so as a stat 'total proportion of the vote' is bordering on irrelevant. I agree it would be a stretch, but not impossible. On the topic of policies standing up to scrutiny, since when did that matter? At least they have policies (unlike the tories) and would most likely do what it says in their manifesto (unlike Labour). Politics is about who shouts the loudest and who the papers represent in the best light, policy has little to do with it.

I'm not sure that's actually true anymore. For instance I would never have dreamed of voting BNP 5 years ago, but do so with no moral qualms now. The BNP were a gnats **** away from a seat in the Welsh assembly and beat the tories into 4th in many council wards. Now I'm not dumb enough to try to suggest that the BNP are going to be seriously challenging any of the main parties any time soon, but the resentment is there and growing and this is reflected in the BNP moving on from being a minority fringe party to a serious fringe party. There's a generation of people who have now being screwed over by the Tories AND Labour, if we had a truly free press in this country with all parties given an equal voice I think the BNP could take 6 or 7 seats in a general election.

I was talking about the comments made in the OP. One minister says 'it's not fair that immigrants get first dibs on social housing', Labour minister says 'racist' Michael Howard says 'I think we should have immigration quaotas', Labour minister says 'racist' Jack Straw says 'I like to ask women to remove their veils in my office', other Labour minister says 'racist' Minister says 'Why are we the only country to grant full accession rights to ne EU members straight away', Labour minister says 'racist' You get the picture. It's like their default setting

You haven't reckoned with the new liberal agenda though. Paedophiles are victims like anyone else and deserving of love and support to overcome their terrible affliction. Woe betide them though if they were ever to say they think the government allows too many immigrants. they'll be strung up on traitors gate then.

Yet again there's no attempt to dismiss the issue based on fact or rational argument, just a slur on the person who originally made the comment. It's the Labour way these days.

Who's going to pay for this infrastructure?

That's not outrageous I suppose. IMO a nominal fall of about 10-20% (i.e. the current price minus 20%) is likely. Were this to occur over 4 or 5 years, with a bit of inflation thrown in the mix then a 50-60% correction is fair. How many people reason this way with a HPC though? IMO many will look at a headline like 'houses are 65% overvalued' and think this means that the price will fall by 65%.

A spoilt ballot could just show you're a spastic who can't follow instructions. So what do we think: 65% overvalued: 100k house should be £35k or 100k house should be 61k got to be the latter surely?

Sorry I didn't realise what you were talking about. So you're not actually talking about 65% nominal correction? Just in real terms. I think that may be possible (though unlikely).

Minijus, now there's a nice piece of doublethink. Orwell would be proud.

Sorry, do you have the English translation?

Aye. Question in my mind is: Stunning strategy by the Chinese Horrendous strategy by the West Serendipity for the Chinese Or mixture of all of the above? Can our so-called leaders really have manouvered us into this position on purpose? It beggars belief really.

Come on. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away, when the express says that house prices will double in X years it's unlikely to be true. Whe the Daily mail says house prices are likely to fall by 65% it's unlikely to be true. There will be no 65% nominal falls. And if there are the majority of us are up the spout, not just people who happened to have overstretched themselves.

I think she's a housewife, if the hubby stops bringing the bacon home she gets benefits. Et voila, recession proof job.

Well in that case I pity you, lady luck is a very fickle friend.

What would that be? Inflation only in house prices and not in the shops? A 'collapse' in house prices would not happen in isolation, there would be repercussions throughout the whole economy. It's a common theme on here that people seem to be sitting around waiting for the much waited for crash yet they fail to see that it would have financial implications for them too.

If we get a total collapse in house prices what makes you so sure that you'll be immune to the effects it will have on the wider economy? If the underlying health of the economoy is as bad as some on here make out were all screwed, just by varying degrees.

Air is one of the best insulators (which is why foam, being mainly air is so good), although a vacuum is better. In fact why don't they have vacuum wall insulation? Turn your house into a giant thermos flask, keep it hot in winter and cold in summer. Thermos flasks are great for keeping hot things hot and cold things cold. I like to keep a cup of tea and an ice cream in mine. The thermal mass nonsense is just that - nonsense. What's more efficient: night storage heating (a method based on thermal mass) or gas central heating?

I doubt it. I'm more inclined to this point of view:

That's assuming that there are lots of people with 4 bed properties looking to sell. Do you know if there are? I'm not sure there'll be a rush to the exits for people already entrenched in nice homes. IMO the idea of phasing them in starting with big homes was so as not to spook the market and end up with a sky high stack of inventory, I think it will achieve its purpose, but wouldn't rule out 'unintended consequences'.

Looks like 2 excel graphs cut and pasted into paint (or something similar) and saved as a JPEG or GIF. Nothing unscientific about 2 axis graphs, they compare trends very nicely if used properly

No, I haven't. Could you give a specific example of when its been good advice? I don't recall any blood on the streets in Surrey in 1995 either.

I made that prediction way back when IRs were 4.75% btw. It's on here somewhere.