LauraB

An impressive response time JD, a mere 4 minutes! MkIV's? - 4 minutes? .... Could that be by design?

http://www.ftadviser.com/FTAdviser/Mortgages/Lenders/News/article/20110907/4ad306aa-d943-11e0-b3b8-00144f2af8e8/Negative-equity-could-hit-17m.jsp Another 10% fall = a doubling of NE 'sufferers'. Detail apart this is on the wrong side of blindingly obvious, but it's the potential exponentiality of it that fascinates me. Increase those percentages of NE & watch this one fly. Rabbits out of hats & Britain's team of benevolent BTLs not withstanding.

but 'van' says "Price will begin to pick up again at the start of next year". I love that phrase 'pick up', it's so VI Despite the falls the UK still offers one of the lousiest quality of life/price ratios there is. I look from afar & shake my head in disbelief, but that is a subjective view & thus irrelevant here.

I shall tune-in to the cosmic lunatic asylum from my home planet just to see what the inhabitants of a tiny, far-too-self-important island are up to. I wonder what they will be calling their currency

Err, Joe, do you perhaps have images turned off?

Yes, but he is not a high profile msm article writer........... or is he? Or a Ray Boulger who leans the other way?

Oi Vey JD! To counter a decade of almost nothing but VI bull, we now require a decade of almost total VI bear. Only then will balance be restored. How do I check out his fund?

“With falling house prices still holding down consumption and creating economic uncertainty, there is simply no room for half-measures or delay,” Ms Lagarde said. Ola? Cristina? You are French, non? Before Les Anglais started their buying spree, I don't recall there being much of a fuss about the housing market in your country? "Creating economic uncertainty". How did that come about my dear? You make it sound like a potential catastrophe. A few extra zeros were created, et, mais non!!! - puff! - C'est un truc mon cherie, c'est rien. What do you think you can do anyway? Embark on more creation? Not a good idea, unless you are an illuminati puppet, & who would think such a thing?! Have a look at where les Anglais are heading on their own turf before doing anything hasty, OK? & please note, no-one resists like the Brits: "Riots in London, fear in France and Italy, meltdown in Greece and downgrades in Washington. These are worrying times for anyone with half a brain and terrifying for anyone with a whole one. Give or take the occasional riot, we in Britain have tended to think we’re relatively safe from these storms. Yes, the government managed to get into serious debt, but we’re starting to work our way out. The ratings agencies view George Osborne as Mr Credible. And, hey, at least we’re not in the Euro. More... House prices: What next? What next for mortgage rates? But the British economy is stalling badly and our financial system is much weaker than the authorities would have you believe. Worse still, the biggest threat to our financial system is one that most likely affects you personally. British property prices are far too high and set for a fall. Transaction volumes are still unbelievably sluggish, mortgage approvals still in a slump – but the problem isn’t volumes, it’s prices. There are two main ways of measuring whether property is fairly valued or not. The first is to compare house prices with average earnings. The second compares house prices with average rents. On both measures, the UK market looks screamingly overvalued. British house prices are around 40 per cent too high in relation to incomes and about the same amount in relation to rents. That’s not all of it. Housing markets are volatile. That means they overinflate in a bubble, but they crash too far in a slump. If prices are 40 per cent above their fair value, a collapse of more than 50 per cent is well within the realms of possibility. Crazy? Think about where on earth the housebuyers of tomorrow going to come from. A recent report in the Mail quoted some young people as saying they ‘don’t think they will ever be able to afford to buy a property. ’ At these prices – they’re right. That’s why the average age of a first-time buyer has been soaring and why the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ remains essential to so many new buyers today. Then think about what’s happening to interest rates. The Bank of England has been in existence for more than 300 years and it has never once operated a monetary policy which is as slack as the one that has now been in place since 2008. Prices have already fallen more than 15 per cent from their peak despite a Bank of England rate of just 0.5 per cent. When interest rates return to sane levels, as they’ll have to if the Bank is to cope with runaway inflation, people are suddenly going to start finding that their mortgage burden becomes rapidly insupportable. All this at a time of high inflation, high fuel prices, high food costs. You only have to look at the US to realise what happens when you get a cycle of mortgage defaults, repossessions and distress sales. In America, prices have already fallen at least 30 per cent and they’re still headed down with no bottom in sight. No? You still don’t believe me? Then look at it this way. Can you name any occasion in history when a developed country simultaneously faces savage government cuts, swingeing rates of tax, high inflation, rising unemployment, depressed growth abroad, rising interest rates, huge levels of debt, and doesn’t have a housing crisis? In the UK housing slump of the early 1990s, the world situation wasn’t nearly so bleak as it is now, yet prices (in real terms) still fell by well over a third from peak to trough. These thoughts aren’t comfortable ones. Not for me, not for you, still less for George Osborne and his colleagues. But you don’t avoid disaster by wishing it away." Mitchell B. Feierstein is chief executive of the Glacier Fund. He has been in the financial markets for 30 years. He is the author of Planet Ponzi (due out in February 2012), which argues that the credit crisis has only just begun. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2031172/MONDAY-VIEW-Why-Britain-heading-property-crisis.html

Are they his own? Is he not just a front line puppet, with sparkling 'ologies to give credibility?

I was mostly being serious JD. Do you see Britain as some insular Trumpton-like land with a toytown currency tap that has nothing to do with wealth or value? Where the folk do not bother looking beyond 'their' (a naive notion, as ever) own shores because 'it's dangerous & foreign elsewhere'. So they prefer the quaint idea fostered over many years that it really is different here & that the majority will do everything to defend the system that has been screwing them for centuries? If so, I think you are right. (I nearly typed 'right on the money' )

Providing lashings of both Hot Wealth & Cold Wealth? I can hardly wait JD

It doesn't work if you use the same rocket each time GF ... ... Oh, it does No Primark for me tomorrow then :(

Minor alteration: "Dad, I've decided to invest my 15k (all the money currency I have in the world - acquired from savings accounts my parents put money into all my life, topped up with birthday and Christmas money from parents, grandparents, aunts etc - topped up with a recent present from an Aunt who was terminally ill) into gold." http://papermoneycollapse.com/book/chapter-outline/ I don't the writers are making this up BaB, do you? Change is not easy for some. For most it is almost impossible & so they support the system that is 'killing' them, as maintaining the status quo is their life goal; whatever the cost.

Far too harsh. FK is great, but sometimes he needs the feminine touch

Weird, I just posted this link on the Hyper thread. Scroll to Ch 10 - same subject. http://papermoneycollapse.com/book/chapter-outline/ More importantly: Third test tomorrow. Nothing must interfere with test cricket!

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/gold-surging-buy-mining-stocks-not-so-fast-says-frank-barbera/61278

Hmm, works now. The other day I was being told it was not. Humble apologies. You may wish to edit?

Fitkid, --------------------------------------------------- Now have a HUG

ZH is highlighting a possible bank implosion side effect: For a just as big problem we shift our attention to the next worst bank in America, Citigroup, which as the excerpt below demonstrates, was a bragging point in the firm's January 2011 letter. Alas, there is little to brag about these days. Which is why we wish to caution investors to be vary careful with liquidation-like selloffs in gold. Should D-Day strike at Paulson, the firm's multi-billion GLD "gold share class" will likely have to be sold very fast to preserve liquidity. When that happens we may see a 20-30% correction in gold in one day. This is just a theoretical warning, and we hope to have some sense of when, if at all, it would take place. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-america-just-start-paulsons-problems-behold-citigroup Having just had the official Euro-Confetti helicopter fly by showering us with the stuff I would not be too impressed if it returned & demanded the stuff back. Though I'd like to see it land

Remember this entity from hpc? (until he joined the banned, but for a reason that made sense). Nearly 9000 MSE posts & all because he bought in 2007 (& is programmed to defend that loudly until his death). Hamish McTavish: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=45874357#post45874357

What would you prefer to buy?

Margin call Thursday Is nothing sacred?

Au contraire (as France will be featuring heavily soon), the MSE thread you featured in your Cgnao retrospective is still going, & himself posted there on the 18th of last month. #198 http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=14783&page=10