[The Real Cost Of Hpi]

A women I knew bought a once bed flat in the south east for 45k in 1999 while earning 11k working in McRetail. Night and day, night and day.

Well there you have hit the nail on the head. When I bought my first house in 1981 (for about £11k - prices rising strongly)

I certainly wasn't rich. I was a trainee accountant on around £3.5-4k a year.

In fact none of the people in the street were wealthy by any standard. Most had routine factory/office jobs if they weren't retired. Now it would require a professional couple with two professional incomes to buy the same house (those same properties now are worth £180k). That is a measure I think of how the economy is failing and how people are working harder and harder for less and less.

So when people say "its different now" they are right, but not in the way the mean.

[Bank Governor Hits Back At Criticism Over Inflation]

"Tim Besley, the external MPC member who voted in vain for rate rises in February and April, said that he saw monetary growth since 2004 “carrying potential upside risk for inflation”. But he said that he did not want to be thought of as a monetarist. He admitted: “We do not understand how various forms of lending leak into demand. The Bank is studying this now.”

thats worrying ..and ..

"Such growth rates are widely thought to be unsustainable if inflation is to stay at 2 per cent, but may be closely related to rapid expansion of financial trading, hedge funds and private equity bids in London."

Isn't it time the lid was lifted on the "City of London?" It seems no one knows whats going on thanks to "light touch" regulation. The UK seems to be just a huge hedge fund now which hides a very serious trade deficit. We do still need to make stuff.

[Working From Home And Hpi]

just give everyone a blackberry to start with. Companies would "save" by getting people to "work" whilst out of the office. the worst this is from the people I see with them, even if they don't want to look at it outside of work, they can't help but check work mails etc

I've worked from home for some time and kind of got used to it. I used to do it

as an employee, then a few years ago there was a bust up following a takeover, and I

started out on my own.

I've decided to pull out of London as I can do pretty much what I do from anywhere provided

I have a fairly decent broadband connection. So from September I will be based in Valencia hopefully.

Working from home has its draw backs, but can't be as bad as dreadful London commutes crammed like sardines on the hot, sticky Jubilee line.

One answer might be to setup coworking schemes sometimes or "telecottages"

Quite large companies allow working from home. BT is one of them.

[Business Ideas; Easyrent, Virginapartments]

Couldn't enough people start a new housing association with a capital grant from the Housing

Corporation?

http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/cfg/server.p...75478428249dd82