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muggwhump

Listed below are comments made by muggwhump between Saturday, 29th August 2009 and Monday, 23rd November 2009.

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Tories tweaking their message 5:27pm on 23 Nov 2009 Has anyone else noticed that George Osbourne's nose looks a bit like a bum?
Three-way on the MPC 5:55pm on 19 Nov 2009 How comforting it is to read that most of the 'experts' don't think that inflation is going to be a problem going foward over the next few years, well they are wrong, when the world economy really picks up and all that created money starts sloshing about...just you wait!
Boxed in 4:53pm on 07 Nov 2009 #182
If the Americans had used their bailout money to pay off every outstanding mortgage and credit card debt it would have cost about 11 trillion, as it is this whole mess is going to end up costing them in the region of 24 trillion, so there is something in your idea.

As for QE I agree with many of the posts that think we will see inflation go through the roof in 18 months time, it really is all about pumping the economy with as much cheap credit as possible, thats the only game in town I'm afraid and its because the very people that got us into this mess are the ones in charge of getting us out, and its the only thing they know. We will end up as an economy with high personal debt AND high public debt. Sorry but there it is.
Moving in the right direction 6:06pm on 19 Oct 2009 #40 The whole lesson about Northern Rock is that none of them were expecting a large pay rise, nor were they coming into an inheritance in the next year or two as they all ended up busting the bank because they couldn't afford the payments once interest rates went up.
There is no need to regulate shares as its that persons own money, and if they make a loss, that is not going to ruin my life is it? Its not the same thing obviously.
All the banks want is to know that they can go back to the way things were without to much interferance from the likes of us, unless they need massive amounts of our money in the future to pull them out of another mess.
The fear I have is that people who are buying homes today are effectivly able to mortgage themselves up to the eyeballs which is fine if you are the mortgage lender who knows that the more money you lend someone to buy a home, the higher the value of all those other assets you already own become, but the rest of the economy is starved as less and less people have money to spend in the high street because they are all paying massive mortgages. I know many people who got onto the housing ladder between 02 and 07 and they all have mortgages of between 6 and 9 times their salaries, they can afford to pay them, I don't know anyone who has been repossesed, but all they do is sit at home and pay a massive mortgage, nothing else. How is that good for the long term health of our economy?
As I said, the spin around this regulation gives the impression that the FSA is not going to let what happened before happen again......all I want to know is HOW?
Moving in the right direction 4:01pm on 19 Oct 2009 So what we are saying here is that there is NO real regulation of mortgage lending as a result of the FSA's new rules. All the lender has to do is make sure that the borrower can afford the payments on the mortgage on the day that mortgage is approved, great! Whats new there then? Think back to Northern Rock for a moment, all those people who were given those 125 per cent mortgages at 7 times their salaries could easily pay them back at the time they got them, thats not where the problem was. It all went wrong for those borrowers when interest rates rose from 3.5 per cent to 5 per cent, then they couldn't afford the payments and the whole house of cards collapsed.
Where in any of these new rules does it prevent that from happening again? Nowhere as far as I can see!
On the face of it the FSA looks like they are doing something to protect our interests as taxpayers and borrowers, but its all smoke and mirrors. This is nothing more than a Bankers charter, a licence to go back to the bad old days, what in these new rules is there to prevent any bank lending any borrower a mortgage that leaves them paying a massive mortgage for 25 years, but removes them from the rest of the economy as a consumer?
Just like with bank charges we should take the banks through the courts to ensure that they lend only 3 times a persons salary and no more that 90 per cent loan to value, after all if it all goes bad again it is our taxes that rise and our public services that get cut when we inevitably ride to the banks rescue.
Banks can learn from retailers 5:36pm on 16 Sep 2009 The banks are too big to fail, and as time has passed they are watering down any effective regulation, so just like many people were saying even last year, now the dust has settled its business as usual for the banking sector while the taxpayer will forever stand behind whatever mess they get themselves into....and they know it!!
New language, but for Labour an old dilemma 6:17pm on 08 Sep 2009 Cameron is betrying his roots as a PR man, what he said today sounded ok but what is he really going to cut if he wins power and he has to claw back billions instead of millions? What he said was high on MP bashing headlines but low on real cost cutting substance. Increasingly the more he says the less he seems to be telling us! Its starting to become a bad habit Dave!!
Can governments squeeze bankers' pay? 4:39pm on 04 Sep 2009 What does society really need? what do people really need? Somewhere to live and something to eat, thats about it. As our economy dose not produce anything any more the only things left to create wealth out of are houses and food, so we all end up paying most of our money to keep a roof over our heads, and we are all overweight! The banks have played their part in this situation, is it of much long term benefit to society? Will the economy be viable in the long run if it continues to be run along these lines? Well I for one don't think so, and thats what regulation should be aimed at.
Exceptional times 5:52pm on 02 Sep 2009 The cost of bailing out our economy will be payed back by our children and their children, so the least we can do is rebuild an economy for them that is not going to have the same problems we have now, as they won't be able to afford to sort out the mess as they will still be paying for our one! Economic growth has for years been based on the same people borrowing more and more money, ok they were also spending it, but when everybody is living like that it can only go on for a limited time until it collapses in on itself. Think about house prices, they are over 200 percent higher than they were 10 years ago, even today, yet even now most people are paying mortgages that are in line with what they earn, they just have loads of notional equity and so they feel rich. Most of these people have affordable mortgages and plenty of income left over to spend or save as they wish. Fast foward 10 years and most people will be paying a much larger percentage of their monthly salary on their mortgage payments because house prices have risen much faster than wages! So what type of economy will we have in a decades time? Just throwing the money at it without taking any of the pain that realigning our economy needs is doing our decendents the biggest injustice of all.
What RBS's results say about QE 5:19pm on 29 Aug 2009 Robert1808, Although prices have been falling for 15 months people still need a large amount of equity to stand as a deposit on their new house purchaces, unless they happen to have alot of cash handy. Therefore it is safe to assume that most of those buying homes recently sold homes bought many years ago in order to have the large deposit required to get a mortgage today. It just seems to me that its a way of calculating house prices that is rigged in favour of ever increasing house prices now that mortgage lending is to a great extent underwriten by us the taxpayers.

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