Fantastic comment piece from the Times on the giveaway to mortgage holders

DirectDebacle

lostinrates wrote: »

I think it is a good idea in some cases but not necessarily all, for people with little or no equity on a hopelessly unrealistic mortgage for the future then perhaps it is not? My fear for many is that a situation is prolonged when inappropriate.

I agree. For some it will be just delaying the inevitable. My post was aimed at this single issue of taxpayers money. The banks have had so much and now Govt comes up with wheezes to give them more to off-set their bad business practices. No-one will know how much this scheme will cost until it finishes. A billion has been mooted which doen't seem much for the banks to spread amongst themselves.

I'd rather see this billion going into building social housing or some other useful and cost-effective project.

WTF?_2

carolt wrote: »

Thanks. Yes, well as I said, that's Margaret Beckett's arithmetic for you. Enough said.

Until the details are thrashed out and published, we can't really know exactly how much money they're planning to waste. £1 billion or £100 million - it still sounds like too much (ie any) to me.

Don't worry - once Brown has got rid of the BoE's requirement to publish how much money they are creating and has secured consensus on 'fighting deflation' he'll simply be printing up as much as he needs to implement his various schemes.

That's the great thing about inflation from the government's perspective - it lets whoever controls the printing presses take money from absolutely everyone who holds Sterling. Why tax savers on just their interest when you can effectively steal chunks of their capital (in real terms) as well?

carolt

Woohoo! You make it sound so attractive.

RandomDan

StevieJ wrote: »

Way back!

It could have been written by someone on this site.

Unfortunately the figures don't really add up.
If its going to cost £1bn and only help 9000 people then that suggests they are getting £111k in this mortgage interest deferal.

Even if we assume that all those people had £400k mortgages and did nothing for 2 years you can't get anywhere near £1bn.

That is presuming 100% effficiency, which is unlikely

From that 1billion subtract the cost of developing further reports, then commisioning of IT systems, putting in place the infrastructure to handle the claims including multiple tiers of management. Realising it doesn't work then starting again and I'm sure that by the time this plan is in a workable state that magic billion would have sufficiently dwindled.

More on topic, relating to the original article, my view was that benefits were a safety net for very low earners to avoid poverty (in theory anyway). In that case then there is no need for a propping up of those with high value properties. They simply can no longer afford that lifestyle and start a cycle of downgrading in which they either reach a point where income = lifestyle or the already in place benefits system aids them.

StevieJ

carolt wrote: »

Hello Stevie. Have you taken up as my cheerleader?

Very decent of you.

You know I missed you while you were gone, or were you gone? Did you make a few posts with your other head on Come clean now

mewbie_2

Hmm. Carol has a brief pause from posting: the biggest, and best row in MSE House Price history erupts, the God like figure of Martin is involved, we get a brand new and larger forum to strut about in and then Carol returns.

Go figure.

Edit: I can't wait to relay the anecdotes of this time to my grandchildren. "Were you really involved in the MSE HPC wars of 2008 Grandad", they'll say. "Oh yes, my little ones, I was there. Took several direct deletions, but kept on posting". "Oh Grandad, you're a real hero" they'll say. And I hope they play the "last post" at my funeral.

StevieJ

mewbie wrote: »

Hmm. Carol has a brief pause from posting: the biggest, and best row in MSE House Price history erupts, the God like figure of Martin is involved, we get a brand new and larger forum to strut about in and then Carol returns.

Go figure.

Edit: I can't wait to relay the anecdotes of this time to my grandchildren. "Were you really involved in the MSE HPC wars of 2008 Grandad", they'll say. "Oh yes, my little ones, I was there. Took several direct deletions, but kept on posting". "Oh Grandad, you're a real hero" they'll say. And I hope they play the "last post" at my funeral.

She returned and then the row broke out, even more spooky

fc123

:santa2: :santa2:Carolt !!!
Just a quicky...as I just got in from work, got to cook dinnner (MSE so talking chopping etc) ......bring on the links. Haven't read this yet...will pick up later

GTG

Really2

mewbie wrote: »

. And I hope they play the "last post" at my funeral.

Good job they don't read your "last post" as it may well be deleted also.;)

moneysaving_pharmacist

Just to go back to class and healthcare for a moment, I've worked as a community pharmacist in a very middle class area (Paddock Wood, which is a few miles away from Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells). My current location is more working class and my patients are far less demanding than the ones in Paddock Wood were, so I have no problem with believing that middle class patients get better medical care than working class patients and in fact I would be surprised if it was the other way round.

The problem is that the working class areas need better healthcare services than the middle class areas. People in lower socio-economic groups have lower life expectancy than those in higher groups for a whole host of reasons, which is something that needs addressing.