Council tax to used to fuud property speculationi.

But the reason they can't afford a larger house is partly down to shortage of supply.

The general public will slowly come to realise that the recession should have happened after the Dotcom crash in 2000. "Emergency" interest rate cuts by Brown and Greeenspan/Bernanke to prevent deflation also managed to pretty much hold of the recession.

What we've got now is the price of that - we go into the recession with a lot more private debt, and the possibility it will become something much worse.

I observe bubbles and predict their crashing. The recessions are a mere side-effect. I've spotted 5 and all five crashes happened within two years bar this one.

Now in your position I'd be skeptical of my offering what seems a mere excuse for being damn near one business cycle too early for the party. However, if you read what Bernanke was saying back in the early millenium, it's very obvious that his thinking was that a bad deflation would accompany the Dotcom crash if they let it and any and every measure was justified to stop it. That Greenspan went along with this is uncontroversial.

FoFP

Indeed. That was one of the dirty little secrets of the blowoff phase of the bubble. It was essentially mortgage interest that was "dead money".

FoFP

Only if 'they' are idiots.

At the moment we seem to have relatively high inflation. Do you expect this to change soon to deflation?

Yes, but if there's something I'm most likely to be wrong on, that's it. Obviously any government can go for all-out inflation to get itself out of trouble...

FoFP

I see that you snipped the bit where I said "no it isn't".

tim

I've lost count of the times the bus i'm on is held up at traffic lights, even in bus lanes!

Why don't they simply copy the Scandinavians who let the bus driver control the traffic lights with remote control, or a more modern version using GPS on the bus, signalling a central control to switch approaching signals

Highway planning is just an excuse to hire under qualified and overpaid idiots, to soak up county council budgets, without which Traffic light manufactures would go bust

Steve Terry