Household debt record highs

[nome]

7 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

Great post. I saw very many similar episodes, can’t pay take it away is a gem of a show. 

i guess most owners bought very cheaply a long time ago, and have suffered poor wage growth compared to cost of living like the rest of us.

highlights how unsustainable high house prices are without emergency rates. 

 

It also exposes the myth that these record levels of personal debt are no big deal because we've all got so much lovely property wealth... just shows how utterly illusory and illiquid that so called property ''wealth'' really is.

[iamnumerate]

20 hours ago, macca13 said:

Not a racist I’m a realist.. 

i don’t sugar coat everything.. 

we are overpopulated, you can deport white wasters for all I care.. 

like ive said female genital mutilation, child brides, forced arrange marriage, community segregationWith 3,000 people under active investigation and a further 20,000 individuals on a terrorist watch list

You can play your racist card as much as you like, immigration has had a devastating effect on our country!!

Concrete blocks on our bridges and around government buildings it’s more like Basra than Britain..

Very true.  The population density is too high in the UK - that is why our wildlife is suffering so much.

[simvastatin]

2 hours ago, happyguy said:

Nothing racist about that - the fact is that since 3m EU nationals came into the UK it has put enormous pressure on rents and prices - that is the simple law of supply and demand

I own my own business and when trying to recruit I have had to tell the agent not to send me people who cannot speak perfect English and do not have perfect grammar to enable them to send e mails and letters.,

That eliminates the vast majority of EU nationals.  All of my staff are expected to communicate with customers so anyone who cannot do so in perfect English is useless to me. 

I also am a realist and hardly a racist as my partner is German.  She is however a doctor who speaks perfect English and pays a lot of tax.

I have no issue at all with migrants with skills coming to the UK but someone who cannot speak the language and has the skills only tom work in  Costa Coffee is worthless in terms of the job market.  

Yes they let immigrants pour in with no skills and no worth in the job market and they have a leader who flies to Tunisia to worship at the grave of a terrorist 

You can huff and you can puff, but nothing is gonna change

I partially agree with you

[PeanutButter]

2 hours ago, happyguy said:

Yes they let immigrants pour in with no skills and no worth in the job market and they have a leader who flies to Tunisia to worship at the grave of a terrorist 

Sounds like a nice getaway. Perhaps I can find a package operator with a Tunisia Terrorist Grave Worship Weekend special offer. 

[PeanutButter]

52 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Very true.  The population density is too high in the UK - that is why our wildlife is suffering so much.

Human population worldwide is too high. Westerners use too many resources. Developing countries have too many children (all of them very keen on obtaining that wonderful wasteful western lifestyle). The natural world can't compete. 

So we build more houses to accommodate more people who make more people who ship in more people who need more houses and more schools and more roads and more cars and more flights and more food and more hospital beds and no one's allowed to complain just eat up the steady degradation of everything we took for granted. 

[winkie]

6 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Human population worldwide is too high. Westerners use too many resources. Developing countries have too many children (all of them very keen on obtaining that wonderful wasteful western lifestyle). The natural world can't compete. 

So we build more houses to accommodate more people who make more people who ship in more people who need more houses and more schools and more roads and more cars and more flights and more food and more hospital beds and no one's allowed to complain just eat up the steady degradation of everything we took for granted. 

So the very wealthy should be looking to consume a lot less, the wealthy to cut back on obvious excess, so as to enable the poorer to catch up a bit......share the worlds resources out in a fairer, sharer fashion......win, win, win.....save, save, save.

[winkie]

2 hours ago, Council estate capitalist said:

Make what you will of the chart.

DRO's are fairly new & only usable by people with no real assets + limit £20k in debt but the numbers are pretty steady. Usage is probably driven by people going to CAB/Stepchange so expected to be pretty steady. 

IVA's are a good barometer of people who've overspent on cards/loans but naively think an IVA will let them keep their home.  

 

I wonder if they will be used more often into the future......to help with basic living costs not just because of spending too much?

[PeanutButter]

11 minutes ago, winkie said:

So the very wealthy should be looking to consume a lot less, the wealthy to cut back on obvious excess, so as to enable the poorer to catch up a bit......share the worlds resources out in a fairer, sharer fashion......win, win, win.....save, save, save.

Ideally. But since we're all living in competitive capitalist Hungry Hippo grabbitland...

I'm happy to share resources as long as those resources fundamentally include mandatory sex education, free contraception and education for all women. But the trouble with shared resources is they often come from the natural world, and we're not sharing them, we're taking them from the other creatures who have the misfortune of existing alongside humans at this time. 

[winkie]

12 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Ideally. But since we're all living in competitive capitalist Hungry Hippo grabbitland...

I'm happy to share resources as long as those resources fundamentally include mandatory sex education, free contraception and education for all women. But the trouble with shared resources is they often come from the natural world, and we're not sharing them, we're taking them from the other creatures who have the misfortune of existing alongside humans at this time. 

Education along with opportunities I agree, both Men and Women......takes two to tango, men are just as responsible for their offspring as women are.

[longgone]

4 hours ago, Sour Mash said:

Financial industry doing their best to keep the credit flowing anyway - just got my regular email from one of my card providers offering me up to 20 months  interest free credit (for a flat fee of 3%) on balance transfers and money transfers on their card.

Can't remember the limit on that card but it's a good few grand - so I could have an unsecured loan of that size over the next 20 months for a cost of 3% of the borrowed capital.  Insanity.  Almost tempted to buy gold with it. ?

 

I can do better than that 

I have a 30 months interest free card on purchases. Spend up to 11k and pay nothing for 2.5 years.  Minimum payment due every month.

[iamnumerate]

2 hours ago, PeanutButter said:

Human population worldwide is too high. Westerners use too many resources. Developing countries have too many children (all of them very keen on obtaining that wonderful wasteful western lifestyle). The natural world can't compete. 

So we build more houses to accommodate more people who make more people who ship in more people who need more houses and more schools and more roads and more cars and more flights and more food and more hospital beds and no one's allowed to complain just eat up the steady degradation of everything we took for granted. 

Very true

[disenfranchised]

Average number of people per household = 2.4

UK Population = 66.5m 

Car PCP outstanding = £58bn (2016)

=£2100 per household outstanding on PCP

That's a lot of other unsecured debt.

[hurlerontheditch]

15 hours ago, PeanutButter said:

Ideally. But since we're all living in competitive capitalist Hungry Hippo grabbitland...

I'm happy to share resources as long as those resources fundamentally include mandatory sex education, free contraception and education for all women. But the trouble with shared resources is they often come from the natural world, and we're not sharing them, we're taking them from the other creatures who have the misfortune of existing alongside humans at this time. 

having worked in west Africa for 2 years, this will be a difficult win. having large families is seen as a status symbol. Most of the guys i spoke to want large families. 4 kids minimum, and that would seem small

[cnick]

15 hours ago, longgone said:

I can do better than that 

I have a 30 months interest free card on purchases. Spend up to 11k and pay nothing for 2.5 years.  Minimum payment due every month.

QE / helicopter money for (some of) the masses.

Signs of desperation(?) to keep the economy afloat.

[spyguy]

24 minutes ago, cnick said:

QE / helicopter money for (some of) the masses.

Signs of desperation(?) to keep the economy afloat.

Sign of very few peopl borrowing money.

The issue is theres too much debt from banks chasing too few people.

We need a massive shrinking of the UK finance sector.

 

[PeanutButter]

2 hours ago, hurlerontheditch said:

having worked in west Africa for 2 years, this will be a difficult win. having large families is seen as a status symbol. Most of the guys i spoke to want large families. 4 kids minimum, and that would seem small

Yes, from what I can tell there is huge cultural antagonism towards any suggestion of 'family planning' in that region. Typical response I've seen has referred to 'colonists' wanting to maintain power etc. Did you ask any women about it?

For most of human history, at least until the invention of modern medicine and fossil fuels, having as many children as possible as quickly as possible has been a survival strategy both at a family DNA level and wider, at tribe or national level. 

Interesting piece about Botswana (a country I've been meaning to visit for years) - 

Botswana has one of the fastest falling fertility rates. As global population expands, there are lessons to be learned (as a country it's also progressive concerning environmental law and protections)

The level of extreme population increase in most parts of Africa is completely unsustainable. We will see a majority of wildlife wiped out for trophies and food in the next 30 years. Famine. Mass migrations. Instability. 

[longgone]

2 hours ago, cnick said:

QE / helicopter money for (some of) the masses.

Signs of desperation(?) to keep the economy afloat.

Yep 

After 30 months I will move it to another card with no transfer fee for another year or two

[Errol]

3 hours ago, hurlerontheditch said:

having worked in west Africa for 2 years, this will be a difficult win. having large families is seen as a status symbol. Most of the guys i spoke to want large families. 4 kids minimum, and that would seem small

They are welcome to have as many as they like in Africa. Absolutely no reason why any of them should come to Europe. 

[Errol]

29 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

The level of extreme population increase in most parts of Africa is completely unsustainable. Famine. Mass migrations. Instability. 

Nature will correct the over-population.

Europe needs to build a wall, guard the seas and get ready to repel the invaders.

[PeanutButter]

39 minutes ago, Errol said:

Nature will correct the over-population.

Europe needs to build a wall, guard the seas and get ready to repel the invaders.

Well HIV AIDs (from eating chimp) and Ebola (from a bat) both jumped the species barrier in Africa. Presumably something similar could happen again but I don't believe anything can truly stop these numbers. 

War and famine (exacerbated by climate change) will just drive people to other countries and there is no way Europe will take any preventative measures. The doctrine of unlimited growth is too ingrained. 

I will miss the diversity of beautiful animals the most. 

[Errol]

 

[stuckmojo]

19 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Well HIV AIDs (from eating chimp) and Ebola (from a bat) both jumped the species barrier in Africa. Presumably something similar could happen again but I don't believe anything can truly stop these numbers. 

War and famine (exacerbated by climate change) will just drive people to other countries and there is no way Europe will take any preventative measures. The doctrine of unlimited growth is too ingrained. 

I will miss the diversity of beautiful animals the most. 

I agree with that. It seems that at some point humans almost went extinct with only 5,000 people left on the planet. 

I do think that Africa, India and some Asian countries' population explosion is the biggest threat to nature and our ecosystem in the short and medium term - 100/200 years. 

The sobering thing is that even if 99% of people die in one shot the rest is more than enough to continue. If you zoom back far enough, no event is really too big. 

 

 

[Riedquat]

20 hours ago, PeanutButter said:

Human population worldwide is too high. Westerners use too many resources. Developing countries have too many children (all of them very keen on obtaining that wonderful wasteful western lifestyle). The natural world can't compete. 

So we build more houses to accommodate more people who make more people who ship in more people who need more houses and more schools and more roads and more cars and more flights and more food and more hospital beds and no one's allowed to complain just eat up the steady degradation of everything we took for granted. 

Although I agree with the sentiment entirely and deplore what's happening to the UK - every vision of the future I've heard, every projection, every "improvement" leaves me ever more depressed, I was under the impression that the birth rate was below replacement levels. Whilst that doesn't necessarily translate into falls right now (the shape of the whole demographic pyramid is a factor too) it leaves me surprised at those birth rates.

Net migration really, really needs to be around zero though. It's inexcusable where it is.

[PeanutButter]

25 minutes ago, stuckmojo said:

I agree with that. It seems that at some point humans almost went extinct with only 5,000 people left on the planet. 

I do think that Africa, India and some Asian countries' population explosion is the biggest threat to nature and our ecosystem in the short and medium term - 100/200 years. 

The sobering thing is that even if 99% of people die in one shot the rest is more than enough to continue. If you zoom back far enough, no event is really too big. 

This clip sums up the maths perfectly. 

 

 

[PeanutButter]

23 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Although I agree with the sentiment entirely and deplore what's happening to the UK - every vision of the future I've heard, every projection, every "improvement" leaves me ever more depressed, I was under the impression that the birth rate was below replacement levels. Whilst that doesn't necessarily translate into falls right now (the shape of the whole demographic pyramid is a factor too) it leaves me surprised at those birth rates.

Net migration really, really needs to be around zero though. It's inexcusable where it is.

Full breakdown here: https://fullfact.org/immigration/population-growth-migration/

Quote

Between mid-1991 and mid-2016, net migration accounted for 55% of total population growth in the UK—an additional 4.5 million people. In the year to mid-2017, it accounted for almost 60%, based on ONS data.

Let's ask ourselves again, why are houses in the UK expensive compared to other countries? 

Why did the UK vote to leave the EU?

Are our lives getting better or worse? Are we happier as a nation than 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago? What's changed? How long can it continue?