zugzwang

And then get evicted by your landlord.

I suspect they're using an econometrics model. The nascent future resembles the immediate past by default in every econometrics model based on linear regression...

Always unreliable. Ford gave up trying to make JLR pay for itself in 2010, came close to closing Jaguar for good. What were the chances that Ratan Tata could make it work?

Explodes the myth about a cheaper pound bringing in more foreign money.

The ERG pay lipservice to the idea of controlling immigration, but the reality is something else. A reduction of some 100,000 annually from the 2016/17 totals is what they deem sufficient. A far cry from the 'mere tens of thousands' promise they made as Tory MPs in 2010 and 2015 and have failed consistently to honour or even acknowledge. Ideologically, of course, Rees-Mogg, Bridgen and co are hair-shirt free market/free movement neoliberals. King-in-waiting BoJo has called repeatedly for an amnesty for illegals, something he tends not advertise of late.

Unsurprisingly, the new-found wealth that the railway networks promised also attracted a lot of shysters. Baron Rothschild famously observed, "There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain."

Online retalier ASOS sees 40% share price fall after shock profits warning. https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/dec/17/asos-profits-warning-retail-sector-sales-november-business-live

Here's another scenario FWIW. U.S. interest rates are irrelevant because we have a system of floating currencies. The U.S. economy is slowing dramatically as the stimulus from Drumpf's tax cut wears off and the housing market rolls over (again). U.S. interest rates will peak at 2%. The UK has a base rate of 0.75% because the private sector is still hopelessly underwater (debt/GDP ~ 170% same as 2007). Brexit if it happens will deliver a tremendous negative economic shock to both the UK and EU pushing both into recession and collapsing Osborne's echo housing bubble in the process. UK inflation will go negative in 2019 as businesses fail and employers lay off hundreds of thousands to stay afloat. Concurrent banking crises in China, Canada, Australia will engender international comparisons with the GFC i.e. GFC 2.0.

Fantastic post. These things need to be said again and again, and given as much prominence as possible. A thread dedicated to exploding the economically illiterate folly of the free market in all of its guises would be very welcome.

Bob Forward is one of my personal heroes. His interstellar roundtrip mission via a laser-powered annular lightsail - the inspiration for Starshot - was the first practicable proof of concept of starflight with existing physics. 'Indistinguishable From Magic', a collection of Forward's essays, conjectures and short-stories from the mid 90s is still worth picking up. He also did some of the early work on gravity wave detection, inspiring Kip Thorne and many of the Nobel winning LIGO team in the process.

It's hard to know which way cable moves next year. Maybe it doesn't go anywhere. UK prospects are horrible (imho) but the wheels appear to be coming off the US economy too.

You are the one attempting to close down the debate here, not me. I'm happy to take a look at any argument, however daft it appears at first sight. When you find one perhaps you can share it with us. Until then you're no better or worse than the thousand other cranks and time-wasters who routinely troll these pages waving their hands and talking specious nonsense about house prices never falling.

Me too.

I expect the average Briton couldn't identify a single Japanese by name. Scandalous, really. Given the astonishing contributions Japan has made to the world in the last six decades.

Few people dispute that there's a housing problem in the UK. A majority of contributors to this site believe it will only be resolved via a house price crash, the economic consequences of which are likely to prove severe. That opinion, contrary to your own pollyanna-ish act of faith, is the one you are airily dismissing as 'boring and repetitive conjecture'. Forgive me if I'm underwhelmed. Again, if you find HPC boring and repetitive, why are you still here?