Nanny bans mortgages of more than 3 x income

Gold seems to have been the only investment in 2008 that made any money.

As usual, you were dead wrong...

In fact there were real underlying reasons for the increase in demand for tulips. The tulips which went for extremely high prices (as in a house, a brewery and twelve acres for one bulb) were also very rare because their colours were caused by an unpredictable virus infection in the bulb (though this wasn't known at the time).

Bubbles start from assets which are in demand for a reason, then take them to crazy prices. Eventually though the cure comes and returns them to, or close, to, where they were before the bubble.

FoFP

We can try to determine what they're worth to people who pay cash. Or we can wait until that's what happens...

FoFP

>>

of course not.......you have the typical socialist 'mind' set.... you cannot see any independent action without wanting to control it...

the legitimate parties to a loan are the person taking the loan... and the person making it.... if they make errors it is up to them to learn from those errors....

not your job to intrude, meddle and interfere with their free choices.

you'd be far far better to introduce sound economics education into your society and schools.... but of course with the leftist pap that is widely fashionable i doubt your society could even manage that much

when is brown the clown going to be replaced?

The government will be shown to be behind the curve as usual. Their limits are already behind what the banks are imposing. Their inveighing of the banks to lend will fail too. Debt-deflations end, according to Kindleberger, in debt being neither offered nor sought. The rates at which people will refuse debt are pretty much irrelevant.

FoFP

In fact the history of credit bubbles is a great interest of mine and pretty much the reason I've posted here about this, the greatest credit bubble, since more than a decade ago.

Three lessons from history:

1) The bigger they are, the harder they fall. This being the largest in terms of percentage of the population participating and also in debt-to-GDP ratio (as well as the first global credit bubble), we can expect larger than the normal two-thirds peak-to-trough price drop in the primary asset.

2) This generation will see "credit revulsion" at the end of the debt-deflation. They will be so harmed and sickened by the effects of debt that they will swear off it for life and raise their kids to do the same. The third generation though will see this as ancient history and once they're adults, they'll see some asset as a Golden Ticket to riches without work, and we'll be off to the races again sometime around 2060.

3) Due to regulation, memory, etc. the primary asset next time will be different.

As Mark Twain observed: history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

FoFP

as usual you are blathering from the depths of your ignorance....

i don't pretend to know the level to which gamblers will push gold in the next year... i know enough to know that i don't know....

i am very content with the markets...there are now bargains around... several stock markets were very overpriced until recently....

meanwhile ridiculous prices are paid for signatured 'art' work... old cars and gold...anywhere to park money and wait for the bargains

you hang on to your gold...why not buy more....that is, if you have any at all.... you never know it may be $2000 next year....or it may be back at $300...you're the one with the beliefs

So is any ivestment.

If you'd put your money into blue chip banking shares last year you lost the lot.

Actually the diamond market is a cartel run by a private company, which is why they can't oeprate in the USA.

Who cares?

Once again, who cares?

The markets of the world are in chaos.

Gold is an asset.

This past year it was a bloody good investment.

Next year it probably won't be.

I assume you'll be investing in banks...

yet another socialist who wishes to control the lives of others

'Bartc' wrote this:

I bet it's the front door of that house.

They won't for about four decades.

People remember.

The people who got burned this time, as last time in the Great Depression, won't forget, they'll have to die off before we allow the bankers to make a mess of our lives again...

'abelard' wrote this:

But it would help people saving up for a deposit to buy a house. No?

Indeed, not a place for old grannies to go.

But he tries sooooooooo hard.

i have no such 'hatred'.... i just regard it as a fashionable gamble....and i run a risk averse position...

i believe you should be free to buy and sell whatever the law and the market allow....

it isn't.....and repeating your idiocies does not increase their validity

you are merely projecting your own problems... i'm content that you buy any and all gold you can manage that is your freedom...

i'll not touch it with a barge pole...that is my freedom

a thing socialists like you never ever manage to grasp

what on earth are you on about....

perhaps you mean greenspan's control of the fed... if so i remain very content with his actions....

i just hope bernanke is at least half as good

'they' are not 'all a bunch of gamblers'...though there is a current preponderance as an ever wider proportion of the population become active, as they gain capital instead of remain clients of socialist states.... it's a learning curve....meanwhile there will always be idiots that gamble.....like you by appearance of your babbling...

gold is unproductive...it is a car park... it's a fad.... i'm not interested if fads other than as an observer

i'm content for the market to operate.... the only concession i will make to protect the foolish and incapable is to a citizen's wage......

nor me :-) i will continue as an amused bystander

regards

Don't be a bigger idiot than usual.

There are no bargains at the moment.

Old established and sucessful companies are going broke for no better reason than the banks won't keep their loans running.

Not any more.

Anyone who bought art for the wrong reasons in the past decade better learn to live with it.

Anyone who bought a car as an investment better learn to pay the storage bills...

It's all a gamble.

You lost...

>>>

Heavens above .. It's like getting out yer willy at a feminist meeting .. No one's had to do any such thing. If you look just a little bit further down my post, you'll see where I point out that legislation is probably not necessary.

To add to that thought, legislation probably won't work as, at a later date, it'll result in a huge demand from people who can no longer afford a house, that the restrictive financial legislation is removed so they at least stand a chance of owning one .. The problem is they can't afford a house with restricted lending practises, and can't afford a house without them either .. And so we have gone through this perpetual cycle of non-resolutions to the problem how many times now ?

no it isn't....

so what?

and gold is little different....the banks hoard the stuff... they can knock the bottom out of that market at will....

i do

no they're not......it's a glitch caused by the clown in the uk and the 'democrat' party in the uk....

it is aggravated by a lack of adequate rule of law.... though i expect the writs will soon be flying in the usa

further, the transparency of the derivative markets was inadequate..

then there were the idiots in the uk banks who put spivs in charge who didn't understand banking....

capitalism isn't a frozen dopey dogma like socialism.... capitalism deals in the real world....

you know it's the real world when it gets up an bites you.... at that point you have to work out what you misunderstood....and correct the situation... in the uk that means getting rid of the cult socialists in no 10 as a start...it also means putting due diligence laws in place for the banking sector....

most of the rest is political decoration....

meanwhile mark-to-market is a major market alteration.... you alter a part in a working system and you are strongly advised to wear your safety goggles......

now the central bankers have to bail out the ignorant pols and the baybees will bawl a bit

so is horse shit....if you're growing rhubarb...

that wonderful rear view mirror

no banks are also highly vulnerable to government shenanigans the banks are always part owned/controlled by governments... and now it is getting worse with the interferences of the clown and obarmy

that is your view......it isn't mine

so what....they made errors.... far more of the bigger experienced companies survive recession than the smaller less experienced operations...

i didn't...anything but