This was ranted at me last week.."Its ok for you, you don't have a mortgage"

twadge_face

OK, so what is unethical about providing someone with the recreational drugs they need to get obliterated from this horrible world? It too is a small business "just like any other"... Giving people "what they need"... lol.

OK, seriously...

[BTL has] not distorted house prices to any great degree. You may not like that, but all the evidence points that way.

Thanks for providing all the evidence you say supports your opinion. Oh, hang on, you supplied an opinion with not a single iota of evidence to support your opinion. Super dooper ally ooper. That's a great debate.

Easy to be all gob but no substance.

Whereas I can at least show you a couple of links that suggest otherwise.

Exhibit 1 - a massive warning sign just a couple of months before the the Northern Rock catastrophe in 2007: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages-and-homes/buy-to-let/article.html?in_article_id=421582&in_page_id=56

Exhibit 2 - a 2010 article showing that even the GOVERNMENT knew of the distortion effect of BTL upon FTBs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/apr/12/buy-to-let-first-time-buyers

Most BTL landlords are decent people providing for themselves and their family

Sorry to offer an inflexion of Godwin's Law yet again, but on the whole I've found drug dealers to be just the same. Just trying to bring up and support their families. And who can blame them? For a few thousand K they can set up a lovely little hydroponic den and quietly make £tens of thousands a month distributing a little bit of harmless puff.

But what about the negative social consequences? Money makes you feel nice, doesn't it? Just like a drug in itself. A recent report show that apparently bankers' brains have their brains stimulated in a similar way to the effect of cocaine upon successful (ahem) trading... Perhaps just enough to distract from any negative social consequences.

Only when the investment doesn't happen to be one she approves of, she throws a hissy fit and it suddenly becomes the most evil thing in the world. It's not very consistent.

We're humans. We're emotional. When we're passionate, consistency isn't the first thing on our mind. Otherwise we'd be cold, unfeeling Cyberwomen.

What's interesting is your emotive response. It seems very catty... OK, I'm guilty too. Miaow.

The OP is asking us to assume all sorts of things about her sister to support her self righteous view of the world. So it's hardly wrong to make a few assumptions of my own, is it? Live and let live and judge not lest yourself be judged and all that.

Hello pot, kettle here...

twadge_face

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Any chance of a link to that graph, twadge_face?

De rien, ma petit cheufleur.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8584978.stm

I wasn't interested in the article, per se, rather the graphic representation of how the deficit more than doubled, then was projected to double again in the post-bailout aftermath...

[FYI - figs are net borrowing % of GDP, btw, but I'm sure you'll take passionate liberties in tearing them to shreds; I ain't a statistician on these matters :-) ]

Flyboy152

So, after all the posturing and pontificating, the deficit, up to the banking crisis, was lower than it was for the majority of the Tories' reign throughout the nineties and most of the eighties. The surpluses were even better than the Tories' ever were.

twadge_face

Flyboy152 wrote: »

So, after all the posturing and pontificating, the deficit, up to the banking crisis, was lower than it was for the majority of the Tories' reign throughout the nineties and most of the eighties. The surpluses were even better than the Tories' ever were.

Interesting you say that. I'm not historically sure of difference between the two reigns of power between the parties, but when I saw The Sun's disdain for Labour's THIRTEEN YEARS OF FAILURE in the lead-up to the election, I did emit a slightly startled chuckle.

Murdoch's cronies had loved Labour right up until 2009 I think.

It does annoy me when evil people rewrite history to support their arguments. Evil, evil, evil.

Generali

Flyboy152 wrote: »

So, after all the posturing and pontificating, the deficit, up to the banking crisis, was lower than it was for the majority of the Tories' reign throughout the nineties and most of the eighties. The surpluses were even better than the Tories' ever were.

The budget was in surplus for 3 of 13 years of Labour Government. One of those years was the 3G sale I think. Certainly the other 2 were when Labour had promised to follow Tory tax and spend policies for the first 2 years of their Government.

abaxas

Does the above data include 'off balance sheet' debt? Like PFI etc

Wheezy_2

Generali wrote: »

The budget was in surplus for 3 of 13 years of Labour Government.

And looking at the graph above, it was only in surplus for 2 of 17 years of Conservative Government.

Interesting.

Flyboy152

Generali wrote: »

The budget was in surplus for 3 of 13 years of Labour Government. One of those years was the 3G sale I think. Certainly the other 2 were when Labour had promised to follow Tory tax and spend policies for the first 2 years of their Government.

But then at least they didn't have deficits the size of the Tories though, eh? In eighteen years the Tories were in deficit for just under seventeen (five quarters) of those. Yet all we hear from the Tories is the deficit in the last three years. Conveniently forgetting the devastating condition the country was in, in nineteen ninety-seven.

ILW

Flyboy152 wrote: »

But then at least they didn't have deficits the size of the Tories though, eh? In eighteen years the Tories were in deficit for just under seventeen (five quarters) of those. Yet all we hear from the Tories is the deficit in the last three years. Conveniently forgetting the devastating condition the country was in, in nineteen ninety-seven.

What was wrong in 1997?

Flyboy152

ILW wrote: »

What was wrong in 1997?

Is that really a serious question?