The Elephant in the room

[thesunandtherain]

Is it just me, or is no-one talking about the fact that the country is bankrupt? Tories, Labour and Lib Dems are all talking about policies and where the cuts will fall, but what about the big picture?

Our children will never be able to afford to buy a house. Ever. The only way this could change is if house prices fall by about 50% which would have enormous consequences for current home owners, especially those who have released equity. How is it all going to balance out??

How can house prices adjust to reasonable levels without the economy going down the plughole? Why is no-one admittig that the 'credit crunch' is actually the end of an insane period of lending against assets which has meant that most people under 30 will never be able to own their own home.

We now have culture where we are all obsessed with our houses looking nice and how much they are worth, when the reality is that stupidly high house prices are excluding huge swathes of the population and condemning those that do buy to half a lifetime of debt. It is madness, yet no-one in the UK (even Vince Cable has gone quiet) is even mentioning it.

I want to scream 'BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ELEPHANT!!!'

ahem. rant over. thank you for your time.

Um, I think that's all that has been talked about for the past 18 months.

Well nick clegg started by saying 'we're skint, that's the truth' yesterday didn't he?

Well no, not really.
BBc reports house prices are up. Labour are talking about national insurance and efficiency savings. Tories are making up sums as they go along. No-one is saying that there needs to be a huge, cultural and economic shift in thinking...and everyone is talking like the crisis is over, when it has hardly started!

but it isn't just that the nation is skint. We need to change the whole basis for the economy and peoples' attitudes to money/debt/property. It is so big and so ingrained, I can't see a solution - but it is the politician's job to lead the country through this, not stick their heads in the sand.

Except that a lot of parental properties will be sold to provide for the ageing parents needs.

Part of the solution will be devaluation of the pound I suppose - which has its own problems but at least unlike poor Greece we have that option. That will reduce the value of the debt and make us more competetive. But - big but - we really do need to start making stuff we can sell to the rest of the world again, and stop importing so much stuff we can't afford. By 'stuff' that does include non-physical products like software and financial 'products'.