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Oxford at risk due to high house prices
Interesting piece on the BBC news a minute or so ago. They featured Oxford, where to get a mortgage on a standard house, you will need an income of 70k+. This has seen people leave the city in order to find accomodation elsewhere. Oxford now suffers not only a lack of teachers, an acute nursing and healthcare shortage, but…
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The Economics of Nuclear Power aka as Reds under the Bed
I'm not happy about The Chinese running a British Nuclear power plant and it would seem security officials aren't either. What do you think?
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Banks win fresh concession on ringfencing rules
The City on Thursday won the second clear signal in 24 hours of a political shift in its favour when financial regulators granted a key concession on the ringfencing rule for the UK’s largest banks. In rules set out by the Bank of England“ringfenced” banks will be allowed to transfer capital from their retail arms to other…
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Will interest rates ever rise again
Seems a crazy question, as surely rates will rise sooner or later. However, this is the first time I've seen a serious economist come out and make such a claim. Quite a bit of what he says is difficult to dismiss, and goodness knows how many times base rate rises have been predicted, only for the horizon to be pushed back…
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The STI inflation index
I wonder how STI's are related to house prices in the UK .... http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/brighton-and-hove-has-highest-rate-of-sexually-transmitted-infections-outside-london-a6694136.html
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Good News Ahoy!
The new labour market stats are out for the UK: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2015/sty-labour-market-statistics--october-2015.html "What about earnings Gen?", I hear you ask. Ah, well I'm glad you asked me that. The ONS has a lovely little infographic that probably cost you a few grand…
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Deflation
Means that our record high pay rises are damned good news. And it also means that our 3% Interest on savings is damned good news too. Add the 2.5% Pensioners Triple Lock and let it roll ... Will the good times end? :j
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Tax Credits
Does anyone know what type of people, in general, receive tax credits and will be effected by the cuts? Is it mostly women working in shops while their kids are at school? Dinner ladies, Cleaners? Has anybody seen any good articles about this? Thanks. EDIT 14/10/2015 Do posters think that tax credits are a good use of tax…
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Facebook pays just £4,327 corporation tax in 2014.
Reignites the debate. The average worker on 26k paid £5,392 in tax in the same year. The company made a £28.5m loss in the UK in the year. However, it paid out bonuses to UK staff amounting to £35.4m in the same year. The average bonus per employee amounts to over 20x the corporation tax paid. Facebook in response state…
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High housing costs costing London £3bn a year
Looks like even business is now starting to complain about high costs of living and the accommodation shortage in London. The article also leads us back to something that's often cropped up on this forum. Many suggest that money going on rent could be going elsewhere and feed into the economy. However, on the flip side of…
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Economic indicators, useful or meaningless?
Why isn't household work & cooking (the sort you perform for yourself or family) used to gauge productivity? How about writing a Wikipedia entry? Why aren't property and stock market prices used when calculating inflation? Are all these arbitrary measures governed by political considerations? In whose interest do we ignore…
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The rise of the 40 year mortgage
One person interviewed by the guardian who had took out one of these mortgages commented... The BOE are apparently monitoring the situation... you can say one thing about the BOE - they are forever monitoring things!…
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Britain and the EU
There was an interesting discussion on the radio regards this this morning. Nothing new to you well informed people I'm sure but I learned a couple of things - 40% of Britain exports go to the EU - 60% elsewhere (obviously!) - So while not the majority of our exports, they are our largest single export partner - 24/27 (i…
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Sell off state homes at 100% of value
Here is an idea. Sell off state homes at 100% of value. The subsidy should be in the form of 95% LTV Interest Only mortgage fixed at 3% for 25 years. I think that's a very reasonable and affordable subsidy and could actually be a profit* No need for income multipliers any tenant that gets together a 5% deposit can go for…
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Generation buy is about lower prices 'across the board'
Says Tory speaker on daily politics ( get it on iplayer ). Seems there is now an aim to get 'lower house prices, over time, across the board'. Which I think means one day ( but not in London ) whilst letting people on 50 - 70k get 20% free money to buy in London. Sounds all a bit, crap. Firstly it's disingenuous, the…
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Night tube winners
http://www.cityam.com/226119/london-house-prices-15-night-tube-stations-where-24-hour-services-will-add-a-premium-to-the-value-of-properties Wood Green must have been 16 ;)
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Right To Buy from 2016!
So it appears the Government has now agreed a deal with housing associations over right to buy........yesterday apparently.
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It looks like...
... our BTL heroes have moved on from Denial and Anger and are now at the Bargaining stage of the cycle (at least those that understand the CGT implications are anyway)…
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Could property sector face its own VW-style emissions scandal?
I've often wondered what an heat image of my house would look like. Probably leaking heat at the roof edges where the installers found it difficult to get to and various thermal bridges due to poor design. Surely an image is a simple enough thing to do after installation? Once again it's more important to be seen to be…
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Shock news!
Interest rates on hold ........ again!
