Newmania In Lewes: What About My Mortgage ?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

What About My Mortgage ?

People worry terribly about lots of things .Europe , a compasionate society , social mobility immigration and even international poverty . They care enough to debate heatedly with eachother and wag fingers in pubs across the land . When they vote however they ask one question above all ." What about my mortgage ?"
Deflation is a bad thing, ok I can see that I can see there is danger of a vicious spiral of deferred consumption more deflation and so on. Most people I know have little for luxuries and really have not a lot of choice about when they consume so lets assume this is other people .
I can see it would make planning difficult ,but more so than inflation ? Now that defeats me . Did the ever decreasing cost of computers mean that no-one ever bought them ? Of course , not , has the proliferation of BOGOFs at Tecos made people hurry past preferring reassuringly more expensive items ? Nope . The Darling recently mentioned …
“RPI inflation last September was minus 1.4 per cent. This would have meant no increase in these benefits in April. I do not believe such a freeze would be fair.
It would appear then, that the unspeakable calamity to avoid which we have been on the hard drugs of Policy , printing money , happened without any noticeable effect whatsoever . This risk ,let me remind you, is talked up as the WMD of Economic torpedoes, to justify inflationary policies which will be combated by higher interest rates .
Lets have a think about interest rates for a moment .As we know the amount you can borrow has now reduced and the proofs required for borrowing are tighter. That means most people coming off fixed rate deals will be obliged to stick wiht the floating rate , say 1.5% above base for the rest of the term or until they move . Now I can remember 15% interest rates , what would that going to do to a population on five times multiples instead of the three common back then ?What would 7.5% do with real rates of near 9% and with no way out ?
This is my advice to the Conservative Party. Spell out loud and clear that the risks being run by the continued profligacy of New Labour is not some incomprehensible mumbo jumbo to do with gilts it is that you and you family will lose your house .

20 comments:

Auntie Flo' said...: "I can remember 15% interest rates , what would that going to do to a population on five times multiples instead of the three common back then ?What would 7.5% do with real rates of near 9% and with no way out ?"

So can I. I'd recently separated from one of my ex-husbands and was paying my mortgage single handed. It took half my then salary.

By the time I'd paid my mortgage, other monthly outgoings and the numerous huge debts my ex left behind him and refused to pay, my daughter and I were left with the princely sum of around £140 a month to live on. I was forced to take in lodgers (2) to live.

However, my then mortgage was c 20% of my current one because under this inept and corrupt government house price inflation has gone through the bl**dy roof.

I would love the Conservatives to highlight the incomparably gigantic mortgage - utilities, council tax and other overheads - we have under Labour thanks to their, runaway migration and equally runaway cheap credit fest.

But, of course, that would not have the dramatic, support garnering impact that keeping their promise regarding a Referendum on the Lisbon treaty would have. The Conservatives have done themselves huge damage, I believe, by reneging on that.; 11:21 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: And you are right, they do need to spell it out.; 11:23 pm
Newmania said...: I do not agree with you about Lisbon , I simply cannot see what you can do about it .
Everything else you say I agree with; 9:20 am
asquith said...: I have no mortgage, as I am a renter!

I would like to own one day but not until I've amassed a few more pennies (I have £6,000 that I've cobbled together but I doubt I'd be able to afford a high monthly payment).

So until I have a bit more or find a girlfriend/wife that I want to live with it's renting on.

It does piss me off that people assume rising house prices are what we all want. They even explicitly say "House prices are getting better/worse" when they actually mean "costing more/less", so their values are the inverse of mine.

Both left-wing & right-wing publications casually do this. But they are all middle-class, so maybe that's why.

You can pick up a terraced house in Sjoke for amazingly cheap- well under £100,000, & a lot of them don't even take any particular work. Some of them are quite well built. Yes, the areas of terraced houses are either poor white areas or poor Asian areas, & in neither case are they a good laugh to live in, but where I live now (on an estate, albeit not one of the shittest) is if anything worse.

The surveys show that home ownership has started to decline, whatever the reason may be, so that's one we might have to be thinking about.

Also a lot of my mates live with their parents. It happens in more prosperous areas too, I gather, so I bet a fair few of your neighbours live with their offspring who are in their 20s.; 10:41 am
Auntie Flo' said...: At a recent meeting in my town, the Conservative and Lib Dem parliamentary candidates set out their stalls on the EU.

I asked the LD:

What's the point of you? You're happy for 80% of our laws - and more soon - to be corruptly and undemocratically made in Brussels, happy for UK to be dictated to by EU's unelected President and unelected Commission and for UK to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Your party has betrayed the people of our country by giving our powers of sovereignty to the EU; powers which were not yours to give because they belong solely to the people, to all of us. In so doing, you and all of our political class have made yourselves and UK's parliament redundant.

Why the hell should we in UK pay you £140K a year, if elected, to play little sir echo to the EU?

Should UK not stop this pretence that we are a still a democratic country, sack all MPs and abolish our corrupt, traitorous, rubber stamp for the EU parliament?

The Lib Dem didn't even attempt to answer. Like all Lib Dems and most of our political class, he doesn't give a toss because he and his corrupt class have you and I and our country in a vice like grip that he wrongly believes we'll never be able to escape from.

I didn't ask the question of the Conservative candidate because he worked his socks off alongside me during our town's IWAR Referendum campaign against the Lisbon Treaty. But is he really any different to the Lib Dem - or for that matter, the zanulab candidate - now? Are the Conservatives really any different?

I don't accept that it's set in concrete that UK shall be forever ruled by a corrupt, undemocratic, communist dictatorship which serves only the interests of the political class, though our current political class clearly do.; 1:50 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: "The primary purpose of the EU, as I never tire of pointing out, is the employment of its employees. The rest of the population might be reduced to queuing at soup kitchens, but Euro-officials will still be claiming their expatriation allowances, their dependent children allowances, their tax-free per diems and so on."

"Eurocrats threaten to strike over pay" Dan Hannan

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100019622/eurocrats-threaten-to-strike-over-pay/; 2:16 pm
Newmania said...: Hmm , working now will return to this later; 3:17 pm
Newmania said...: Asquith I have no interest in Property prices rising I was only saying they have and nowe are all highly geared

Flo nor do I but an in /out referendum now would be won by the ins . I think slow pressurre is the right way to go ending with the Common Market we wanted in the first place; 5:45 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: Democracy Movement's Pollwatch

"Public Opinion Polls on the European Union

Conservative Home poll of Conservative Parliamentary candidates, Aug 09

84% want Cameron to hold a referendum on Lisbon, even if it has already been ratified

60% want a complete renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the EU

Only 6% want to be "at the heart of Europe"
...............

Com Res Poll for ***BBC*** Daily Politics, 19 Mar 09

55% wanted to leave the EU but maintain close trading links

84% said that voters should decide whether any further powers should be transferred to the EU

51% did not think there was any benefit in trade or jobs from EU membership
.................

ICM Poll for the Taxpayers Alliance, 22 May 09

69% want the Government to start ignoring EU rules

60% say that fines for disobedience to our Brussels masters should be ignored

75% want a referednum before any more powers are given to the EU

57% want to take back powers already given to the EU
...................

Channel 4/YouGov poll June 09

39 percent agree with the statement "The UK should withdraw completely from the European Union", compared to 38 percent who disagreed, and 16 percent who said they neither agreed nor disagreed. 22 percent agreed strongly.

Only 27 percent agreed that "The existence of the EU promotes prosperity throughout Europe", compared with 37 percent who disagreed.

80 percent agreed there was some truth in the statement: "A great majority of the important decisions that affect our daily life are taken by the European Union, not by Britain's parliaments, assemblies or councils."

Lisbon Treaty: 82% want referendum in UK, even if all other countries ratify
From: Open Europe Newsletter
.............

A new Populus poll for the Times has found overwhelming support for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, even in a situation where it has already been ratified by Ireland and the rest of the EU.

82% of people agreed with the statement, "If Ireland and other countries ratify the Lisbon Treaty on the future of the European Union, Britain should hold its own referendum on the issue"
52% strongly agreeing
only 14% disagreeing.
92% of Conservative voters
76% of Labour voters and
85% of Liberal Democrats voters agreed that Britain should have a referendum on the Treaty. (Times, 13 May)
.............

Meanwhile, a poll in Germany

found that 70% of people want the Lisbon Treaty to be re-negotiated, and a separate poll found that 73% of Germans agree that "the EU takes too many powers from Germany". (Neues Deutschland, 15 May)

***BBC*** Daily Politics, BBC/ComRes poll, 19 March 09

55% of Britons want to leave EU; 84% want a referendum before transferring new powers to the EU.

55% of those asked agreed with the statement "I want Britain to leave the EU but maintain close trading links", while 41% disagreed.
Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey, 26 Feb 09

Top issue for an incoming Conservative Government:

immigration

2nd issue: reducing EU's power

This is a significant change, as in recent years the EU has not been considered a major policy priority, probably because no-one thinks we can do anything about it."

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:vo_l7X8ymwQJ:www.democracymovementsurrey.co.uk/dyk_pollwatch.html+EU+in+or+out+vote,+poll&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk; 7:08 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: Then there's IWAR's (I want A Referendum's) stunning result:

Bearing in mind that IWAR could only send out Referendum ballot papers to those who had opted to have their names on the electoral register, many people had forgotten they had so opted and waited for ballot papers to arrive which never came.

Local campaigners had just three weeks to publicise the local referendums and to notify those not on the register to request ballot papers. Many ballot paper requests were received after the poll had closed.

There was an appalling dirty tricks campaign by sitting MPs and government against IWAR. IWAR and Local campaigners were branded right wing extremists by most of the local MPs in the IWAR constituencies: most of whom launched counter campaigns and wrote to constituents telling them not to take part.

Tony Benn gave his personal backing to my campaign but my MP, who was still claiming that IWAR were a right wing extremist organisation, claimed I'd lied about this when I publicised it, even though the local press had a copy of Benn's letter to me and Benn had written to my MP too.

Despite that, the response from voters was unprecedented:

152,520 people voted across just ten constituencies

The highest ever turnout in an unofficial ballot

Of these 133,251 - 88% - voted for a referendum

Just 12% voted against a Referendum, less than 1% were don't knows

Turnout at 36.2% was higher than the 35.4% average for local elections

In 8 out of 10 seats a higher proportion voted for a referendum than voted for the sitting MPs

On average the sitting MPs won 27.5% of the available vote

88% voted for a referendum

89% voted against the Lisbon Treaty

I went into this campaign against the Treaty yet not for an In or Out ballot because, Like you, Newms, I believed that a majority might be persuaded to vote to stay in. My experience during the campaign, however, changed my mind as it soon became clear that a substantial majority wish to come out of the EU altogether. If polls state otherwise, I don't trust them.; 7:19 pm
Newmania said...: This is what I think of that

http://iznewmania.blogspot.com/2009/11/unhand-me-sir.html; 8:16 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: There may be two critical weaknesses in your argument:

1. "Say that he has faith that a government that fought for Britain could create a Europe Britain was comfortable in. Hint at Thatcher and Churchill."

What government? The EU will undermine him at every turn and UK will wonder why it ever voted for him. If he doesn't get a hung parliament this time around - as a result of undermining, increasingly sceptical, voters' confidence and trust by reneging on his referendum and EU pledges - he sure will next time.

2. Events, dear boy. Here in Harlow - the key Labour marginal par excellence and mirror of events to come in LA's across the country - we have a microcosm of the, hung parliament permitting, soon to be Conservative government.

And events are doing for our Conservative controlled council. With a few notable excpetions, they have quickly become very unpopular and, in my view, likely to lose control of the council. Why? Because they're becoming like a zanulabian style dictatorship, incapable of consulting, incapable of listening. Why? Because the council's zanulab officers are using EU regulation for all they are worth to get the Conservatives out. The Conservatives are not only fooled by this and swallowing it, indeed, they seem to have decided that they rather like swallowing it.

Though, to be fair to them they are crippled by the government's punitive LA financing, several PR disasters should have been avoided.

I know a council officer in another authority who says he can use EU regs to scare and bully his council into doing anything he wants; I don't doubt it. What he wants is to do for his Tory council. This is what the EU and their minions aim to do to the Conservatives: get them out by corrupting them and making them obedient and/or make it impossible for them to govern in any but the EU's way, either way, the elecorate will soon reject them.

Cameron has millions of allies: the people. The polls show what the people think of his broken pledge on the Lisbon treaty. He, and his local authorities, are squandering his people capital big time.

You say that Cameron will not want to spit on France and Germany, Newms, the alternative is to spit on an increasingly sceptical and sophisticated UK electorate who will no longer swallow zanulabian style spin: we've been immunised.

Thank goodness Cameron is a realist who will soon recognise the reasons for his Tory controlled LA's slipping away one after the other and his declining poll results: the EU. But will he realise in time?; 10:01 pm
asquith said...: I have become more sceptic over time as with, for example, my environmental interests, it is the EU & big government in general that are proving to be a problem.

It is their subsidy regime that really sticks with me- see, for example, "The Killing Of The Countryside" by Graham Harvey. Yet, while even pro-EU people object to this, they do not come up with any viable solutions given that most of the current fixers do so well out of the system & don't want to reform it.

You'd be surprised at how many conservationist types are sceptical about the state. I have no objection to the principle national parks, planning restrictions, immigration controls & other things libertarians hate (though sometimes the details of regulation can overburden people) but often they do more harm than good, especially when they decide they are clever & will support schemes like plantations of non-native trees & subsidies for biofuels.

Though I am led to believe we are now planting native woods as we realise one tree isn't as good as another, the older & more closely tied to English soil the better.

I have been a member of the Woodland Trust since I was 14. So I do think about this sort of shite.

It is moving me onto the sceptic side, all the more so since the higher ups don't seem to give a toss about the sort of give & take that we consider normal.; 10:13 pm
asquith said...: It is good when you can slag off several things at once. I always knew intensive farming & spraying of pesticides, monoculture on the land, supplanting of meadow with ryegrass, was bad. But I never considered that I am paying for it.

I rave about Harvey & Charles "End Of The Line" Clover. They are good pals of mine- they go out drinking in Sjoke with me on a Friday.; 10:15 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: Daily Mail:

"Council orders grandmother to dig up beloved garden to store unsightly wheelie bins...council officials told her to clear space to store the two giant bins - or start disposing of her own rubbish.

Harlow Council even insisted that Mrs St John pay for the cost of materials to pave over the garden herself.

Mark Wallace, campaign director for the Taxpayers' Alliance criticised the council for its 'draconian' wheelie bin policy.

'These bully boy tactics give Harlow Council a bad name,' he said.

'If they want to insist that everyone has wheelie bins that's one thing but forcing people to destroy their gardens is a step too far.

'It's an abuse of the council's power.'

Mrs St John is just one of many thousands who are at war with the council over the wheelie bin policy it totally failed to consult with us about.

Harlow is a unique, former new town, designed with smaller than average gardens to allow for larger public spaces, bin cupboards or bin enclosures are an integral part of the design: these are too small for these massive wheelies they've forced down our throats.

We're also being forced to use
stinking, 19th century style slop buckets for food waste in our kitchens.

A former keen recycler, I took my own rubbish to the civic dump this week and put out no rubbish at all for the refuse collectors: and I am bl**dy seething over paying for a service I no longer receive.

Our council had the nerve to hold a high profile party to celebrate their 'success' in foisting this cheapo, non service on us.; 10:21 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: Daily Telegraph:

"Children as young as eight have been recruited by councils to "snoop" on their neighbours and report petty offences such as littering"

"Harlow Council in Essex said: "We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14. They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council." "

"This escalation in Britain's growing surveillance state follows an outcry about the way councils are using powers originally designed to combat terrorism and organised crime to spy on residents..."

Any resemblance to the Hitler youth is unitentional?; 10:32 pm
Auntie Flo' said...: High Court injunction against Harlow Council"

"Harlow Advice Centre is in grave danger of closing. There was a High Court judgement made last Monday that this should not happen - for various legal reasons the Council had not fulfilled its obligations and a legal judgement was made to force Harlow Council to "think again"."
..........

Another "10,000 Homes Planned for Harlow expansion."

To be dumped, yet again, with dazzling foresight on the Conservative voting part of the town, where massive over-development and totally inadequate infrastructure is already causing, over crowding, road, flood, sewage, stream pollution, school access and safety hazard crises.
.................

Mundanity...EU Landfill tax...EU regional expansion and territorial harmonisation...EU open borders...EU legal obligation on LAs to provide advice...etc etc.

Not with a bang, but with a wimper, newms, a thousand mundane regulations, each one a small erosion of expectations of LAs' or national government's competency and public trust.

This is what will do for Cameron unless he challenges the EU's out of control over-regulation and regulatory grip on our nation's throat.; 10:59 pm
Newmania said...: Interesting Asquith you are circling around , I think what I have wondered about .
I am all for responsible stewardship of the country and the planet but not if it entails a massive transfer of power from individuals to states and super states . I do not believe such solutions will work anyway. I am by no means a Libertarian though I look for what I think is a balance ,

Flo I doubt you have any more dislike of the EU than I , but it does have advantages as well , even if it you do not accwept that the fact is we have been in it for a very long time and I do not belive an in or out referendum would vote out.

That being the case it is not what I want I shall play my small part in exerting what presurre I can.; 11:43 pm
Weekend Yachtsman said...: Sorry, no increase in benefits would be "unfair" at a time when prices are falling?

What is this guy smoking?

The only reason they are afraid of deflation is that it removes one of their tools of stealth confiscation - their propensity to debauch the currency and thereby remove the savings and incomes of those who've managed against all odds to put a little by for their old age.

We all know what their ambition is:

"Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato"; 9:20 am
asquith said...: Aye, I'm not a libertarian either, as I listed things I support that would offend libertarians. Where would we be, in 2009, had it not been for the establishment of the green belt for example?

You've got things like biofuels, which are being promoted by the state, but whose actual worth is dubious & may actually be doing harm. I slag them off.

On about the great outdoors. I like a nice bit of a swim myself. There are so few open waters. But I see there are some programmes featuring Robson Green & I have seen some books on about the issue. Perhaps this will spark some resurgence of interest, perhaps not.

Robson Green was talking about how deeply rooted he is in the north-east. But he doesn't sound like he is from his accent!; 8:12 pm

Sunday, December 13, 2009

What About My Mortgage ?

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