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UK Recession to be the longest in the world!!


WJT

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[quote user="bubbles"][quote user="ErnieY"]Watch those hose prices fall, in some quarters even estimates of 50% could come to be seen as optimistic [blink]

[/quote]

hose is coming down. yippee.[/quote]

Great!!! I need a new one for my garden [:D][:D][:D]

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[quote user="Frederick"]
   I remember being told when I took out my first mortgage " If your monthly payment is more than your weekly wage...you cant afford it "    If only they had stuck to that ....
[/quote]Quite.  The last mortgage we had back in the UK was with the Nationwide.  They didn't just ask us how much we earned, but looked at the previous year's bank statements,  our credit card accounts etc, and would only lend us what we could afford to repay after all our normal outgoings were taken into account.  When I got made redundant we could thus still afford our mortgage, even given that we had lost more than half our household income.

Why, oh why, wasn't this the norm for all lending institutions?  If it had been, the UK would never have got into such a mess.  Yes, I know it's up to individuals to decide for themselves, but surely the banks shouldn't give mortgages to people who never had any hope of paying up when times got tough?

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The answer, JE, lies not in the soil as Rambling Sid Rumpold might have said, but goes back, primarily to the 1980s, when the banks demanded Thatcher removed the concessions enjoyed by Building Societies as the banks were slavering to fill their boots with what they considered the safe lending offered by the residential mortgage market.

The majority of BSs then de-mutualised to compete and access money market sources of funds.

The core problem was really created by Eddie George when Gov. of the B of E and the MPC. George admitted to the Select Committee tasked with ascertaining how successful the B of E's independence (ha ha!) had been, in March 2007, that the MPC had deliberately synthetically lowered and lowered Base Rates to avoid a recession during NuLab's early period, despite the MPC realising their actions would cause a house price boom and a consumer credit explosion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/exgovernor-george-says-bank-deliberately-fuelled-consumer-boom-441160.html

One of the main functions of any Central Bank is to regulate Money Supply: and banking and acting with Government, to moderate and regulate the economy.

In 1973/4, for example, when borrowing was rapidly overheating under the Heath-Barber inspired Boom-Bust, the B of E invoked the "Corset": Special Deposits scheme, which demanded banks deposited a percentage of all new funds lent, at a punitive rate of interest, well beneath market, with the B of E.

Additionally, in the McMillan era (You've never had it so good!" when consumer credit was totally slackened (new car, 10% down > 7 years to pay), the Finance Act restricted consumer credit by demanding minimum deposits (25%) and maximum tenor (3 years): which took the heat out of the consumer credit market.

To make matters worse; far, far, worse, the necessary funds to cover the insane feckless lending were mainly imported capital, since the real economy was simply not throwing off capital surplus: thus technically, UK plc was severely overtrading.

The Funding Gap (as best explained by Peston) is a core reason why banks are not lending now: even to well founed stable and successful SMEs which create real wealth and contribute to UK's GDP and employment.

Just goes to show what happens when one creates an "Economic Miracle" based on "Prudence".......................................................................

[Www]

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[quote user="Clarkkent"]

What an excellent summary.

One word though ... it was Arthur Fallowfield, not Rambling Sid for whom the answer lay in the soil.

[/quote]

Of course, you are right, Supe. Many thanks for that.

It's the old brain you know............

 

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