Are we all dooooooooooooooooooooomed?

[padboz]

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/

the actually started mentioning the words 'full blown depression' - not recession - on the today programme this morning.

Am I going to need a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread and a gun to ward off the rioters?

well as long as we don't hit 100000% inflation we'll be alright

15 million Zimbabwe dollars for a kilo of chicken.

that's about £1-2 (not sure of current black market exchange rate).

You never know, it might be fun!

Reading from a research document I recieved today:

"The U.K. is about to follow the U.S. into house price deflation and rising financial sector stress."

Not sure about it being fun, although the "correction" is well overdue, and as one of the many currently priced out of home ownership I have to admit to mixed feelings.

Don't suppose it has been much fun for all the people in the States that have lost their homes, or for all those in this country who are in for a similar fate in the next few years.

Sorry - that was a miserable po-faced post. It has been bothering me that in all the reporting of the subprime crisis, those who have suffered most profoundly are barely mentioned.

Well, considering we're all going to die, yeah, at one point or another, Doomsday is on the calendar.

Recession is a normal part of the economic cycle.

But when governments interfere too much to try to prevent that from happening, they often end up with a depression instead of a recession.

And let's face it, the subprime market here dwarfs the ones elsewhere, where lending was on the whole a bit stricter, because housing prices kept going up in a way that is unsustainable in any economy for long.

There were some very dodgy lending and mortgage practices going on here until recently.

And it all comes home to roost at one point or another.

EVERY bull market is going to go bear at one point or another.

Expat it is different this time. We are in a new paradigm where ingenius and innovative mortgage securitisation mean that we will avoid the normal economic cycle. Asset prices will continue their inevitable exponential inflation.

When he was chancellor, Gordon Brown promised that there would be no more boom and bust. With the prudent policies he put in place we can relax in confidence that the UK will weather this financial storm. Statistics gathered by our government show that inflation is being kept low, that average first time buyers have very high incomes relative to their mortgage payments.

Estimates for the London olympics reveal that our politicians expect property prices in East London to increase at 16% per annum for the next 15 - 20 years. Long may our prosperity continue!

NO ONE is exempt from the normal economic cycle, particularly when it's been the product of artificial machinations by the government.

No one is exempt because there are always factors that are beyond the government's control which have large impacts on a nation's economy.

But I do like your spin on Maggie Broon's policies .

Upwind please tell me you are being sarcastic?

Upwind - you're having a larf, right?

Oops sorry didn't mean to do that!

I am serious!

Gordon Brown really did promise "no more boom and bust" And Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingston really do forecast 16% per annum inflation in house prices in East London for the next 15 - 20 years.

Do you doubt that our politicians are both prudent and trustworthy? We don't need to worry because they are looking after their our interests.

You can be sure that their pensions will certainly appreciate!

I certainly feel doomed, need to re mortgage the best we can get is £200 more than we pay now

Upwind? Windup I think...

I couldn't restrain myself from a hint of sarcasm but if you want to check that I was not winding you up use google or click here:

politicians do claim to expect exponential 16% per annum inflation of property prices in North London It is not clear if they also expect massive wage inflation or how they imagine young families will be accomodated.

no more boom and bust used by Gordon Brown's motto. I've not heard him say it for a while.

yes, hard times lie ahead

dh been banging on about this for 5 years now

that should be: no more boom and bust used to be Gordon Brown's motto.

I really do wish New Labour had shown some degree of integrity or responsibility when it came to our economy, financial services and asset price inflation.

the Labour government and lenders are guilty as hell for have allowing this crisis to become so huge but not letting the economic cycle complete earlier

and remember, unlike the crash of the late '80s/'90s, which started in the stock markets, this one has started in the "real world" of property...

crazy crazy that lenders were ever allowed to write such bad debts

sorry, BY not letting...

lol Upwind. The amazing thing is that so many people really believed it all up until about six months ago.

With their second homes paid for by the tax payer the politicians were raking it in and did not want the house price boom to end. Never mind that they were really screwing over anyone who had not yet been able to buy one.

They chose to let the property market turn into a giant pyramid scheme and at least some of them must have had a good understanding of the risks of that.