It's "good" News Tuesday

[Nationalist]

From http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php

Nationwide HPI is +0.3% for January, compared with -0.1% in December. Manufacturing purchasing managers' index is holding steady at 61.5 - same as December. Net lending to individuals was £1.5bn in Jan compared with £0.5bn last month. Final mortgage approvals is 46,000 compared with 41,000 in December. And the M4 money supply has grown by 0.8% whereas in December it fell by 1.3%.

All is rosy in the garden.

Is this just the lull before the storm, or are the bad times over?

[koala_bear]

From http://www.forexfact...om/calendar.php

Nationwide HPI is +0.3% for January, compared with -0.1% in December. Manufacturing purchasing managers' index is holding steady at 61.5 - same as December. Net lending to individuals was £1.5bn in Jan compared with £0.5bn last month. Final mortgage approvals is 46,000 compared with 41,000 in December. And the M4 money supply has grown by 0.8% whereas in December it fell by 1.3%.

All is rosy in the garden.

Is this just the lull before the storm, or are the bad times over?

No just careful choice of figures:

Alternative examples:

Non seasonally adjusted mortgage approvals down from 31,100 (dec) to 27,300 (jan) - why is the SA figure 70% higher than the NSA?

Non seasonally adjusted average value loaned down from £139.5k to £130.5k down ~6.5% - I have commented on these figures on another thread but no one seems to think that fall is significant enough to discuss!

[rantnrave]

Non seasonally adjusted average value loaned down from £139.5k to £130.5k down ~6.5% - I have commented on these figures on another thread but no one seems to think that fall is significant enough to discuss!

I remember that point and was acknowledged as very telling. What's the time scale (sorry if that's a dumb question)? Does it mirror the approx 9K fall in average HPs since mid 2010?

Edited March 1, 2011 by rantnrave

[winkie]

All is rosy in the garden.

Is this just the lull before the storm, or are the bad times over?

All is rosy for some...the ones with little debt contentment and a secure job that pays its way.

The bad times are over or rather they never existed for some....the bad times are only just beginning for others.

It depends what cards the game of life dealt you.

[Nationalist]

All is rosy for some...the ones with little debt contentment and a secure job that pays its way.

The bad times are over or rather they never existed for some....the bad times are only just beginning for others.

It depends what cards the game of life dealt you.

I was being ironic. I think this is the lull before the storm. Most of the brown stuff is still in flight towards the rotating vanes. To come: major public sector layoffs (these don't bite until the redundancy cheque is spent!) and interest rate rises. Pay will not keep up with inflation. Is anyone really expecting a 5%+ pay rise this year? Falling real income is not nice.

[koala_bear]

I remember that point and was acknowledged as very telling. What's the time scale (sorry if that's a dumb question)? Does it mirror the approx 9K fall in average HPs since mid 2010?

A very good question indeed

It is loan amounts vs HP so if there is a big change in LTVs it might say more about LTVs than prices but...

15.5k down in 8 months of which 9k was in the last month

Bank of England Table A5.4 ( a spreadsheet with 14 tabs of interesting data) A5.3 is pretty interesting too for the high level housing lending data

2010

Jan 133,643

Feb 135,356

Mar 139,938

Apr 140,368

May 145,788

Jun 144,997

Jul 144,156

Aug 139,285

Sep 136,546

Oct 139,484

Nov 138,273

Dec 139,540

2011

Jan 130,522

Edited March 1, 2011 by koala_bear

[koala_bear]

I was being ironic. I think this is the lull before the storm. Most of the brown stuff is still in flight towards the rotating vanes. To come: major public sector layoffs (these don't bite until the redundancy cheque is spent!) and interest rate rises. Pay will not keep up with inflation. Is anyone really expecting a 5%+ pay rise this year? Falling real income is not nice.

I did wonder whether you were doing a bit of leg pulling, there are signs in some data that the first stuff is on the mesh but not the vanes yet!

[winkie]

I was being ironic. I think this is the lull before the storm. Most of the brown stuff is still in flight towards the rotating vanes. To come: major public sector layoffs (these don't bite until the redundancy cheque is spent!) and interest rate rises. Pay will not keep up with inflation. Is anyone really expecting a 5%+ pay rise this year? Falling real income is not nice.

I think you are right but we have been living in the fast lane for the last few years, we have become accustomed to living a way of life that is not sustainable for any length of time the way it was going.....we got very rich quick off the back of imaginary growth in house prices and benefited from cheap imported goods provided by very low paid workers....they now want a bit of what we have, and I can't say I blame them.....falling real income is not nice if you did not put something by for a rainy day............we grew to fast too quickly, what we will see is a stepping back to how it would have been if the markets had not been so manipulated.......high inflation can only occur if there is sufficient spare money in the economy to support it.....'can't pay won't pay' is not a way for inflation to manifest itself......doesn't matter how much prices rise there comes a point where something will never sell or very little will be sold because people will refuse to buy.....

[fellow]

I was hoping this would happen because any significant falls would make an interest rate rise very unlikely. They now have no excuse not to raise rates next Thursday.

[erranta]

All is rosy for some...the ones with little debt contentment and a secure job that pays its way.

The bad times are over or rather they never existed for some....the bad times are only just beginning for others.

It depends what cards the game of life dealt you.

The 'Two Ronnies' were "cards" - this is already "reality" >>>

"If human vices such as greed or envy are systematically cultivated, the inevitable result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed or envy loses the power of seeing things as they really are, of seeing things in their roundness and wholeness, and his very successes become failures.

If whole societies become infected by these vices, they may indeed achieve astonishing things (Banksters Big Bang deregulation demands) but they become increasingly incapable of solving the most elementary problems of everyday existence.

(Subsequent back-lash punishment by Establishment on population for excess bankster deregulation attacking Welfare of masses and cuts in payments for the poorest)

The Gross National Product may rise rapidly: as measured by statisticians but not as experienced by actual people, who find themselves oppressed by increasing frustration, (declining wages?) alienation, insecurity, and so forth.

After a while, even the Gross National Product refuses to rise any further, not because of scientific or technological failure, but because of a creeping paralysis of non-cooperation, (middle/working class annoyance for having pay packets robbed to pay for City Elites Excesses and failure) as expressed in various types of escapism on the part, not only of the oppressed and exploited, but even of highly privileged groups"

E.F. Schumacher, 'Small is Beautiful', 1973.

Edited March 1, 2011 by erranta

[Fairies Wear Boots]

I was being ironic. I think this is the lull before the storm. Most of the brown stuff is still in flight towards the rotating vanes. To come: major public sector layoffs (these don't bite until the redundancy cheque is spent!) and interest rate rises. Pay will not keep up with inflation. Is anyone really expecting a 5%+ pay rise this year? Falling real income is not nice.

Quite. Anyone who thinks the next five years (and then probably more) aren't going to be unpleasant is in for a big surprise. How can the government curtail spending by 150 billion a year less than now without any economic pain is beyond me.