Gringo

Sort of dispels the myth put around by some that other people keep saying that this is solely a UK based issue

Correct Map of North America?

Short term - I see house price falls more of a product of increasing job instability, rather than a cause. If house prices continue to slide, rates will come down, and currency weakens. The problems arising from the crash are more in the medium term. Negative equity stops people moving, and deflates the confidence in the market. You have to wait for another generation of people to come along to get swept up in the homes under the hammer frenzy. So while the market stagnates, there is no scope for the equity drawdowns on the scale we have seen over the past 10 years. This reduces consumption and weakens all sectors - from leisure to manufacturing (what little there is). Retail financial services will be hit, whilst the corporate banking will be safer as it will pick up on the back of whichever flush economies start trading first. So the economy will become even more unbalanced, even more dependant of the banking sector and foreign cash flows and even more susceptible to economic problems blowing in from foreign shores.

Reworking the old phrase - "what's the difference between a crash and a correction? A correction is when your neighbour loses his house; A crash is when you lose yours." On the first page, i placed my definition of a crash - 20% drop over two years. What's yours, just so we know when correction turns into crash. And the doom mongers keep on coming. House prices 'will crash soon': Bank chiefs warn YOUR home is overvalued by 30 per cent

Taken from the halifax report: Good to see it's just those city boys taking a well deserved kicking eh Ian?

There's plenty of applications TV, just fewer packages and fewer offers.

Frank & Walters - How Can I Exist

BrightSale Forecasts Decline of 15% in UK House Prices to 2013 15% doesn't sound too bad, but if you factor in 15% inflation over the same period, it means a drop of 25% in real terms Mervyn will have to drop interest rates next week by another 25 basis points, but that isn't going to convince the bankers to offer more mortgages, nor magically create the capital required to support those mortgages.

Mortgage approvals at 13 year low

The housing boom drove the economy for the last 7 or so years, a crash will strangle the economy and see the end of the labour govt ("it's the economy stupid" - to quote everyone for the last 15 years), so I guess you would be hoping for a crash to be avoided. Yes the market is misbalanced, yes a correction is necessary to bring prices back in line with wages. And whilst you've been lucky in that you bought at the bottom of the previous cycle, there are many more who have bought in the past 12 months who will be saddled with that property/negative equity for the next 5-8 years if we judge by previous cycles, so not a very socialist attitude to take - "I'm alright Jack". Whilst your vitriol seems to be aimed at the city boys, they're not the ones who are going to suffer - they might lose a few investments, but the yacht is probably paid for and in the wife's name and so safe - it's the one's who have only just got on the ladder, and who are stuck there or face repo. Note: two of the commentators predicted a crash - one by 25% the other by 20%

If you don't think there is a knock on, then you're not paying attention. The london market drove the boom, it will lead the fall Who exactly is everyone? Plenty of demand for mortgages, but with supply falling away. Fewer mortgages means fewer buyers, means decreasing demand, means falling prices, means lower LTV's on offer, means even further reduced demand as buyers need to save larger deposits, means lower prices. And that's just the FTB market; if you look at the remortgage market and BTL market with LTVs on offer decreasing there could be a chunk of people who won't be able to get a new mortgage and forced into repossession.

London and South East house prices fall as buyers tighten belts

Where's ranting? I want a repeat of his curry recipe.

Houses prices down 1.5% in three months House prices likely to fall by a quarter in two years

Two different issues really: Selling a voluntary system by offering benefits ...............................vs Enforcing a compulsory system through the denial of benefits. Interesting that the FOI weren't even consulted on the compulosry requriments being introduced by a private company, never mind having agreed that they conform to legal requirements. Lucky there's some whistleblowers about I guess, to halt the "sleepwalk into a security state"* *not my words, but a quote from a govt backed commission

How is an individual's wealth measured? Market value for each asset? Will the home in which someone lives be annually taxable? Suppose I am an artist whose work is well sought after by the 'we saw you coming' brigade in South Ken - is the artwork which I have just painted considered an asset and independently valued by some mucker from the revenue? I know I'm being particularly contrary here but I foresee difficulties. :winkold: Properties are already valued for council tax purposes, just that the valuations are not updated due to a fear of upsetting the electorate. Shares are easy to value if they have a market price, or some other balance sheet/p&l calculation could be used to determine a nominal value. Artitsts will be put on the bonfire as subversives so your last point becomes null and void.

Surely someone owns that asset - either through shares, controlling companies or other arrangements - ie there is a final beneficial owner. So wherever it is held in the world, it should be accounted for as part of that persons wealth. Well the company would own the asset. Maybe the single share of that company would be held by another offshore company 'in trust' and the profits of that company or dividends from it be spent by those trustees to the advantage of the individual who is the de facto but not de jure owner of those assets? I'm not agin the concept of a wealth tax but I'm not sure that it would necessarily be an easier tax to administer or that it is necessarily fairer (especially if that wealth is just paper wealth?). As per my previous post - the ultimate beneficial owner of the asset. This is not a unique concept, one already used within stockmarkets and existing tax regimes. So if a company owns an assset, someone eventually owns the company, The tax and/or financial regulatory regimes can force companies to explain and account for who the ultimate benefical owner is. And they would pay.

Surely someone owns that asset - either through shares, controlling companies or other arrangements - ie there is a final beneficial owner. So wherever it is held in the world, it should be accounted for as part of that persons wealth.

Imagine a place with no tax accountants, where the annual return takes a businessman an hour to complete. Think how you could lead a country and design an economy just as you liked. Consider the joy of creating a tax system with no loopholes and exemptions, where everyone is treated the same. When he became the prime minister of Estonia at the tender age of 32, Mart Laar saw this opportunity as a beautiful thing. The Soviet regime that once ruled his country had been overthrown, and he was starting with a clean slate - and the confidence that came from reading only one book on economics. mayeb it works ? That's not a poll tax, it's not a capped tax, it's a flat rate tax. It seems to have worked in some second/third world states playing catch up. Would it work in a developed state? Maybe not. A similar level of freedom from administrative burden could be achieved through the scrapping of VAT and income tax, to be replaced, as per Levi's suggestion, with a wealth tax, where everyone pays x% of their wealth into the govt coffers each year. Such a systems combines your avowed reduction in bean counters whilst being more of a progressive tax where the poorest pay the least and the super rich pay what they can afford. I wonder if you prefer the one that leaves you better off or one that is "fairer"*? *fairer being a subejective concept of course

Why not go with Levi's suggestion and tax on a percentage of wealth, not income. VAT should be scrapped anyway as the poorest in society are the ones who spend the highest proportion of their income on it. Plus it's just a stupid administrative nightmare. Govt gives Joe Bloggs 20 quid income benefit. Joe pays 20 quid to sky for his daytime 700 channel fix 2.97 of which is VAT, due to be paid to the govt. Sky buy services from company A and so claim back the VAT. company A buy x amount of services from company B and so claim back the VAT.. ... and so on ... and so on ... through the system until you get to ... an original producer who has no other suppliers and thus has to hand over the money to HMRC. Each company along the way have to account for their treatment of the money (as it belongs to HMRC not them), yet they don't get compensated for collecting the govt's tax? An utterly ludicrous system of taxation.

An extremely enlightened post. Nasty self serving bstd. Where did cheney get his role models from one wonders.

Privacy watchdog question's BAA's fingerprinting requirements It seems that BAA's use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut isn't univerally approved of.

Billy Bragg - Waiting for the great leap forward

At least we know it's not just one govt that can't be trusted with keeping data secure US candidates' records breached

To go with the compulsory ID cards by stealth we have the National DNA Database by Stealth