Who Gives A S*** About House Prices?

[unamerican]

i agree. you cant have endless growth forever unless your a malignant tumor. and even then you eventually kill your host as well as yourself. you can have growth or you can repair things. perhaps a war is required.?

are you volunteering private ? or are you happy to spectate as millions of Iranians are killed by our insane lust for oil and gas ?

[unamerican]

Sorry if this sounds pedantic but this is actually closer to reality than it sounds. Although Rumsfeld says it in a rather clumsy way he is actually talking about a complex but well known socio-scientific theory.

i am all ears professor .

[apom]

Oil?

perhaps....

In recent years a great deal of the individuals available money has been swung into cost of living, mortgages, debt, rent..

this leaves part of the economy that used to have this money exposed.

High street recession is due to the lack of available money to be spent into the high street due to debt maintainence.

House prices will come down from the effect of this and other economic certainties.

However this is also the reason they cannot stay where they are.

the current prices represent a massive proportion of mortgage debt, but it is held by a small proportion of home owners... I.E the ones who bought at the peak.. approaching the peak.. or weirdly just after the peak as prices start to come down.. (odd behaviour)

now this is a small proportion of the home owning members of society.

If house prices were now at an accepted level and all new buyers entering the market were prepared or able to pay these amounts then the level of mortgage debt would actually have to grow by such an unbelieveable amount the £600,000,000,000 of extra debt managed in the last seven years would seem like pocket money..

In a decade if prices stayed at this peak it would have to be over £11,000,000,000,000 11 trillion pounds... such a ridiculous amount..

To say that house prices can remain this high is ludicrous.

any bulls want to argue this amount...? (bulls or bears... the ones who think it is sustainable...) this is simple maths.. simple economic theory..

come on.. enyone.. am I wrong...?

[2005]

i am all ears professor .

To use health as an example

There are known knowns = we know that people who smoke are at a higher risk of cancer.

There are known unknowns = we know there are diseases out there that are emerging but don't fully understand them or know what the next one will be.

There are unknown unknowns = we know that humans don't know everything and we know from expereince that the unexpected can happen. Therefore there must be things 'out there' that we don't know about

[Elizabeth]

As we know,

There are known knowns

There are things we know we know.

We also know

There are known unknowns.

That is to say

We know there are some things

We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,

The ones we don't know

We don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld —Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense

The Alien Song video

Love it

I have a feeling this whole conversation has come back to the critical question of how many cans of baked beans to stockpile. Why wasn't this string just called 'survivalists reunion' thread?

[Without_a_Paddle]

I really enjoy reading the 'meltdown' posts.

Such imagination, they are wasted on us...

[2005]

I don't think 'meltdown' is the outcome but here but there is a body of thought that suggests we (as a western society) are in transition and that a new society is emerging.

Now althoguht I don't necessarily agree with all of this I do with some of it, and some of this is also obvious just reading through the threads on this forum.

See if you can identify with some of the issues below:

1) Man has made huge advances in science and technology that have benefited us but these advances also have the capacity to destroy us [think nuclear weapons, global warming and to a point economic globalisation]

2) We (as a society) are no longer concerned with the distribution of scarce goods (our basic needs, food water, shelter) are met. We are now concerned with minimising the bad things asscoiated with modern advances [economic meltdown. poverty, crime, global competion, the threat of war, terrorism]

3) We are less willing to tolerate the bad things associated with technological advances e.g "don't build that power station in my town" etc.

4) We have a tendency to balme others when things go wrong..."the housing crisis is the governments fault" etc

5) BUT it is also more dififcult to pin the blame on anyone. Who is responsible for the housing crisis..the government? financial markets? individuals?....who is actually accountable?

6) We are becoming more selfish/individualised because we have to. The power of our own government to protect us is eroded by globalisation [think how much our economy depends on that of other countries.]. We have to stand on our own two feet to survive.

BUT..we can no longer rely on the values and society we know to do this. We no longer have a male breadwinner society, We have abondoned the concept of the 'honest working class' when a hard days manual work for good days pay was suffiecient to bring up a family. The tradtional two parent family is being eroded.

We live in a fast moving society that is constantly changing and developing..some will keep up..others will fall behind.

Now...what has all this got to do with me, you may ask. Well the above society has been described as being dominated by 'risk'. In a nutshell we are no longer concerned with distrubing resources we are concerned with protecting ourselves against risks.

If you still think this has nothing to do with you then read the quote above by Ronald Dumbsfell. He is not talking about a hidden economic agenda. He is talking about 'risk'.

If you still think this has nothing to do with then take a closer look at some of TB's speaches and his policies.

The concpet of a new 'risk society' has permeated every aspects of poltics and is shaping local, national and global poltiics. It effects us all whether we agree with it or not.

[bobdabuilder]

Get out of debt. Join a small self sufficient community. Invest in some effective weapons.

May sound flippant, but mopo may well be right. Including the weapons bit. Or alternatively move somewhere where you can pay for effective protection.

All that said, in the not too distant past we were on the verge of all out nuclear war. There were plenty of mopos around then. I knew a guy who bought a nuclear fall out bunker and put it under his garden. We all laughed (nervously) and secretly hoped he would ask us to join him should the worst happen. It didn't. We survived. And he still has a nuclear fall out bunker in his back garden.

Despite being incredibly wasteful and self-destructive, humans can also be incredibly resourceful.

Our world is set for massive change. Many will suffer, but others will prosper.

[patientFTB]

Is your life getting a bit dull & repetitive? Fed up grinding out the 9-5 hours each day?

Why not fantazise the end of the western world. Feel free to ponder scenarios including nuclear war, economic collapse and the end of civilisation as we know it. Who knows, perhaps a deadly disease could break out from the deepest Congo infecting all society rendering the authorities helpless and the population decimated. How would you survive?

Maybe something a bit less dramatic.. how about the world economy continues to convert from an industrial to a service based economy and nobody grows food anymore leading to mass starvation..?

This is a forum for the discussion of house prices. Please keep your personal fantasies where they belong - within the privacy of your own head or at least take them to a forum where you may find other like-minded individuals.