mrpleasant

Remember Mark Carney? Highest paid user of the word 'might' in the history of the Bank of England.

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A friend of mine lost his remaining parent a couple of years ago and blew the inheritance on a Range Rover Sport PHEV. He didn't tell me what it cost (too embarrassed, I think), but surely next to no change from £100k. He sent me a photo of it at the time and being somewhat mean-spirited I couldn't resist entering his reg in a car value checker on line recently. Conservative estimates suggest he's lost around £40k already. Since he owns a small fleet of vintage Range and Land Rovers as well, my eyes water at the thought of the annual expenditure on insurance these days. Ok, you can't take it with you, but for heaven's sake.

That is actually a very, very good idea. It's just a shame the great MEWing era is long gone. Back in the mid-naughties I had a (non-boomer) friend who literally did just that - re-mortgaged probably once per year, bought flash new cars, went on cruises, had his kitchen done, bought high-end hi-fi, etc, etc. And each time his monthly payment barely changed. Ah, the glory years. He's pretty much broke now, of course.

If there's one thing we can be certain of come the next election, it's a government full of politicians up to their necks in property, eager to protect the value of their assets help 'hard working families'.

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My wife used to take our daughter to our local library regularly, especially during school holidays. She knew the names of the librarians and they knew her. She borrowed, read, borrowed, read, got awarded stickers for 'challenges', etc. etc. Not saying it turned her into a genius, but she's got a love of books and reading today that not even Netflix can dislodge. She's in her early twenties now and in academia (at Birmingham Uni and reliant on public transport - oops). Libraries, among other things as discussed here, help level the playing field. For that reason alone losing them would be a very sad thing.

The last months of this Tory government will be like watching the final scenes of an action movie, with them desperately cutting the wires of the democratic machine while the counter ticks down to the next GE.

It's the only way to be sure. (Or we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.)

The best thing about this return to normality is the eradication of the whole nasty business of BTL.

"It seems to me.."!! Blinding insight from Danny there. Well "It seems to me" the majority of economists would only declare a chocolate tea pot useless AFTER they'd tried to make tea in it. This mortgage time bomb under British households was planted two decades ago and had nails added to it after 2008 when they introduced an emergency interest rate of 0.5% and left it there for fourteen years. How on god's green earth they didn't see this coming is an utter mystery.

What's the generic term for a boomer who didn't ask to be born in 1959? This idea that 'it's all the boomers' fault' weakens the credibility of this site.

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No, they are not good for anyone for a whole raft of reasons well documented on here since 2008, but as with most things, bad economic decisions end up hurting the poor most. A lot of them will have loans they are struggling to pay and which will increase overnight when rates rise. The reason for the comment is the assumption that Jack Monroe had poor people in mind when she made her comments on Twitter. The article doesn't go into detail, but her tweet included several examples of specific staples typically bought by those on lower incomes that had risen in price massively above the published rate of inflation.