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CreditCrunch.co.uk Twitter Feeds

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:15:17 +0000

With the help of http://www.newsgong.com, here are some nice twitter feeds to follow. http://twitter.com/bankrupt_watch http://twitter.com/bankwatch_uk http://twitter.com/ukjobwatch http://twitter.com/creditcrunch_uk and... http://twitter.com/swineflu_watch

What the UK public think...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:18:59 +0000

Forget about The Sun and all the crap you read in the press, here is what the British public think of Gordon Brown, just ask Google, you can do this yourself. Here are a couple of revealing snapshots - letting us know what we already knew.

Gordon, Snot Gobbler, Brown Has lost the support of The Sun.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:26:50 +0000

Labour has lost The Sun's support.

Our unelected leader has lost the support of The Sun newspaper, he NEVER had the support of the public, we did not vote thisfiscally irresponsible and financially blind bastard in the first place.

Gordonron and Mandleslimes defense is that media/newspapers do not win elections and that the people do, and they don't want to be fed propaganda.

Well for a start, The Sun newspaper is a commercial enterprise and depends on revenue generated by sales, they MUST match the mood of the public to increase circulation - the current mood of the UK voters is that Labour and Gordon Brown are one giant turd that needs to be flushed, The Sun has picked up on this mood and adjusted accordingly. Yes Gordon Brown, it is voters that decide in the end - we are looking forward to the opportunity that you denied us.

The BBC on the other had, hold the public to ransom via the TV license, and has no worries about funding... and its the biggest bullshitting propaganda organisation in existence.

NHS Credit Crunch Stressline

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:52:23 +0000

NHS Credit Crunch Stressline

Blimey....In an economic downturn, more people suffer from distress, depression and anxiety. They are worried about jobs, worried about debt, and worried about housing. Early support for their emotional wellbeing will prevent them having more serious problems and expert advice will help them to get their lives back on track.http://www.iapt.nhs.uk/services/nhs-credit-crunch-stressline/

Gordon Brown - "The one eyed Scottish idiot."

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:59:03 +0000

Gordon, You are not the right man for the job, you're the worst man for the job. By all accounts you're a bully, and a violent Nokia throwing idiot - you won't ever change your spots. It was YOU who was there a decade ago, praising deregulation in the banking sector - when you opened the Lehman Brothers office in London, here we are a decade later... Lehman is bust and our economy is ruined. You just don't have the moral authority to lead us out of this mess. We all know why you're hanging on to the job with your finger nails, it's not for the good of the party, or the country... Its because you want to claim that last big political expense - the pension of an ex-PM who served a full term. I'm surprised the media have not picked up on that. No one wants you, just get lost.

NewsGong.com Did you know...

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:05:07 +0000

...that this website, using services from NewsGong.com brings you the latest UK main stream media economic news?

Try our FREE newsfinder at NewsFinder.

Also, get the latest SWINE FLU and MAP at Swine Flue News.

Help Gordon Brown Resign

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0000

Time to help the nokia throwing, printer hurling - anger management failure of a PM go. Please pass this on. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

BBC Documentary - Take part.

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:08:23 +0000

Are you middle class and at risk of becoming homeless? Have you lost your job and now struggling to pay for your home? Rise Films are currently looking to hear from a number of people who consider themselves middle class, have been hit hard by the credit crunch and are now at risk of becoming homeless. By telling the stories of a number of brave individuals who are unexpectedly staring homelessness in the face, we hope to sensitively highlight an important issue that is often not heard. We understand that the last thing you may consider at such a stressful time is taking part in a documentary film, however we feel that your story is important and needs to be heard. If you are happy to speak to us, in confidence and without any commitment to taking part in the project, please call Luke on 07809123021 or email luke@risefilms.com.

Are you a charity fundraiser? Contact epiphany-productions.

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:21:00 +0000

Hi, We are in the process of producing a documentary for a terrestrial channel about charity fundraising and are looking for someone who has been made redundant and is now filling their time with charity work or has turned to charity work as an alternative career. Specifically we would love someone who is organising (or helping to organise) a big charity event or ball. Please get in touch by emailing lily@epiphany-productions.co.uk or on 020 7631 0161 if you are interested at all. Thanks! Lily

European Parlement Repremand Gordon Brown, MUST WATCH.

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:10:03 +0000

Gordon was reduced to grinning like a monkey at a zoo caught playing with himself. Forward this to your ENTIRE address book - it's something the BBC don't want you to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs&feature=player_embedded Notice that not a word of this was reported on UK state media, read the following. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7960507.stm Do you still think the BBC provide well rounded fair reporting about world events? This truth telling slap in the face, must not be white washed. Complain to the BBC right now... they must not get away with this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4030000/newsid_4032600/4032695.stm

Gordon Brown Helps Lloyds

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:59:08 +0000

I am a customer of Lloyds bank, moved there after trouble with my old bank.I moved to Lloyds after finding out they were sound, they did not buy in to the sub-prime mess. I even think their head guy deserves a bonus, I just wish they were not bullied in to taking HBOS on by Brooown.I am sick and tired of the "Would you be interested in a loan sir, we have great rates" line I get when I pay a visit to Lloyds banks.. Now they are being ordered to lend more, I am expecting to be held down in a head lock the next time I visit and force to sign on the dotted line.Gordon Brown denies it was his fault.. again! It was a shotgun marriage between HBOS and Lloyds, we know it they know it, god - at the time Gordon Brown was blowing his own trumpet, proclaiming that he managed to facilitate the merger and that the saved the world! Now it's gone tits up, he's "Very angry, that the banks have taken the wrong decisions"The one bank I trusted, and recommended all my friends and relatives to change to has a 75% controlling stake by a one eyes Scottish idiot!!

Gordon Brown looks for job at I.M.F

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:45:32 +0000

Always a frown with Gordon Brown

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:35:26 +0000

Had a bit of a creative moment tonight, Sing the following to the tune of The Stranglers, Golden Brown. Always a frown with Gordon Brown (c) Creditcrunch.co.uk =========================== Gordon Brown tax credit hell, Took UK down, no election he ran, Throughout the years, No-one could vote, Always a frown with Gordon Brown. Every boom just like his last, Will guarantee another bust, Browns hidden hands, Take all you have, Always a frown with Gordon Brown Gordon Brown, let the banks cheat us, To opposition he's heading. West, He does protest, That's where it started, Always a frown with Gordon Brown. Always a frown, With Gordon Brown, Always a frown, With Gordon Brown.

Affected by the credit crunch?

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:50:59 +0000

We got the following message today, tight deadline - if you can help give him an email. Read on... Hello, I am a freelance journalist writing a feature for a university publication that will hopefully profile three people that have been effected by the credit crunch. This can be anything from job loss, mortgage problems, marital stress caused by the recession etc. The idea is to do a brief interview and highlight the way different types of people from different socio-economic backgrounds are being effected by a universal problem. Interviews can be anonymous and can be carried out in whatever way would make you feel most comfotrable (i.e over the phone, instant messenger, however you prefer). please don't hesitate to contact me either on here or by e-mail (below) if you would be interested in participating. The deadline for the article is Tuesday (10th) morning, so I will be available any time between now and Monday evening. Many thanks, John Kerrison www.johnkerrison.com john_kerrison@hotmail.com

UK people want general election NOW!

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:15:38 +0000

Please show your desire to have a general election by signing the petition at the following address. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GoToCountryNow/

When to buy property? - secret revealed!

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:05:20 +0000

Average UK house prices.

The data used to create the graph above is publicly and freely available from the Nationwide Building Society. It's a graph that is very valuable to timing when I buy a property, and it will be to you once you have finished reading this.

Now that the UK government can no longer hide the fact that house prices are falling, lets see how we can use this to our advantage.

The Last Crash: 1989 - 1996
It took 7 years for the crash to bottom out (B) , wiping out 30% of the price of an average home in the uk. If anyone was convinced by the government to buy on the downslope (A) they risked massive falls in the value of their homes and also negative equity or even repossession! You should never buy on a downward slope as you simply don't know when you are going to hit the bottom.

This Crash: 2008 -
We have JUST started our decline this time around, the tipping point was 2008. Point (C) is the current point in our crash, the continuing black line is there for illustration as to what might happen next, based on the last crash. I am confident that we are going in to a dip, I just don't know how long or deep this crash is going to be this time around.
You can at least agree that if you buy now, you are staring in to a chasm with no idea how far you are going to fall.

When to buy:
The best time to buy is after the bottoms (B,D), but "what if you miss the bottom?" I hear you say. It does not matter! Even if you miss the bottom by 1 year, as long as you are buying on the UP slope you wont be a loser, all you have to do is monitor the data above and sit back and wait - my personal opinion is that you have at least 5 years - think of the deposit you could save!

Green shoots of recovery:
You should now understand why when the government talk about the green shoots of recovery it is a complete embarrassment. Why do the government want to trick you in to buying on to the down slope?They are not happy only with increasing your taxes to bail out the banks, they want you to also PERSONALLY sign up to massive amounts of mortgage debt to save the banks. Money , which could be better spent on your family.

We are only at point C - yet labour are actively telling people to buy before prices start going up again.

Well - now you know, the next time a politician on TV tells you to work as a mortgage slave for the rest of your life, you can tell them where to go - just keep tracking the above graph.

Obviously, please apply the above information to suit your personal circumstances. For instance, if you are David Beckham you wont need a mortgage and will be able to buy outright at any time. It's all about minimizing the amount of interest you have stolen from you by the banks

IMPORTANT. Do not let ANYONE, especial in the property industry (this includes, magazines and newspapers and some websites) tell you when the bottom is, a lot will use the language "we THINK they MAY have bottomed out".

Check the Halifax data YOURSELF!

Negative equity and many years of debt repayment should not be decided by some suits opinion.

Data and historical data can be found here, http://www.hbosplc.com/economy/HousingResearch.asp

Fire up that spread sheet! Do your own research!

Recession: No one could have seen it coming?

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:31:07 +0000

Never heard so much twaddle, bull and carp. I am enraged that the powers that be think the public could be so gullible. Gordon Brown claims this, and lots of Journalists under the control of our glorious leader say they think this. But, here I am - laughing out loud as the public turn against the government and serve up some scorn on rubbish reporting. We all knew it was coming, the question that needs to be asked why didn't the highly paid people spot it? Corruption I think, and they should all be investigated by the police. And journalists like the following should be given the sack. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/01/so_its_official_the_uk.html#commentsanchor Here are a few choice comments, read the rest at the link above. # 1. At 11:41am on 23 Jan 2009, interestrateripoff wrote: Again the press lies, this was seen and was forecast. I predicted this would happen. www.housepricecrash.co.uk predicted it would happen. What you actually mean it that no one who's paid huge sums of money predicted it. Question is are these people worth the money. Why is the BBC using govt propaganda and calling this a downturn admit what it is a recession or a brownturn. The amateur economists have the upper hand. Perhaps the BBC should concentrate on what Roubini is predicting? Complain about this comment # 2. At 11:42am on 23 Jan 2009, rcrobjohn wrote: Forgive me for saying so but many people knew the recession was approaching. I remember having lunch with a director of well known US Investment bank way back in 2006 and he forecast what we are seeing today. It seemed unlikely at the time but as sure as night follows day it was coming. We have seen nothing yet - sadly. Optimism and confidence are needed now, not to end the recession but to bear what is to come. Complain about this comment # 3. At 11:43am on 23 Jan 2009, penguina333 wrote: "But from the standpoint of even a few months ago, it's a bolt from the blue. " Sorry but any economist who didn't see this coming years ago is useless. How was it not possible to see the biggest debt bubble in history and see that this would lead eventually to a depression? Complain about this comment # 4. At 11:45am on 23 Jan 2009, MrRanter wrote: Tell me again why the "experts" get paid so much? My dog could do better. Complain about this comment

Gordon Brown, the idiot dictator.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:05:59 +0000

<quote> Reporter to Brown. "That this is an open-ended commitment for which the tax-payer will be ultimately responsible. That it has the whiff of printing money. That it is another bank bailout." Brown to reporter: "I would be very cautious if I were you about making such allegations about this scheme" </quote> I did not have time to watch the live broad cast from Gordonron this morning, probably a good thing as I would have put my foot through the tv - the above quote I read on another forum - Gordon Brown is a dangerous idiot, Labours spin machine has spun so much bullcarp that the UK public is finally waking up, reporters are asking the difficult questions. Gordonron is now resorting to threats, I expect this reporter will soon be looking for asylum in Switzerland. Gordon - You are not going to be able to silence all of us. The UK needs change, I urge all of you to vote for something completely different at the next election, lets send a clear signal and vote Liberal Democrats. Edit: Instant hero status for the next reporter to throw a shoe at Gordon Brown.

UK Savers have just been stiffed 0% on savings.

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:40:50 +0000

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/savings/article5487580.ece Very well put by http://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=46207&view=findpost&p=455018 " We're totally *censored*ed whatever we do (as savers). Option 1: Take it out of the bank - they'll pull a "Weimar" on us. Option 2: Leave it in the bank - the banks will collapse taking our cash with them Option 3: Leave it in the bank and the banks survive - the government will inflate the *censored* out of it. Option 4: Buy anything before that piece of paper really is just 'a piece of worthless paper' ....Maybe Option 4 is what the government is forcing us to do " Why should banks use YOUR money to make a return, then not give you a cut. Teach these vermin a lesson, move your cash to an account that does, or remove your deposit...

We have just launched a live news service, please use it!

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:41:43 +0000

Creditcrunch.co.uk is pleased to launch a new service for readers, which monitors major news sources bringing you the latest headlines and links to the full story. Here is the link, or click on the live news button at the top. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/newsfinder/

Spend Your Vouchers Now

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:38:23 +0000

BBC live radio, a concerned father called up to tell us that the vouchers he got from Zavvi for his children were refused at the stores - as he was classed as a creditor. In my opinion these paper vouchers are a promise by Zavvi to hold your goods, what ever you choose them to be, until you turn up boxing day to collect YOUR property. In effect, by refusing to honor these promissory notes, Zavvi has already taken payment for goods AND is now RE-SELLING the same goods, selling the same goods twice! To claw back as much money as possible. I'm not to familier with the law, but, if I was a holder of Zavvi vouchers.. I would at least call the police to make a report that my goods are held by Zavvi, then after making the report - I would head down to Zavvi, collect goods to the value of the vouchers, head to the till, tell the attendand "here is my voucher, here are my goods... i am going to walk out wiht my property, if the alarms go off then sue me". I some *censored* of a security guard then tried to stop me, I would give him hell. I am sure that this man is not a unique case, and many Children up and down the country have had part of their Christmas spoiled. Did you get vouchers for Christmas? Did you give vouchers to your loved ones for Christmas? Take my advice, go out and exchange them for GOODs NOW! They already have your cash. Before the stores you are going to shop in go the same way as Adams, Woolworths, Zavvi and the rest... Remember, at least 30 retails companies are set to go bust in the New Year, do you feel Lucky?

OUTRAGE: Bailed-out bank pays �1.6bn bonuses

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:42:34 +0000

Parasites, the lot of them. Look at how, YOUR tax money is being stolen from you.

Goldman Sachs, which switched from being an investment bank to a bank holding company in September, lost �1.36 billion in the final quarter of this year.

They went cap in hand, squealing like ikle igle piggies - we need money, we need money.

Well, they got their state TAX funded hand out and as soon as they got what they wanted they paid out the equivalentin bonuses.

And here is the rub, this is their defense

"The firm defended the practice of paying out such bonuses, arguing it helped it to "attract and motivate" the best people."

Well if they bloody well did have the right people with the right motivation, they would not have made such a big lossin the first place.

And to take YOUR money, raise YOUR taxes while YOU are struggling to make ends meet, Johny banker is sipping champaign and sailing on a yacht somewhere of the back of YOUR cash.

AND to boot, if these pigs had not fattened themselves up so much from the public trough, they are raising the interest rate on YOUR credit card, and mortgage debt - given half the chance they will repossess your house too!

AND WHAT'S MORE!!! IF they had the money in the first place to pay all those bonuses, then... they really did not need to STEAL from the tax payer at all.

Banksters, the lot of them. And Gordon Brown is letting them get away with it.

Anyone else outraged?! Your bank charges are going up, to pay the banks, and your taxes are going up, to pay the banks - you're getting shafted at both ends. Tell me, who benefits, well its certainly not you or I.

I can smell revolution in the air, and the banksters will be first up against the wall.

And across the industry I can smell FRAUD on a scale never before seen - wasn't there a story on a special policeforce investigating bank FRAUD and bringing to justice the people responsible for bringing down the banking system?

FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD

Read more here.

http://money.uk.msn.com/investing/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=11973572

Cartoons

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:22:00 +0000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/gallery/2008/sep/23/creditcrunch.marketturmoil?lightbox=1

Mortgage Margin Calls

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:47:58 +0000

Another popular myth, blasted about my the likes of Kursty Allsop is that lower house prices only
affect you if you are selling your house, and that if you are in it for the long term you have nothing
to worry about.

Oh how WRONG could "Property Experts" be, they have no idea the world of pain they have lead people to!

Blindly adding this misinformation to their list of reasons why it is a good idea to buy a house at any time,thousands of first time buyers marched on not thinking about the consequences.

This week, debtors of the Abbey bank received a gentle reminder of their contractual obligation that if their houses fell to farpast their original valuation at the time of taking out their mortgage, they would have to make up the difference by paying a lump sum up front.

I don't think that people can afford to do this, having "got on the ladder at all costs".

Abbey has said it has no plans to use the clause to force borrowers to do so but it did not guarantee that it would not do so in future.But in all honesty, with the sheer steepness of the house price falls we have already seen, the collapse of the lending market andthe gloomy recession on the horizon - banks may have no choice but to ask for �1000s or reposes their customers homes.

Again, does any of this seem familiar to the people who were in the last recession?

No one ever seems to learn.

And while house prices were rising (unsustainably), no one wanted to listen - and most people treated you like a leper forsuggesting otherwise.

I seem to be wearing my "Told you so" T-shirt more and more often.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7781043.stm

URGENT: ICESAVE CLAIM DEADLINE TO PASS SOON.

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:57:37 +0000

Thanks to Secret Squirrel for bringing this to attention. Get a move on and send out your claims, don't get distracted by all the Christmas fun. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1369&pid=3222&st=0&#entry3222

Jokes doing the email round...

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:38:23 +0000

I went to the ATM this morning and it said "insufficient funds". I'm wondering is it them or me. ------------- Talked to my bank manager the other day and he said he was going to concentrate on the big issues from now on. He sold me one outside KFC yesterday. ------------- What's the definition of optimism? An Investment Banker ironing five shirts on a Sunday evening --------------- Bradford & Bingley employees are concerned that they were given no notice of the takeover by Santander. A government spokes man said, �nobody expects the Spanish acquisition.� -------------- What's the difference between an investment banker and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four. -------------- If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1000. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left. If you had purchased $1000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left. If you had purchased United Airlines, you would have nothing left. But, if you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, and then turned in the cans for recycling, you would have $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. This is called the 401-Keg Plan. -------------- Q. A Banker's Favourite Stripper? A. Burnadette -------------- What's the capital of Iceland? �2.50 ---------------- Whats the difference between a pigeon an an Investment Banker? A pigeoen can still leave a small deposit on a brand new Porsche!!!! ---------------- Q: With the current market turmoil, what�s the easiest way to make a small fortune? A: Start off with a large one. ---------------- The credit crunch is getting bad isn�t it? I mean, I let my brother borrow $10 a couple of weeks back, it turns out I�m now America�s third biggest lender. ---------------- Resolving to surprise her husband, an investment banker�s wife pops by his office. She finds him in an unorthodox position, with his secretary sitting in his lap. Without hesitation, he starts dictating, ��and in conclusion, gentlemen, credit crunch or no credit crunch, I cannot continue to operate this office with just one chair!� ---------------- Why have estate agents stopped looking out the window in the morning? Because otherwise they'd have nothing to do in the afternoon ------------------ A new teacher was getting to know the kids by asking them their name and what their father did for a living. The first little girl said: �My name is Mary and my Daddy is a postman.� The next child, a little boy said: �I�m Andy and my Dad is a mechanic.� And so it went until one little boy said: �My name is Johnny and my father is a striptease artist in a gay club.� The teacher gasped and quickly changed the subject. Later, in the school yard, the teacher approached Little Johnny privately and asked if it was really true that his dad danced nude in a gay bar. Little Johnny blushed and said, �No, he�s really a Business Development Director at Lehmaan Brothers, but I�m just too embarrassed to tell anyone.� ------------------- �What�s the difference between a no-claims bonus and a banker�s bonus? You lose your no-claims bonus after a crash.� --------------------- A concerned customer asked his stock broker if the recent market decline and volitility worried him. The broker told him that he has been sleeping like a baby. �Really?!?� replied the customer. �Absolutely,� said the broker, �I sleep for about an hour, wake up, and then cry for about an hour.� ---------------------- There are 30 billion prime numbers below 700 billion. The rest are all subprime. ---------------------- What�s the difference between a bond and a bond trader? A bond matures. ----------------------- What�s the difference between a guy who just lost everything in Vegas and an investment banker? - A tie. ------------------------ The credit crunch has helped me get back on my feet. The car's been repossessed. ------------------------- Latest news: The Isle of Dogs bank has collapsed. They've called in the retrievers. ------------------------------- What do you say to a hedge fund manager who can't sell anything? A Quarter-pounder with fries, please. --------------------- Overheard in a City bar: 'This credit crunch is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my net worth and I still have a wife.' ------------------ ou know it's a credit crunch when... # The cashpoint asks if you can spare any change. # There's a 'buy one, get one free' offer - on banks. # The Inland Revenue is offering a 25% discount for cash-payers. # Gordon Brown has stopped chewing his nails and started sucking his thumb. # Your builder asks to be paid in Zimbabwean dollars rather than sterling. # Highgrove has been repossessed. # Victoria Beckham is pictured shopping in Primark. # Alistair Darling's eyebrows have turned white. ----------------------------------- An architect, a surgeon and an economist are discussing the Creation. The surgeon says: 'Look, we surgeons are most important. God's a surgeon because the first thing he did was to extract Eve from Adam's rib.' The architect says: 'No, wait a minute, God is an architect. He made the world in seven days out of chaos.' The economist smiles: 'And who made the chaos?' ------------------------------- A man went to his bank manager and said: 'I'd like to start a small business. How do I go about it?' 'Simple,' said the bank manager. 'Buy a big one and wait.' ------------------------------ Money talks. Trouble is, mine knows only one word: 'Goodbye.' ----------------------------- A young man asked an elderly rich man how he made his money. 'Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last penny, so I invested that penny in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold that apple for ten pennies. 'The next morning I bought two apples, spent the day polishing them and sold them for 20 pennies. I continued this for a month, by which time I'd accumulated a fortune of �1.37. 'Then my wife's father died and left us �2m.' --------------------------------------- What have an Icelandic bank and an Icelandic streaker got in common? They both have frozen assets. ----------------------------------------- A director decided to award a prize of �50 for the best idea of saving the company money during the credit crunch. It was won by a young executive who suggested reducing the prize money to �10. ------------------------------------------- News from the Far East: Uncertainty has now hit Japan. In the last seven days, Origami bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank has announced plans to cut some of its branches. Yesterday, it was also announced that Karaoke Bank will go up for sale and will likely go for a song, while shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended today after they nose-dived. While Samurai Bank is soldiering on after sharp cutbacks, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank, where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal. ----------------------------------- And finally: Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson are flying to a world economic summit. Peter looks at Alistair and chuckles: 'You know, I could throw a �50 note out of the window right now and make one person very happy.' Alistair shrugs his shoulders and says: 'Well, I could throw five �10 notes out of the window and make five people very happy.' Gordon says: 'Of course, but I could throw ten �5 notes out of the window and make ten people very happy.' The pilot rolls his eyes, looks at all of them, and says: 'I could throw all of you out of the window and make the whole country happy.' --------------------------------------- Just got an advent calendar from Woolworths. All the windows were boarded up. ----------------------------------------- What do you call 12 investment bankers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. ------------------------------------------ The last time Iceland had a crash like this aisle three was closed all day. ------------------------------------------ Q: Why are all MBAs going back to school? A: To ask for their money back. ------------------------------------------ Why didn't the little boy get any pocket money this week? Cos his Mum's gone to Iceland! ------------------------------------------ Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20 for a monkey. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each, and the supply of monkeys became so small that it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35, and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.' The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works. --------------------------------- A little old lady goes into the Chase Manhattan Bank and says she wants to open a savings account. The account person asks her how much she would like to deposit to open the account, and the little old lady says, "Three million dollars." The account person is startled, and says, "In what form?" and the little old lady says, "Cash. I've got it here in this bag." The account person looks and, sure enough, the lady has a big grocery bag chock full of green bills with big denominations. This is a highly unusual event, and the account person excuses herself to get the president of the bank to handle this one. He arrives, and escorts the little old lady to his office to handle it personally. Once in his office, he asks the little old lady where she got so much money. She says, "Gambling." "Gambling?" he says. "What sort of gambling?" "Oh, I make bets with people on all sorts of things, and I usually win. For example, I've got one hundred thousand dollars right here that says by noon tomorrow, your balls will be square, and I'll even give you four to one odds. You got twenty five thousand dollars you'd be willing to wager on that?" she asks. The bank president is shocked at this sort of thing coming from a sweet little old lady, but he didn't get to be the president of the Chase Manhattan Bank without knowing something about money. "I suppose I could come up with enough to cover that sort of wager, but I wouldn't feel right taking it from you. There's no way you can win a bet like that!" The little old lady just shakes the bag, and says, "I know what I'm doing. I can afford to lose, though I'm not going to. Is it a bet?" "Okay, have it your way," says the president, and they shook hands on it. "See you at eleven-fifty-five tomorrow morning," says the little old lady, and with that she leaves. The next morning at 11:55, the little old lady arrives with a younger man in a three-piece suit, and is escorted to the bank president's office. The president is a nervous wreck, though a happy one. He's gotten almost no sleep last night, waking every few minutes to feel his balls to check for impending squareness, but nothing happened all night. He has checked hundreds of times that morning, but still nothing. When the little old lady arrives, he starts to relax, knowing he has won. "Come in, please have a seat! Who might this gentleman be?" says the president. "He's my lawyer. For a bet of this size I want to have a witness. Any objections?" "No, perfectly understandable," says the president. "Well, it's now noon, and I'm still unchanged, so I guess I win!" "Not so fast!" says the little old lady. "For a hundred grand I want to verify things personally! Please drop your pants." The bank president is a bit flustered, but agrees that in her position he'd want proof as well, so he drops his pants. The little old lady goes over to him and reaches out to feel the organs in question. "Okay, you win, here's your hundred grand," says the little old lady, handing over a bag of bills. As she does so, her lawyer starts banging his head against the wall and moaning. "What's wrong with him?" asks the bank president. "Oh, he's just upset. Poor loser if you ask me. You see, we had a million dollar bet that I would have the President of the Chase Manhattan Bank by the b**ls by noon today." ----------------------------------

Citizens Advice Bureau - How to survive the credit crunch - In England

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:14:45 +0000

Quite difficult to find this via google... does not show up high in rankings when searching for credit crunch... shame as there is some nice advice, please visit the following link to the Citizens Advice Bureau.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/whats_new_oct08_how_to_survive_the_credit_crunch.htm

Household finances have been badly stretched in the past year as the costs of energy, food and borrowing money have soared. But there are ways to help yourself and organisations to help you cope if you are struggling. Here are some simple tips to help you get on top of things:

1. Don't bury your head in the sand

Ignoring your debt problems will only make them worse. Don�t ignore calls or letters from the people you owe money to (your creditors).

Contact them to explain why you�re having problems. The sooner you do this, the more options you'll have for solving your financial problems.

2. Get advice

There are many organisations which offer free and independent money advice such as Citizens Advice, Shelter, National Debtline, and the Consumer Credit Counselling Service. Their debt advisers can assess your situation and work out the best course of action for you. For details of organisations which can help, go to the bottom of this page.

3. Pay your priority debts first

There are some debts you need to pay first before others, because the consequences of not paying them can be much more serious. For example, mortgage or rent debts are a priority as if you don�t pay these you could lose your home. Debt advisers can help you plan your budget and pay your priority debts first.

4. Pay what you can each month

Work out how much money you've got coming in and going out of your household on essential expenses like food and bills. Then work how much you've got left over to pay your creditors. If you can't afford to pay back all the money you owe, work out how much you can afford and offer to pay this. A debt adviser can help you do this.

5. Maximise your income

Are you getting all the money you're entitled to?

There may be benefits or tax credits you can get such as Pension Credit or Disability Living Allowance which you haven't claimed. Working Tax Credit is an in-work benefit which is not just available to people with children. You might be able to get it if you work enough hours and are disabled or your income is low enough, even if you don't have children. You may be able to get Council Tax Benefit or Housing Benefit to help you pay your council tax and rent. You don't necessarily have to be out of work to get these benefits. You may be able to get help with your health costs such as prescription charges and dental costs. You may be able to claim help with education costs such as school meals and clothing.

You may be able to get a grant to help you pay for things like fitting home insulation and improving energy efficiency. This can help cut down the fuel bills.

Your gas and electricity supplier may be able to help you if you have fuel debts.

To find out if you can get help, visit the British Gas Energy Trust website at: www.britishgasenergytrust.org.uk or the EDF Energy Trust website at: www.edfenergytrust.org.uk.

There are also some charities which give grants to people to help pay their bills or buy essential items. You can find a list of these charities on the Turn 2 Us website at: www.turn2us.org.uk.

An adviser can help you maximise your income. For details of organisations which can help, go to the bottom of this page.

6. Make savings on your household expenses

Look carefully at your spending and see if there is anything you are able to cut down on. For example, you could shop around for a cheaper gas or electricity provider, or look at cheaper mortgage or insurance providers.

You can find more information about changing your gas and electricity suppliers from the website of the consumer watchdog, Consumer Focus at: www.consumerfocus.org.uk.

To find out more about how to save money on financial products such as mortgages and insurance, go to the website of financial watchdog the Financial Services Authority at: www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk.

7. Think twice about taking out a loan to pay off all your debts

You may end up paying back a lot more than you borrowed and at very high interest rates. You may not be able to afford the repayments and the loan may be secured against your home which you could then lose.

8. Facing possession proceedings? Don�t panic

Always attend the court hearings yourself. Court proceedings do not mean that you will automatically lose your home. The court process acts as a final check to make sure repossession is the last resort. Some courts have advice desks which can provide last minute assistance.

9. Take care with �mortgage rescue schemes�

Selling your home and renting it back might seem like a quick fix to your debt problems. But, many of these schemes offer very little security. You could end up paying very high rent or even being evicted. These schemes are also not regulated so you will not have access to the same protections as a mortgage holder.

10. Don�t abandon your property

If you are struggling with mortgage repayments you may be tempted to send the keys to your lender or abandon your property. Don�t do this without advice. You could still be responsible for the debt on the property and may be pursued for it years later.

Further help

SecretSquirrel is.... the Government's Cash Cow

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:01:01 +0000

Hearing about the Government plans to guarantee mortgage payments for 2 years on the news last night, I was disgruntled for a number of reasons. One, just how many more people is the taxpayer going to support/guarantee from what seem to be never ending pockets - this is going to be one big bite when the taxes come in to pay for all this spending our oh so wise leaders are advocating now.

Secondly, the small print that customers who had less than 16,000 pounds in the bank would NOT (yes NOT) qualify for the opportunity to take a 2 year interest payment holiday. What? If someone has 16k or more in the bank, why are they not using that money to pay their mortgage for the length of time they need it - at £1000 a month, they'd have at least 12 months mortgage payments (allowing the rest to live from etc) to give them time to find another job etc etc. Who is going to have difficulty paying their mortgage with that money in the bank - they may need to cut down on other luxury spends, but really, why are they being helped out? Is this actually going to "help" anyone or is it just a headline grabbing story that the Government hope that people don't bother to read the small print - hey no-one's read the small print on their loan agreement for years, why are they going to do so on Government schemes????

Quite honestly, as a taxpayer, I feel that I'm being milked dry, the cash cow the Government is squeezing every last drop out of.

Hey Banks, struggling, bad business model - here have some of my hard earned cash so you can slash the interest rates on my savings and keep encouraging all the other irresponsible suckers to keep borrowing money they'll never pay back.

Hey Car Manufacturers, not planned well enough for a downturn, no horizon scanning - here have some of my hard earned cash to keep you going, so you can then charge me ridiculous sums for a new car.

Hey Mortgage Borrower - can't pay your mortgage, bitten off more than you can chew, borrowed against the profits that are fast disappearing for consumer cack you didn't really need? - here, have some of my hard earned cash to keep paying your mortgage off, I didn't want to pay extra on mine anyway.

Along with some others in the UK, I made good decisions, I've saved regularly, I bought a flat with a mortgage that was within my means, calculating if I could afford it if interest rates went up, flexibility of a second bedroom to rent out if I had to etc etc - I've managed my money effectively, I have no debts other than my mortgage - Yes government, look in my wallet, take what's there to reward all the other ignorant chancing money grabbing b*stards who don't give a monkeys about anything other than their own immediate gratification - whether that be through ridiculous bonuses or through the lastest fast car/4x4 that they just can't afford.

Oh, and if any bankers supported by the government get bonuses this year - I'll be queuing up to demand mine along with all the other NHS/Police/Teachers. If you're Government backed, don't be getting bonuses on taxpayers money. That, would be the last straw.

Police state with your breakfast this morning?

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:52:35 +0000

From Sky: quote:" Leaked info includes: illegal immigrants being given security industry clearance. Jacquie Smith warning that recession could lead to an increase in violent crime. These leaks were 'damaging' to the government. In a statement, the Conservative Party confirmed that Mr Green was arrested at home in Kent and taken for questioning at a central London police station. It said the MP's parliamentary office was searched, as were his home and constituency office. " http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Immigration-Leak-Shadow-Immigration-Secretary-Damian-Green-Arrested-Under-Official-Secrets-Act/Article/200811415163745?lpos=UK_News_First_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15163745_Immigration_Leak%3A_Shadow_Immigration_Secretary_Damian_Green_Arrested_Under_Official_Secrets_Act Pretty petty things to get arrested on... anyone could tell you that in times of recession crime does go up out of desperation... If all there is to this arrest is the government 'looking' bad, and Gordon having a member of the opposite party arrested for making him and his bunch of money grabbing, civil abusive criminals looking bad then we have just taken a step closer to dictatorship. I hope some real information is given in the coming hours to justify this treatment - why don't they just send him of to Guantanamo Bay and be done with it? The only thing these leaks show are how much damage the government and Gordonron has done to the UK. Who is going to arrest Gordon Brown for screwing up the UK economy and getting us all in to debt throughout his chancellorship? Oh, are we even allowed to criticize Stalin Brown anymore? I suppose we should all be whipped in to place and praise the grand job he is doing? Anyone ever seen the film "V for vendeta" I suggest you go and buy a copy before that too is listed as illegal material. Mr Cameron, Please call an election as soon as you can make it possible, we have to vote the Labour party out as soon as we can. We have just had out first political arrest. Will we get arrests over the "leak" of the 2.5% off VAT? Fat chance. And while we are at it... you may as well arrest Robert Peston - or is he a government plant? More from sky " The statement went on: "As shadow immigration minister, Mr Green has, on a number of occasions, legitimately revealed information which the Home Office chose not to make public. "Disclosure of this information was manifestly in the public interest. "Mr Green denies any wrongdoing and stands by his actions." " Note, the word LEGITIMATELY and the sentence "Home office chose not to make public". Erosion of free speech if ever I saw one. Anyone ever hear of Naomi Wolf? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment How far down the following list are we? 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy 2. Create a gulag 3. Develop a thug caste 4. Set up an internal surveillance system 5. Harass citizens' groups 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release 7. Target key individuals 8. Control the press 9. Dissent equals treason 10. Suspend the rule of law The current government is dangerous, yet again counter terrorism laws were invoked.... for not terrorism purposes, ask Iceland about how they were put on the terrorist list so that Gordon Brown could help himself to their assets. The government has dangerous extra powers and is misusing them. Full Sky Text: Mr Green, the MP for Ashford in Kent, was held but not charged and has been released on bail to return for further questioning on a date in February. It is understood the arrest was in connection with alleged leaked information relating to media stories about immigration. Tory leader David Cameron was said to be supportive of his MP and angry at the way in which the case has been handled. Mr Green denies any wrongdoing and remains in his post. In a brief statement after his release, he said: "I was astonished to have spent more than nine hours today under arrest for doing my job. "I emphatically deny I have done anything wrong. "In a democracy, opposition politicians have a duty to hold the Government to account. I was elected to the House of Commons precisely to do that and certainly intend to continue doing so." It is understood the allegations centre on four stories which have caused considerable embarrassment to the Government. David Cameron David Cameron: 'Angry' They are: :: The revelation in November 2007 that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was aware the Security Industry Authority had granted licences to 5,000 illegal workers but did not think the Home Office's official explanation was "good enough" for the press office or ministers to use; :: The fact that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in the House of Commons, which emerged in February this year; :: A whips' list of potential Labour rebels who might vote against the Government over plans to increase the pre-charge terror detention limit to 42 days in a crucial Commons vote; :: A letter from Ms Smith to Prime Minister Gordon Brown warning that the recession could lead to a rise in violent crime and burglaries. The Conservative Party confirmed that Mr Green was arrested at home in Kent and taken for questioning at a central London police station. It said the MP's parliamentary office was searched, as were his home and constituency office. Sources close to the Shadow Cabinet suggested that a police investigation into such a high-ranking politician would have to have been cleared "at the very top". One insider described the action as "Stalinesque... unprecedented in its high-handedness". But a spokesman for 10 Downing Street said: "This is a matter for the police. "The Prime Minister had no prior knowledge of the arrest of Mr Green and was only informed after the event."

Credit Crunch Christmas Carols

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:49:11 +0000

Ah, those creative people at http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=63375&st=0 Look at what they put together last year... Little Wonkey ========== little wonkey a little wonkey was the banking code gotta keep on lending onwards till the model broke sell us your dodgy loans, Nationwide, Nationwide hell is your crud like loans, Nationwide, Nationwide very wonkey stupid donkeys didn't toe the line cannot keep on lending onwards now we're all sub-prime Away in a BTL empire ================= Away in a BTL empire, No crib for His shed The little Lord btl'er Laid down His sweet head The stars in the bright sky Looked down where He lay The little Lord btl'er Asleep on the hay The sheeple are lowing The poor renter wakes But little Lord btl'er No mortgage payment He makes I love Thee, Lord btl'er Look down from the flats And stay by my side, 'Til morning is nigh. Be near me, Lord btl'er, I ask Thee to stay Close by me forever And love me I pay Bless all the dear renters In Thy tender care And take us to negative-equity heaven To live with Thee there Credit Wonder Land ================ To Let signs gone, are you listening, In the lane, ForSale signs are glistening A beautiful sight, We're happy tonight. Walking in a K-winter wonderland. Gone away is the leasing agent, Here to stay is a new EA He sings a love song, As we go along, Walking in a credit wonderland. *dooobedoobedoo* laugh.gif In the meadow we can build a slum, Then pretend that it is Gordon Brown He'll say: Are you working? We'll say: No man, But you can do the job When you're in court. Later on, we'll retire, As we dream by the mire To face afraid, The plans that we'd made, Walking in a credit wonderland. In the meadow we can build a PM up, And pretend that he's a grown up We'll have lots of fun with sense undone, Until the other kids knock him down. When it sells slow, ain't it thrilling, Though your credit gets a chillin We'll frolic and play, the Gov't way, Walking in a credit wonderland. Let it sell! Let it sell! Let it sell! ======================= Oh the ForSale sign outside is frightful, But BTL is so delightful, And since the market has gone to hell, Let It Sell! Let It Sell! Let It Sell! It doesn't show signs of selling, And I've bought some flats for letting, The leases have gone to hell, Let It Sell! Let It Sell! Let It Sell! When we finally kiss goodnight, How I'll hate going out in the storm! But if you'll really hold my credit tight, All the way home I'll be alright. The ToLets are slowly dying, And, my dear, the interest is frightening, But as long as you'll love me in negative-equity hell, Let It Sell! Let It Sell! Let It Sell! Once in Royal Davids City ===================== Once in royal David's city Stood a lowly cattle shed Where a landlord bought the property now it's buy-to-let instead Kirsty said the markets hot But the place has got dry rot. He came down to earth from heaven when the credit lines did fail With no tenants he's in doo-doo So he starts to weep and wail Still he holds,in futile hope Prices slide the slippery slope. Now the fixed rate deal has ended And the high street is quite bleak Landlord's warned of banks foreclosing He is really up the creek Pay the price for avarice HPC will take the piss. rolleyes.gif rolleyes.gif Merry christmas everybody. Hark The Herald Angel Sings ======================= verse: Hark! the herald agents sing who'd have thought it, cash is king property sales are in a mess my TT's been re-possessed chorus: investment landlords are confounded the mortgage's up, the rent has foundered tenants have the upper hand landlords know that they are damned verse: Hark! the herald agents sing only vendors ever ring buyers have long since departed time for price falls to get started chorus: But the vendors just won't listen refuse to accept that rates have risen willing to wait as long as it takes but we'll go broke, for heaven's sake the last chorus (with descant): how we wish we hadn't ramped now we're going to be tramps the scum of the earth we are, it's true gone to rack, and ruin, too 12 Credit Days Of Xmas =================== On the 12th day of Xmas, my bank gov sent to me: 12 Credits crunching, 11 Chains collapsing, 10 LIBORS leaping, 9 Landlords sweating, 8 Bears rejoicing, 7 EAs closing, 6 empires crumbling, 5 Gold price hikes... 4 desperate sales, 3 grinning hawks, 2 battered doves, And a smug face on HPC! To the tune of 'O Christmas Tree' ========================== O Gordon Brown, O Gordon Brown When will these house prices come down? O Gordon Brown, O Gordon Brown When will these house prices come down? Theyve risen now, for several years, Now buy to letters are in tears ( rolleyes.gif ) O Gordon Brown, O Gordon Brown It looks like house prices are coming down. (away in a manger) 2 ================ I bought with a stranger, Just space for two beds The price cost sweet Jesus It took all i had The stars on the tonights sky Sang down while we paid The landlord did fleece us He took all our pay The flooring are bowing The taps drips do wake But little does please us No profit we make I hate These, Long leases Im behind with my Sky And stay by my side, 'Til bailiffs are nigh. The interest rate, just teases, I ask it to stay Close by 6 forever I hope and I pray Bless all the dear nimbys Now in tender care And take us to see them We'll beat their ass bare. more credit crunch songs here: http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/videos/creditcrunchsongs.php

The Queen asks why no one saw the credit crunch coming

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:38:25 +0000

During a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on the turmoil on the international markets the Queen asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html

We here at creditcrunch.co.uk did! And so did GHPC, and GEI. Online communities, looked down upon by the British press, saw it coming at least half a decade ago.

We did our best effort to get the message out, but even our own politicians ignored us.

URGENT: Icesave payout process will start this week for UK depositors

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:31:14 +0000

The Icesave payout process will start this week for UK depositors in Icesave,
the internet retail deposit business of the UK branch of Landsbanki,
the Financial Services Compensation Scheme confirmed today.

http://www.fscs.org.uk/consumer/

Any Icesave customers who do not receive their first email from FSCS by close of business on Friday should contact FSCS on 0845 7300 131 (Icesave enquiries only).

Forward this information to anyone you know that has had money in Icesave.

First time buyers celebrate as property prices continue to crash

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:29:51 +0000

Latest data confirms that there is no recovery in sight for house prices, as the dramatic large falls continue.

�1000s has been wiped of of the average home in the UK, giving many first time buyers even more reason to hold of buying a property while waiting for the bottom. The long term graph below suggest anyone whowants to buy a property should put that plan on the back burner, as in a few years time they will be able tohouse their families with larger home, and forget about property mania for a few years.

In fact, we are already back at 2005 prices, and the downward trend appears to be quite strong.

In a round about way, Gordon Brown has delivered on his promise on affordable housing - by crashing the market! LOL.

Many who have bought recently of the back of get rich quick scheme mentality from 'experts' such as Kirsty Allsop , and victims of preditory and profit chasing lending practices by the banking industry have been plunged in to negative equity andsevere debt - a lesson to us all to avoid the housing market and not touch it with a barge pole.

There seems to be a general consensus now developing on the internet and public mind , that people should

"Sell now, before they miss the sell to rent boat forever"

It seems that the further house prices fall, the less time you have to jump out - unlock your gains - and jump back in at a lower price, hence making a nice profit.

Unfortunatly, many may have missed this boat already as it may have set sail months ago.

Falling house prices bad news? Really?

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:09:13 +0000

Here is a statement that worries me, on BBC news this evening.

Falling house prices make us feel poorer and we will spend less - anyone who believes this tosh, is an idiot.

Is the UK economy so decrepit, that it is WHOLLY based on how much bad debt the young can be tricked in to taking?

Auntie Pravda (BBC) talk so much rubbish, most of the time.

I see no reason why falling houses should make, as a whole, the country poorer - unless the majority have been lead astray by Brown and tricked in to the UK property ponzi scheme,

Falling house prices mean,
1) More people will be closer to buying in cash, no loans needed.
2) The proportion of Loan/Deposit will be lower.
3) Deposits also will be lower.
4) Paying less for a house, means... more cash in your pocket to go out and slosh around.

If the bbc are referring to spending power by borrowing against your house increase, well... I personally think anyonewho thinks they are rich because they are borrowing against their house are plain thick in the head. Only poor peopleneed to borrow. Harsh fact of life there. If you need to borrow to buy something, you can't afford that something. If you are borrowing against that something you could not afford to buy in the first place, then you heading closer to the poor house.

Now, say property falls in price - house prices become more affordable , meaning, you now need a smaller loan, you are heading in the correct direction of affordability of the house.

Say property falls so far, that you can pay for it outright, in about a month... after that, you have no mortgage payments, and think of all that spare cash you could spend on stuff!!

So ask yourself again, falling house prices, do they make you feel richer or poorer?

.Now take these stories on the BBC today, about repossession and negative equity, why do you think those poorbastards now feel - poor? Is it because they bought a nice cheap house, or... is it because they bought an expensive house?If they bought a cheap house they would not have been repossessed.

Repeat after me...

FALLING HOUSE PRICES, (and so cheaper homes), MEANS MORE SPARE CASH & MAKES YOU RICHER!

http://pravda.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7694819.stm

And 1 in 10 properties will be in negative equity.

Clear as mud.

I feel richer every day property prices fall, or at least move further away from poverty and servitude to the banks.

I am also very quickly losing patience with this type of "Education" from tax sourced funding, really, the public should not be givenso much rubbish information. If you yourself, are feeling poorer because of falling house prices - its because you were tricked in to buying an expensive property in the first place.

Welcome, thanks for visiting.

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:00:10 +0000

We thought we would thank the now thousands of unique individuals visitors who read this website every month.

The latest stats for October 2008, have broken all previous records and 11,000 of you are credit crunch fans.

If you scroll down to the end of any page of this website, you will see a geovisitors link that looks like this,

It shows you a flag where your nearest access point to the internet is, it could represent 1 person or 100 people.Here is a snap shot of todays activity in the uk,

The UK is covered with people who read this site, you may have a few credit crunchers in your area!

What are you waiting for, join the forum and start communicating! Check back each day to see which parts of the UK are more active.

Who is that in Paris? Bonjour!

Add our facebook application, and share your information with your friends.

Market Meltdown

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:03:07 +0000

QUOTE:

`Systemic risk has become bigger and bigger,'' Roubini said at the Hedge 2008 conference. ``We're seeing the beginning of a run on a big chunk of the hedge funds,'' and ``don't be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days,'
www.bloomberg.com: Roubini Says `Panic' May Force Market Shutdown

QUOTE:

Alan Greenspan has called the recent turmoil in the global financial markets a "once in a century credit tsunami".
bbc.co.uk: Financial crisis 'like a tsunami'

You should watch this.

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:06:53 +0000

Are you confused my money lingo? Do you want to KNOW what inflation really is? What is Interest?What is really debt? What is the money supply? Do banks really create money out of thin air?This is an eye opener!

Watch This!http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

They do say music gets better in times of resession, time for a Credit Crunch Christmas Album 2008? Credit Crunch Song ?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:30:42 +0000

I really am impressed with the creativity of the public,

Here are a few music videos about the credit crunch I found out there on the interweb...

Some are quite good!

http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/videos/creditcrunchsongs.php

Is the time right to release a credit crunch album?I think a credit crunch song would beat Mr Blobby hands down!BBC have finally caught up, and are talking about a credit crunch song, good luck to this guy.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7690698.stm

Gordon shows the Tories what a real boom and bust looks like.

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:06:50 +0000

Here I am tonight, with half my guts on the floor after my sides split upon reading this gem fromthe timesonline Apparently, Gordon Brown promised "no more TORY boom and bust"!

QUOTE:
On Saturday the results of an encounter between the journalist Allison Pearson and Gordon Brown were published. After a load of the usual stuff about eating cold lamb chops with his children and so forth, they finally get down to business. Pearson asks if the Prime Minister �if he has any regrets about his boast: �No more boom and bust'�.

And here is his priceless reply: �I actually said: �No more Tory boom and bust'.� Yes, that really was what he told her.

Are you as lost for words as I am? All he needs to do now is to ask his friends at the BBC to get rid of tapes where he says it! And I would not be surprised.

QUOTE:
The old boom and bust consisted of rapid fluctuations, with medium-sized boom followed by medium-sized bust. This time we have had a long period of growth, followed by a bust so bad that it has almost destroyed the financial system.

Nothing like a Labour, Gordon Brown bust to show the Tories how its done. Chuckle chuckle...

And here is a link to a contribution by secret squirrel on how Gordon Brown celebrated and encouraged the risk taking in the city that he was warned by the IMF on SOooooooooooooo many occasions.

http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1350

Laugh or cry, I can't choose.

Mandy has a lot of work to do, and painting gordon brown as the saviour of our economy is a very bad joke.We have a duty to vote out this clown and the Labour party at the next election.

Here are some more memorable statements by the clown himself:

"I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."Gordon Brown's 1997 Budget Statement

"Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past."Pre-Budget Report, 9th November 1999

"Britain does not want a return to boom and bust."Budget Statement, 21 March 2000

"So our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the...the old boom and bust."Pre-Budget Report, 8 November 2000

"Mr Deputy Speaker we will not return to boom and bust."Budget Statement, 7 March 2001

"As I have said before Mr Deputy Speaker: No return to boom and bust."Budget Statement, 22 March 2006

"And we will never return to the old boom and bust."Budget Statement, 21 March 2007 1) Tony Blair: 1997 Conference Speech

I want this to be the New Labour Government that ended Tory boom and bust forever.

2) Tony Blair: 2000 Conference Speech

The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.

3) Tony Blair: 2005 Conference Speech

In the first two terms we corrected the weaknesses of the Tory years: boom-and-bust economics

4) Tony Blair: November 2003

If we want to contrast what we have done in the past few years on delivery with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman delivered, let us remember the interest rates at 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., the 1.5 million fewer people in work, the boom and the bust and the borrowing at 8 per cent. of GDP.

5) Tony Blair: November 1999

We have the best chance of ending boom and bust in years.

6) Tony Blair: November 1998

...examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt.

7) Tony Blair: 2006 Conference Speech

In 1997, we faced daunting challenges. Boom and bust economics.....Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved.

8) Tony Blair: February 1999

Moreover, for decades we have been prone to far greater swings in the economic cycle than our continental counterparts. It has been boom and bust....Under this Government, there is an entirely new framework for economic management in place

9) Yvette Cooper: May 2004

We know that they want to turn the clock back, but it would be foolish to turn it back to a policy of boom and bust.

10) Alistair Darling: January 2000

On top of that, we have a healthy and stable economy and an end to the boom and bust that characterised the Tory years.

11) Alistair Darling: March 2005

As I said, there are two approaches�first, a strong economy, stability and helping families or, secondly, the Tory cuts, the undermining of stability, and a return to the boom and bust of the 1990s.

12) Alistair Darling: June 2007

...ackno

wledges the outstanding performance of the economy under this Government with the longest unbroken economic expansion on record, in contrast to the boom and bust of the previous Government

13) Gordon Brown: March 2007

We will not return to the old boom and bust

14) Gordon Brown: December 2006

Boom and bust is a term that applied to the Conservative years and two of the worst recessions in history

15) Gordon Brown: March 2006

I have said before: no return to boom and bust.

16) Gordon Brown: March 2001

We will not return to boom and bust.

17) Gordon Brown: November 2000

Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the '80s--rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust.

18) Gordon Brown: March 2000

Britain does not want a return to boom and bust.

19) Gordon Brown: November 1999

Indeed, Britain was set to repeat the old, familiar cycle of boom and bust. Since then, we have created and rigorously adhered to a new framework of modern economic management

20) Gordon Brown: November 1998

Britain was set to repeat the boom-bust cycle that led to 15 per cent. interest rates for one whole year in the early 1990s.

21) Gordon Brown: June 1998

rigorous financial discipline that, together with monetary stability, ends once and for all the boom and bust that for 30 years has undermined stability

22) Gordon Brown: May 1998

The Government have put in place policies to deliver that objective and are determined to avoid a return to boom and bust.

23) Gordon Brown: April 1998

We will not return to the stop-go, boom-bust years which we saw under the Conservatives.

24) Gordon Brown: November 1997

I am satisfied that the new monetary policy arrangements will deliver long-term price stability, and prevent a return to the cycle of boom and bust.

25) Gordon Brown: July 1997

Today, the Bank of England has agreed with me that, if we are to prevent the cycle of boom and bust, inflationary pressures in the economy, which the previous Government negligently failed to tackle, must be brought under control

26) John Prescott: January 2005

Labour economic stability has replaced Tory boom and bust

27) Alan Johnson: February 2000

The Government's first priority on coming to office was to secure long-term economic stability and put an end to the damaging cycle of boom and bust.

28) Douglas Alexander: June 2006

there are genuine questions to be asked about why we now have the highest level of employment in many decades, contrary to the position during the boom-bust years of the Conservatives.

29) Ruth Kelly: November 1999

The Government have rejected the boom and bust of the Conservative party

30) Ruth Kelly: May 2002

We must avoid a return to the days of boom and bust that manufacturers had to endure for a long time under the Conservatives.

So how safe are your savings?

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:17:07 +0000

With the Icelandic Bank, Landsbanki being taken into administration, many of the 300,000 British Savers with money in their UK arm Icesave, were left wondering how they would begin claiming up to �50,000 of their money back.

However, it isn't that simple. Icesave are not operating as an FSA institution (unlike Kaupthing hf) and instead are part of a much lesser known "Top-up Scheme" available to banks within European Economic Area (EEA) countries that has today come to light as the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) begin to answer Icesave customer queries.

Essentially, each EEA country is required by the EU to guarantee deposits of up to a minimum of 20,000 Euros. Some, like Ireland and Germany, have elected to guarantee substantially more than the minimum. Banks within these EEA countries who operate branches within the UK, but not under FSA authorisation, can elect to be part of the Top-Up scheme with the FSCS. Where they have elected to be part of this scheme, the guarantee of the EEA country covers the deposit prior to the FSCS stepping in.

What does that mean? Well, for Icesave Customers, Iceland's Government guarantee the minimum 20,000 Euros (approx �16,000). So the first �16,000 of any claim for compensation would be dealt with by the scheme of the Icelandic Government. For any savers with savings up to �50,000, the FSCS would then step in to top up the difference between the �50,000 and the �16,000 covered by the Icelandic Government. Where the guarantee of the Government exceeds the FSCS �50,000 (e.g. Ireland who guarantee 100% of the deposit), that guaranteed supercedes the FSCS compensation claim and the entire claim would be made with the foreign Government.

It's important to get all the information possible when choosing where to place your savings and websites such as the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme will have detailed information about FSA Authorised banks, and banks included in the FSCS �50,000 guarantee or Top Up scheme.

It also shows just how important it is to read behind the headlines and the Government reassurances that "it'll be alright everyone". Arm yourself with the facts, you'll be able to make fully informed decisions.

Good luck all Icesave Customers - I hope you get ALL your deposits you've worked so hard for back.

(Links to more information available here: http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1347 )

UK savers lose thousands of pounds, protect your savings!

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:05:15 +0000

Iceland's government has taken control of the country's second largest bank, Landsbank and in the UK it is known and trades as Icesave. So right now in the UK, if you bank with Icesave you money just went up in smoke. Icesave says that it is not currently allowing customers to take money out of their accounts. BBC news tonight featured a lady who had GBP 100, 000 in Icesave ... no wonder the demand for gold has rocketed. So, are you going to wait until you can't withdraw you cash, or are you going to your money before the UK banks do? http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7656387.stm First test of the financial guarantee to take place, many UK citizens have lost cash and show their anger here; http://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com/index.php?showtopic=42023 Act now, and get your cash before you too lose it.

Chemical Spray Conspiracy - do you still trust the government.

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:33:00 +0000

Well, When the government tells you they are going to guarantee your deposits, tell you to take out crippling debt only to find out later you now have a property that is crashing and a debt you will be paying back until your pension should you trust them? NO - if you have not learned this lesson yet, rewind to 2002 on a completely different matter. As reported the The Guardian newspaper; http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience/print The UK government were spraying you with chemicals and playing with your health, and guess how they described the tests, harmless weather experiments. Are you going to trust the UK government? Can you trust them about the bank guarantee? The answer is a glaring no. Buy physical gold, and keep your cash at home - for those of us aware of fractional reserve banking know it is impossible to guarantee 100% the cash as it simply does not exist. The UK government for a long time has been flying planes and spraying large parts of the UK with chemicals to imitate biological attacks, in effect - attacking its OWN people with chemicals. These drugs are being linked with lung cancer and birth defects, the government doesn't believe it to have been deadly - so why did they lie? Deadly or not WHEN did the government get my consent to experiment ,chemically or financially, on myself, my family and friends? This information has been released in a government report, for tests up to 1979! Up to this point the test were described to the public as weather experiments, and after questions if these experiments are still carried out, they said they do not want to discuss ongoing research. It is almost certain that these spray experiments are still going on, and there is nothing you can do to protect yourselves. What are you going to do? Your own children are now defenselessly being exposed to chemical spraying by the UK government! Am I the only one here that is appalled. Are you also going to expose your self to the toxic debt that is in our financial system? At least here you can take steps to protect yourself and you should, go and get at least a months worth of wages and keep it at home - you get to teach those banks a lesson or two. We have all been lab rats for a financial experiment too, wrap up warm! Here is the link to the chemical guardian article. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience Click on this story header for a reproduction of the story before it is pulled. Article here reproduced in full, in the case of it being pulled. * * Article history The Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the country into a giant laboratory to conduct a series of secret germ warfare tests on the public. A government report just released provides for the first time a comprehensive official history of Britain's biological weapons trials between 1940 and 1979. Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told. While details of some secret trials have emerged in recent years, the 60-page report reveals new information about more than 100 covert experiments. The report reveals that military personnel were briefed to tell any 'inquisitive inquirer' the trials were part of research projects into weather and air pollution. The tests, carried out by government scientists at Porton Down, were designed to help the MoD assess Britain's vulnerability if the Russians were to have released clouds of deadly germs over the country. In most cases, the trials did not use biological weapons but alternatives which scientists believed would mimic germ warfare and which the MoD claimed were harmless. But families in certain areas of the country who have children with birth defects are demanding a public inquiry. One chapter of the report, 'The Fluorescent Particle Trials', reveals how between 1955 and 1963 planes flew from north-east England to the tip of Cornwall along the south and west coasts, dropping huge amounts of zinc cadmium sulphide on the population. The chemical drifted miles inland, its fluorescence allowing the spread to be monitored. In another trial using zinc cadmium sulphide, a generator was towed along a road near Frome in Somerset where it spewed the chemical for an hour. While the Government has insisted the chemical is safe, cadmium is recognised as a cause of lung cancer and during the Second World War was considered by the Allies as a chemical weapon. In another chapter, 'Large Area Coverage Trials', the MoD describes how between 1961 and 1968 more than a million people along the south coast of England, from Torquay to the New Forest, were exposed to bacteria including e.coli and bacillus globigii , which mimics anthrax. These releases came from a military ship, the Icewhale, anchored off the Dorset coast, which sprayed the micro-organisms in a five to 10-mile radius. The report also reveals details of the DICE trials in south Dorset between 1971 and 1975. These involved US and UK military scientists spraying into the air massive quantities of serratia marcescens bacteria, with an anthrax simulant and phenol. Similar bacteria were released in 'The Sabotage Trials' between 1952 and 1964. These were tests to determine the vulnerability of large government buildings and public transport to attack. In 1956 bacteria were released on the London Underground at lunchtime along the Northern Line between Colliers Wood and Tooting Broadway. The results show that the organism dispersed about 10 miles. Similar tests were conducted in tunnels running under government buildings in Whitehall. Experiments conducted between 1964 and 1973 involved attaching germs to the threads of spiders' webs in boxes to test how the germs would survive in different environments. These tests were carried out in a dozen locations across the country, including London's West End, Southampton and Swindon. The report also gives details of more than a dozen smaller field trials between 1968 and 1977. In recent years, the MoD has commissioned two scientists to review the safety of these tests. Both reported that there was no risk to public health, although one suggested the elderly or people suffering from breathing illnesses may have been seriously harmed if they inhaled sufficient quantities of micro-organisms. However, some families in areas which bore the brunt of the secret tests are convinced the experiments have led to their children suffering birth defects, physical handicaps and learning difficulties. David Orman, an army officer from Bournemouth, is demanding a public inquiry. His wife, Janette, was born in East Lulworth in Dorset, close to where many of the trials took place. She had a miscarriage, then gave birth to a son with cerebral palsy. Janette's three sisters, also born in the village while the tests were being carried out, have also given birth to children with unexplained problems, as have a number of their neighbours. The local health authority has denied there is a cluster, but Orman believes otherwise. He said: 'I am convinced something terrible has happened. The village was a close-knit community and to have so many birth defects over such a short space of time has to be more than coincidence.' Successive governments have tried to keep details of the germ warfare tests secret. While reports of a number of the trials have emerged over the years through the Public Records Office, this latest MoD document - which was released to Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker - gives the fullest official version of the biological warfare trials yet. Baker said: 'I welcome the fact that the Government has finally released this information, but question why it has taken so long. It is unacceptable that the public were treated as guinea pigs without their knowledge, and I want to be sure that the Ministry of Defence's claims that these chemicals and bacteria used were safe is true.' The MoD report traces the history of the UK's research into germ warfare since the Second World War when Porton Down produced five million cattle cakes filled with deadly anthrax spores which would have been dropped in Germany to kill their livestock. It also gives details of the infamous anthrax experiments on Gruinard on the Scottish coast which left the island so contaminated it could not be inhabited until the late 1980s. The report also confirms the use of anthrax and other deadly germs on tests aboard ships in the Caribbean and off the Scottish coast during the 1950s. The document states: 'Tacit approval for simulant trials where the public might be exposed was strongly influenced by defence security considerations aimed obviously at restricting public knowledge. An important corollary to this was the need to avoid public alarm and disquiet about the vulnerability of the civil population to BW [biological warfare] attack.' Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for Porton Down, said: 'Independent reports by eminent scientists have shown there was no danger to public health from these releases which were carried out to protect the public. 'The results from these trials_ will save lives, should the country or our forces face an attack by chemical and biological weapons.' Asked whether such tests are still being carried out, she said: 'It is not our policy to discuss ongoing research.'

Nationwide - House Price Crash to continue at same pace.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:47:52 +0000

Nationwide data out today confirms the UK house price crash is unstoppable, data shows prices have plummeted for an 11th consecutive month, dropping by 1.7% in September!

We are now just shy of 13% year on year falls, what does this mean... over the last year the average property has lost more than �20,000, and thats if you are lucky.

Nationwide have stated that the rate of fall will stay the same for some time, to quote "pace of house price falls had stabilised", don't be fooled by their use of the word stable, they just mean that downward slope in the graph next to this writing will be a straight line down for some time. At this rate, we will be at 25% falls this time next year... more than likely much much more.

Please continue to use BeerHunters great tool at http://www.property-bee.com, to track property falls in your area.

As usual Fionnuala Earley, Nationwides cheif econimist, their top dog... made a complete fool of her self, read the following quote.
"Casting back one year, there have been some astonishing and unpredictable developments in the housing and financial markets,"

UNPREDICTABLE? Look my dear, give up the day job! This forum and the other in our linked section, have put forward data, and soundarguments for the trouble we are experiencing - some of these forums have been around for at least 5 years - and have tried to warn you of your ways.
Do you have ANY idea how foolish your comments sound?

Other news
As the economy and property market is crumbling around us, I was very pleasantly surprised to see the stories in the press today about the public waking up and spreading their investment, i.e dipping their toe in the gold market... A source, who was down at ATS bullion on the strand reported shortages in Gold and queues of people buying gold , this particular source happened to buy the last gold kruggerand in stock.

The public are correct not to trust the banks.

P.S.

On the back of this data, don't forget the credit crunch one liners you might want to shove down peoples throats at dinner parties, if you want to shut up people who have tried to pressure you in to buying property in the past.

Political conflict of interest

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:25:50 +0000

Reputation and confidence run hand in hand � one without the other inspires nothing but disdain, particularly when the Prime Minister and Chancellor display deficits in one or both attributes. The nett effect of poor reputation is the lack of believability that a 'decision maker' can or will follow through with some form of change methodology and not a finger in the air jobbie. In the absence of the aforementioned believability it's no wonder confidence in those 'decision makers' ebbs inexorably away, often never to return. Human nature has it that we remember best what we last learnt, experience or found unacceptable - it's no wonder then that credibility in both the PM and Chancellor has dissipated to the point they have become lame ducks. If they were to be able to collectively (miraculously) do something out of the ordinary (instead of the now very tired party line) to effect peoples lives for the better, they would still be up against it by virtue of the fact they have trouble selling it, selling any 'better' notional idea for that matter. That they (PM & Chancellor (puppet)) don't budge from their now superfluous positional rolls indicates they no longer operate with the interest of the people they are there to represent, but simply insist they stay the course for their own means, ends and benefits masked by the repetative "we will continue to make the tough decisions" tirade. Both the PM's and Chancellors position have been untenable for a very long time - their surreptitious scaremongering and arbitrary knee-jerk actions is reprehensible - it has no place and serves only to confirm a major political and financial conflict of interest. Regardless of any outcome from the present worldwide financial fallout which the PM should stop hiding behind, he will go down in history for being one of the most obtuse and blind-sided PM's with one of the shortest tenures in high level government. Neither of those individuals exude confidence which the markets badly need as do the people, the proof of that is that they 'wait' to see what the US does next in the absence of their own 'creative' ideas, and palm others ideas off as their own - whilst I accept the US's actions are often instrumental in what can be done, waiting should not be an option - initiative is required, and they have none left, not least public money in the coffers. Piecemeal politics is over - major time for change in clear-minded approaches and discipline is needed, but who? More importantly, when?

The 700 billion dollar conspiracy theory (You heard it here first)

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:13:41 +0000

"I hope you're confident about our economy. I am. We've got some short-term issues to deal with� - "This economy of ours is on a solid foundation, but we can't take economic growth for granted." GWB �The global economy has been more robust than at any point I can recall,� �the economy is resilient� Henry Paulson etc etc First, McCain tries to wrong foot Obama into a knee-jerk reaction of going or not going to Washington. Second, McCain�s presence in Washington was steeped in self interest with absolutely no consideration to the negative effect his and the presidential election candidates would have on any bail-out �resolution�. Third, the Republicans have resigned themselves to losing the upcoming presidential election, and as a result have attempted to line their lint filled pockets with �bail-out� money, leaving the Democrats to find a way out of an even deeper deficit pit. Yes, that�s right, a handful of senior and not so senior Republicans as well as other sycophantic interested parties have colluded to bringing down the country at the expense of the people in addition to a skillful attempt at leaving the Democrats to sort it all out and answer for why they would co-approve the plan in the first place... of course once they get to �power�. Here�s the rub� Definition of terrorism; 3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. There can be no doubt that certain dark forces in Government have been busy capitalizing on the securing of their own �golden parachute� by external-insider dealing activity. As contentious an issue or matter for debate and deliberation it is, one cannot escape one verifiable fact, the government of the day cannot be trusted! I can tell you now, I am no conspiracy theorist. Enter Michael Moore!

Global Financial Armagedon - Don't forget why we are here.

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:50:15 +0000

Simply stated again and again on the telle, it is "toxic debt" that has cause this problem, but - what is it? It is debt that the average person has been pushed into, that they can not pay. Do not forget that the media for the past decade have been ramping and hyptnotising the UK public in to thinking house prices always go up... etc... hanging the public by the noose of greed, helping them in to the noose by pushing mortgages of embarrassing proportions, 6,7 10 times sallery, 125% loans on houses that are actually not worth slaving away several life times. The continuous property programs telling people they can add 10,000 on a house just by painting a wall magnolia. The larger the loans the greater the profit the banks were making skimming off the interest, 6% interest on a 300,000 loan for a shoebox is more profitable that a fairer price of 60,000. Kirsty Allsop, Phill Spencer et al - hang your heads in shame - you were part of the root infection of our economy. Sooooo many young people now have a chain of debt around their neck, homes repossessed all because of this criminal drug type pushing of debt and property - no need to describe the programs , you know the criminals. This, is what the "toxic debt" really is, but it easier to call it this that tell the public what exactly this "toxic debt" is.

Website traffic, and thank you to visitors.

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:42:31 +0000

Over the last day or so, if you visited this website you will have noticed that we have been off line with a bandwidth error. The demand for this website from visitors has just rocketed, thousands and thousands of unique visitors are visiting here and our servers just reached their limit. We have invested in a bigger server, so for now, we can accommodate all of you. We have plenty of readers, if you have an opinion you want to air - if you want to discuss the credit crunch, this is THE place to do it, you will reach many many people in the UK.

They were right.... Take a look at this video

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:11:21 +0000

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936

Perhaps the public are now ready to watch this video without brushing it off...

Email this to your friends.

What can I say, buy gold .
Don't miss the next bubble! Yet more media exposure to gold as an investment, this time from the timesonline.co.uk .

The legal definition of money,

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:27:04 +0000

mSparks from http://www.theborgmatrix.com came up with this good explanation of the legal definition of money, The One Show on the BBC picked up on it but failed to give mSparks any credit. QUOTE (mSparks @ Apr 11 2008, 12:36 PM) * The problem he has, is the legal definition of money, and the reality of what money is are two very different things. In legal terms, money is exactly what your J6P considers it to be, a briefcase full of notes written by the BoE, which is excepted in the payment of taxes. In reality - i.e. what should actually matter to you and I, its much more complicated than that. The example I use is as follows: Me: "Which would you prefere, these 5 �20 notes or this envelope and pen." Pupil: "well, duh, those 5 �20 notes of course." I then write on the envelope "I promise to pay your rent for 6 months" and ask the same question again Pupil: Pause, "the envelope..." Then I cross that out, and write below it "I promise to give you �1million tomorrow" and again ask the question. Pupil: Pause, Pause, "I think I'd take the notes" Me: "Why? surely your rent is less than �1Million? why would you want the envelope before, and not now?" Pupil: blank look. Me:"Its actually very simple, you wanted it before, because you would trust me enough to cover your rent for six months, you know I dont have �1million to give you and so the envelope is again worthless" However, courts would consider the �1million envelope to be worth �1million, and if (s)he accepted it, I would be obliged to pay, or have an order raised against my assets and be made bankcrupt. It sounds like he was trying to argue like the uneducated pupil, and the court had no choice but to laugh at him. The point he could have win on is possibly securitisation, several lawyers in the US have won cases (or rather Deutsche bank has lost several foreclosures) because foreclosure has been brought by the institution that originally made the loan, but then it sold it on to multiples of other institutions, in US law the 'owner' of the debt must bring the foreclosure, and double jeopardy prevented anyone from trying to foreclose again. However we don't have double jeopardy afaik, there is no argument that the bank owns his debt (however much they paid for it).

Brown Buzzword Bingo

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:05:52 +0000

Found this out on the interweb on another house price forum, great game. Spread it around!!! How to play Brown Buzzword Bingo :- Every time the man opens is mouth on telle, have this list to hand, tick of which ever predictable and rubbish phrases the man uses.... or print out this helpful score card. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/_WZcommonimages/bbb.jpg hard working families well placed to weather the storm global financial turmoil oil price shock low unemployment low interest rates under the last Tory government interest rates were 15% Strong Fundamentals getting on with the job Its the right thing to do Brown bonus ball: Prudent. See if you can get full house. Then visit our Gordon Brown myth buster section, to find out exactly how much rubbish the man is spouting. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showforum=55

Gordon Brown today anounced he would take measures to prevent future Booms and Busts.... again....

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:55:00 +0000

Gordon Brown is clinically insane, who was it that said the definition of madness is repeating something again and again even though is fails all the time, well... Gordon McJockstrap is pledging to eliminate Boom and Bust... again.. he is using slightly different words but thats what he is saying. [quote]Gordon Brown has pledged to "clean-up" the financial system following the rescue of Britain's biggest mortgage lender HBOS by Lloyds TSB.[/quote] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7623053.stm He promises to make sure future busts do not occur!! The man is sickening, he promised to eliminate boom and bust 10 years ago! And now he has failed, he is promising to do the same again! For gods sake, look at what state our country is in after the past 10 years, please please no more of the same from the same man again!! Can the UN step in and monitor a democratic election? The UK is under a dictatorship, with an unelected leader, subject to criminal policies that are not working and are being repeated.

Please contact BBC - Panorama, to help with their Lehman Brothers Special.

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:45:42 +0000

We got the following message from BBC panorama today: Hello, On Monday Panorama is broadcasting a special programme following the Lehman Brothers collapse. How Safe Is My Money? will look at the bank's demise, its impact and how comsumers are likely to be affected. We are looking for four specific types of case studies to help us tell this story. The people we are looking for are: - Someone about the retire on a private pension who have seen the value drop - Someone who has an amount of cash but who are now confused and concerned about where to put - A first time buyer who is trying to get a mortgage - Someone on a LIBOR rate mortage If this sounds like you and you would are willing to speak to us please e-mail panorama@bbc.co.uk Many thanks, BBC Panorama team

Collapse of the global banking system imminent.

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:51:39 +0000

Collapse of the global banking system? AIG a keystone in the global financial arch is crumbling.

Readers here and on our linked sites can not say they are surprised by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and from the posting history on the forums these events were expected. The property price crash could now turn out to be even worse that we had predicted, we are looking at a total melt down where a 50% fall would be optimistic, property isgoing to be close to worthless very soon. Cut your asking price by 30 % now and then by 5% a month until you sell, youwont see your money again if you don't.

The next bank set to go is AIG , these people have their finger in every pie, they underwrite everyone - they are an insurer and should be able to payup to help out the failing banks - but it seems they too have been guilty of wearing the emperors new clothes.

If AIG go under, there will be no confidence left across many more banks across the globe - this crisis is systemic, planned or unplanned it is part of the banking system and can not be extracted and can only be played out. AIG failing will simply be catastrophic, other insurers have AIG as their foundation and so do many other banks.

The availability of money / debt is going to be extremely tight for the next 5 years, there is very very little confidence in the credit business and there is no bright side (Alister Darling, bringing in regulation after the crash is not looking on the bright side - you twonk) .

What is the effect on property prices?

Well - a hell of a lot of highly paid bankers (compared to the average wage outside the business) have lost their jobs, thousands of people have suddenly lost the ability to pay overpriced house prices even if they were convinced by a spotty teenage estate agent.There is simply no one out there who can afford to buy a house.

In light of recent events can you not see Gordon Browns plans to persuade young people to commit financial suicide buy buying property now is just criminal - Gordon Brown - OUT OUT OUT.

Yesterday was the signal for the turning point where if you have bought an expensive house - there are going to be absolutely no buyers, gullible or not, to take your property of your hands.

You have a mortgage - what about your monthly payments. I am afraid that inflation in the UK is approximately 5% and has been rising, the target is 2%. The mortgage rates are already de-coupled from the UK interest rate and are very high, but the bank of england will be forced to raise rates which will defiantly give the mortgage companies further excuse to raise your mortgage payments - we are about to enter double digit repayment rates of 15% and possibly further. With house prices now falling at double digit rates again, the picture for anyone with a mortgage is very grim indeed.

I can imagine anyone who has crystallised and preserved their wealth in gold bars or coins are very happy with themselves, the fear at the moment isthat the paper cash in your pocked is about to turn in to very well decorated toilet paper. Even if you buy just one gold kruggerand, youwill be have some small protection on your wealth if you are interested in buying in to gold in a big way, store it in a vault in Zurich - anywhere AWAY from the UK - for more info on gold and gold confiscation laws please visit DrBubbs website, you can find the link to globaledgeinvestors in out links page.

Contact Us

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:05:13 +0000

The quickest way to contact us would be to join the main chat forum and start posting. If, however, you would like to discuss something in private you may find us at talk2us <at> creditcrunch <dot> co <dot> uk

Government Launches Rescue Package for Builder Companies

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:47:21 +0000

Well, this is really what its all about. Gordon brown - rescuing the building markets at any cost just to stay in power. Watching Darling on TV news was just unbearable, look Darling - stick to your bloody guns... you fell back in my estimation today after being briefly elevated. If we are so bloody well placed, if the fundamentals are so damn strong then why the hell are you taking my tax money and giving it directly to the house builders? AND!! you plan includes trapping more young people in debt? Stamp duty at �175,000 for one year is not really going to help, you have just knocked 25,000 of all 200,000 properties. Own goal - if it works.. I hardly think a saving of �1,750 is going to tempt people back. I noticed the following interviews: Home Builders Federation- on BBC welcome package --- of course!! Its designed to protect their profits. Council of Mortgage lenders, say it a step in the right direction to attract investors back in to the market!! I don't want investors I want homes for families, not investment properties for little porky television presenters. The 30% loan of value of house promised to first time buyers will go directly to line the pockets of builders. Where does this money come from? Our tax? Thats right, first time buyers very own tax is going to be used to keep the properties up and unfordable. Sick isn't it. To anyone with an ounce of intelligence will see the government has just admitted that property is still at least 30% overvalued, as first time buyers can not afford to buy without this 30% gift from the government. For hells sake - just let the damn market correct by a further 30% (in total 40%), first time buyers will have a smaller mortgage to pay and an affordable property price as well as an "affordable" mortgage. That way FTBs will OWN wholy their property and not have the government. Screw the damn home builders - they gambled , they should lose and not us tax payers. Gordon Brown is desperate, and he is going to try and protect his job and take us down doing that. Gordon you are truly the most sickening little bastard this country has had the misfortune to have, call that election and let us show you how we feel you coward. One person we do like is Philip Booth - he was cut unfairly short when giving answers as I suppose it goes against GBs plans. Give this man more time to answer questions and cut off the companies who have just had their pockets lined. Philip Booth - Institute of Economic affairs, we like you here. There is one inescapable fact, even if the government does give you 30% cash, do you spend it now or in 8 - 10 months when your 30% will get you a bigger house. Wait, don't buy. Look at what the graphs say.

Darling admits he had no idea how serious the credit crunch would become.

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:27:02 +0000

" Darling admits he had no idea how serious the credit crunch would become" http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/aug/30/economy.alistairdarling At last, the truth is told, and someone is standing up to Gordon Brown. Gordon is still rattling on about, stable economy, weather the storm, job to do blah blah blah. I'm just not sure if Darling was stupid not to see the consequences of the Brown years, and if so he probably was picked as the fall guy.

House prices crash by 10.5% in just one year - faster than the crash in the 1990's

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:32:40 +0000

Latest Nationwide data shows month-on-month fall on 2% bringing the yearly fall to a staggering double digit value of 10.5%, a value that was predicted for the next 3 years and also a value that was denied could ever happen by estate agents and other mortgage dependent businesses.

At this rate, 30% - 50% within the next 32 months is now almost certain. Prices only go up eh? Missed the boat? Thats one boat I am glad I did not buy a ticket for.

If you have bought in the last 18 months you are probably in negative equity.

If you are a first time buyer, who has resisted the pressure from parents and friends, well done and here are some dinner party quotes to get your own back.

Message for Declan Curry, BBC: You berk.

For a while now I have generously been giving you the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps yourhands were tied up by Auntie. But... this morning you removed all doubt from my mind, and I am now certain you a shameless non-independent VI, no wonder they let you work at the BBC.

You haven't quite been able to admit to the fundamentals over the past year clearly showing that house price falls are going to be deep, and 12 months ago you ridiculed anyone who thought 10% would happen - well look at the data today.

Your smirky little comment "so prices have fallen, your not going to be able to get a mortgage anyway" directed at people who chose to sit out the lunacy shows nothing but a nasty jealous streak running through you.

You should also know that a lot of people are shortly going to be wiping that grin of your face when they buy properties in cash, or have a hefty deposit for a cheap mortgage.

I hope your high leveraged BTL empire is weighing you down.

Beatrix Potter - Writes about the Credit Crunch.

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:24:13 +0000

Did you know the credit crunch phenomena is as old as the hills? Here is an extract from a story written by Beatrix Potter around the time of the last great depression. " Ginger and Pickles gave unlimited credit. Now the meaning of "credit" is this--when a customer buys a bar of soap, instead of the customer pulling out a purse and paying for it--she says she will pay another time. And Pickles makes a low bow and says, "With pleasure, madam," and it is written down in a book. The customers come again and again, and buy quantities, in spite of being afraid of Ginger and Pickles. But there is no money in what is called the "till." " The full story, and links to further details, can be found here. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1219 It is never too early to teach your children how to manage money properly - perhaps this is a nice stocking filler for the upcoming winter of discontents Christmas?

New builds crash to �40,000 in Southampton - thrashing out a path for the rest of the UK

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:47:39 +0000

You know what I have just realised, it really is different to the 1990's - this time around it's going to be much worse.
Data trickling in from online property price searches and anecdotals across the web chat forums show new builds, which were previously paid for in the region of 150k plus, are now exchanging hands at the �40K level.

The following link shows data just coming though in the area of Southampton.

http://www.nethouseprices.com

The credit crunch has not even reached full force yet and the house price crash in the UK has only just begun.

For a while know, undercover estate agents contributing to Internet forums and blogs have long since reported that the writing is on the wall and the property market really is crippled - it is interesting to see their statements backed up by the recent job bleeding in the EA and Mortgage companies.

I would be very tempted to reach in to my war chest to buy a nice home right now, if it was not for the fact that the general consensus of people in the know is that UK property values have a lot further to fall and in a couple of years time you might be able to pick up a nice family sized terrace for 60 - 70K out in suburbs.

Please continue to use BeerHunters website www.property-bee.com to track the sharp fall in UK property prices.

UK builders - who can you trust in the credit crunch?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:18:00 +0000

Over the past 6 months you can not deny that there has been a dramatic change in the economic winds around the good ship UK.

We have nearly had the mortgage lender Northen Rock go under, sparking the first bank runs in the UK for a century, large building
companies recording record losses and new build developers canceling their developments. It certainly looks like there is no future
for the building industry in the UK.
Could the financial credit crunch lead to more customers having to take legal action as in the case below.

We were contacted by regular readers of this website from Oxfordshire, and have been asked to look at their Facebook group - we found the following, factual, statement (As put together by someone with legal knowledge) up on their log along with a photo.

" We have have had incredible problems with Adrian Andrews, a builder operating in the Oxford area. Andrews agreed to build a new bathroom for us. He took a large amount of money (almost �5000) in advance for the bathroom suite, and neither the suite nor Andrews have been seen since. Because Andrews made some of the cheques payable to James Baldwin, another builder, and to Tracey Andrews, we have sued all 3 for the money back. My strong advice - do not give either Andrews or Baldwin any work under any circumstances. If you have similar stories about either Andrews or Baldwin, please let me know."

In general as a builder in these hard belt tightening times you should do your very best to take every precaution not to cause upset or confusion to your local community, you may suffer unwanted consequences or misconceptions to your actions. These days a lot of people are internet savy - and are willing to spread their experiences online.

You can keep up with the above case in their facebook group on builder problems (search for Trouble with builders). I wish them good luck and will be very interested in hearing how things turn out.

It's encouraging to see the good folk of the UK standing up for themselves.

Picture of Adrian Andrew: Not available for comment.

BBC looking for you - in Birmingham.

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:40:18 +0000

Hi All, At the BBC we are currently making a programme about those individuals and families who have been affected by the credit crunch and the attendant financial downturn. We are particularly keen to hear from people who live in Birmingham and who may wish to speak to us about the very real impact the rising cost of living is having upon them. I would be very grateful for any responses and for any assistance in the making of this documentary. Please feel free to contact me at matthew.hill3@bbc.co.uk. Best regards, Matthew Hill

Down trodden first time buyers get social revenge.

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:38:12 +0000

For as far back as you can remember, smug and irresponsible people at dinner parties
would talk about nothing other that how they manage to borrow 6 times their salary, on an interest
only mortgage to get on the ladder before it was too late. Many a first time buyer would
be on the receiving end of the now clearly lunatic assumptions...

1) Property prices only go up
2) You'll miss the boat
3) Borrow as much as you can, up to your eyeballs and buy that one bed with a few of your friends.
4) etc.. etc...

Well, now the sensible people who were not suckered in by programs such as location location location,
have been vindicated by todays (and the past few months) haliwide statistics.

Up to half a decade of pent up emotions being on the receiving end of stick from the unquestioning herd, they
have finally snapped and are preparing their own lines for dinner parties.

Here are a few of these credit crunch one liners I found out there on the internet.

'You bought a BTL last November? You f***ing dimwit!'

'You paid �200K for a 2 bedder in central Manchester? You daft c**t!'

'Seen these Haliwide monthly figures - I bet you're well gutted!'

' Resetting your NR Together mortgage - I think not, pal!!

'Tell you what, I'll give you half what you paid for it!'

'Rental income won't cover, and its value collapsing as well? Well, could be worse. You've got your health'

'They overvalued it, mate! They saw you f**king coming, didn't they!!'

'No, I can't lend you a fiver. You're sub-prime, mate'.

'Living in your car? Still, it's a VW estate, isn't it? Plenty of room...'

'Property, eh? Up and down like a bride's nightie. Me? I'm renting, quids in!!'

'Chin up, for f**k's sake!! They say there'll be an upturn in 2019'.

BBC Panorama - Are you feeling the pinch?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:51:57 +0000

Panorama is working on a programme which we hope will reveal the true effect of the credit crunch and the rising cost of living. We want to get behind the statistics and learn how the current squeeze is hitting your pocket. If you are a UK resident you can help us by answering the short questionnaire below. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7525783.stm

UCL and Radio4 map the credit crunch

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:33:11 +0000

London in trouble:

This interesting survey ran between 26th April 2008 and 30 June 2008, members of the public were asked to give their postcode and comment on what was the most affected area in their life by the credit crunch from the following list;

# Mortgage or Rent
# Fuel
# Food Prices
# Holidays
# Other
# Not Affected

Full results for the rest of the UK are available at http://www.maptube.org/creditcrunch/

But it is interesting to see that
1) The whole country is feeling the fuel cost.
2) The most concentrated mortgage or rent problems were in London - or at least less people use cars inside London.

The worst affected areas are clearly, Putney, Fulham, Chelsea and Streatham amongst other places.

These are the places where if you are going to make a low offer, of 35% or more, you are probably going to get a bargain

If you are an estate agent in these areas, you better start looking for a new job.

insidehousing.co.uk request.

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:10:51 +0000

We got the following request from insidehousing.co.uk. ================= Hello I'm a journalist on Inside Housing magazine and I am hoping to hear from anyone who has been personally affected by the credit crunch - whether a tenant whose rent has shot up, or a homeowner struggling with payment hikes, first-time buyers who can't find an affordable mortgage... It's for a feature in next week's issue: please get in touch if you'd like to share your story. Simon.brandon@insidehousing.co.uk Thanks for reading Si B

Alistair Shylock Darling

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:48:34 +0000

<quote>Chancellor Alistair Darling has warned his Cabinet colleagues not to expect any more money for schools, hospitals or transport. He said people were feeling "squeezed" by rising prices and would not tolerate higher taxes for public services. </quote> Alistair Shylock Darling is trying to get on the good side of the public, trying to sympathies with the large tax burden and so then justifying cuts in health, school and police services as a positive relief to the over burdened tax payer. Oh how lucky and grateful we should feel. I hope you the members of the public have not forgotten the billions given away without question to fat cat bankers who should have gone bankrupt. So - as a public tax payer we are told we wont tolerate being taxed for payments for our hospitals and schools, instead we prefer to be bent over and tolerate billions of pounds bailing out the likes of Northern Rock - fat lot of good that does for the education of our children and the health of our elders. Thank you very much Shylock Darling. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7515066.stm If it's still not blindingly obvious to what Darling is doing - let me distill it for you; he will raise your tax to give to the banks, but will not spend your tax money on you. Sort of an inverse Robin Hood, take from the poor give to the Rich.

House Prices to Crash by 35% - 50%

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:31:21 +0000

No commentary is needed when presented by the graphs above.

This week, was the week when we waved bye bye to terms like "soft landing" , "mild correction" and a "blip in the market".

We are now firmly in HOUSE PRICE CRASH territory.

The last great crash was in the 90s, some readers will remember how horrible that was... looking at the graphabove on the right hand side, you can see that what took 2 years (24 months) to accomplish, this time around we only needed a few months.

The Halifax/Nationdwide date shows just how sharp and steep the changes are this time arround are.

A lot of economic commentators are having to scrape egg of their faces, as most predicted a "soft landing" of about 3% this year or maybe 10% over the next few years - most of them being related to the mortgage lending companies so had a vested interest in encouraging you to borrow more than you could afford.

We have ALREADY hit 9% and the crash has not even completely started.

Acceptance has hit home in the general media, describing this House Price Crash the worst in at least 50 years.

You are now advised to prepare for falls in the region of 35% - 50%.

Local Library - Rent DVDs and Music

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:41:19 +0000

Up to date DVDs can be rented for as little as �1.00 from your local library.

If you have never been to your local library, go along and you'll also find you can cheaply rent music CD.

Plus! They are a great place to borrow books, for free!

For some cheap family activity, some libraries also run organised events for kids and adults.

It's a great source of information for local groups, activities, events and organisations where you can get involved with your local community, meet people and have some fun for minimal cost

Look on your local county council website for further information on opening times and services.

House builders bleed jobs

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:57:20 +0000

Today, following on from Persimmon 2000 job cuts yesterday, Bovis Homes and Redrow have announced they will cut their jobs by 40%, they say the credit crunch and drop in the number of affordable mortgages are to blame for the market problems.

What about that shortage of property that was going to keep property prices up? This is a perfect exposure ofindustrial vested interest spin and how the public are lied to, only weeks ago were told there was a shortage of housing, peoplewere desperate to buy etc... etc... etc... If that was true, in months 1000's of people must have disappeared.

The truth is, there was never a shortage of property, if there were; these builders would not be halting building and sheddingso many jobs.

The other point that needs to be explained, is the lack of affordable mortgages, the reason banks want larger deposits of 30% insteadof giving you 125% interest only mortgages is that they now believe UK property is at least overvalues by 30% and not as they used to think, willgrow in value by 25%.

Any which way you look at it, we were lied to about property value and now prices are crashing hard and the industry foundations are crumbling.

Gordon Brown reveals "It's all your fault" policy.

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:03:27 +0000

Distressed by the huge portions of blame being slapped on to his plate, over the weekend Gordon Brown has been hard at work creating hisnew "It's your fault" policy.

The first application of the "It's your fault" policy has been to the rising cost of food.

The British public has been whacked by the credit crunch, the combination of less cash and higher food prices has directed a lotof anger at Gordon Brown. From today, it has been now been decided that it's actually your fault for wanting to eat. Contrary to what the BBC(Brown Broadcasting Coorporation) would have you believe, many families (and singles) try to make every scrap count.

And it's not just families, take this story in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk To quote, "Many scour cheap supermarkets for cut-price deals, buy damaged goods and hang around market stalls as they close to pick up vegetables discarded by traders, according to the research that paints a remarkable picture of their lives.In one case a woman ate noodles priced at 8p for lunch every day because she had only �10 a week to spend on food."

WHO EXACTLY IS WASTING FOOD MR BROWN

Brown has already made plans to make us feel guilty for issues such as the NHS, it will be "our fault" for falling ill.

Low wage and salary will also be addressed with his new policy, it will be "our fault" for wanting financial security.

High fuel prices (70% of which is tax), guess what... It's "our fault" that we want to get to work

Gordon Brown thinks he is on to a winner.Gordon Brown is a walking middle finger to the British public.

Freecall - Another cheap phone service.

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:32:07 +0000

Just like www.skype.com, www.freecall.comis an internet telephone service, with the added advantage of being able to use your own phones.

For an initial charge of about �10, you have unlimeted access to free as well as cheap phone calls, please check their tarrifs for the countries and phone types. Most notably, calls to the USA and USA mobiles from UK landlines are free and UK to UK landlines are free.

Once you have your account setup, to make a call you simply use a their online call starter. You type in the phone number you're nearest to, this could be your home, work or friends home phone... then you type the number you want to call. Press enter, and the magic starts.

Free call will call your phone, wait for you to pick up and as soon as you have done this Freecall will then call the outgoing number and all you do is then wait for the other end to pick up. Don't worry, your friends/work number will not be charged for this at all!

Often their tariffs to other numbers are cheaper than your home line, e.g. BT etc... get one up on them and take a look at the freecall website.

If you make any calls that are not free, the cost is deducted from your initial charge of �10 - as long as you have credit in your account you can continue using their free service. Note; eventually if you are only using their free call service they will ask for another �10 charge, but by that time, in my experience, you have more than made back the �10 cash for equivalent home phone service.

Please check your own home phone tariffs and do your homework first.

Skype- Free and Cheap Telephone Calls

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:22:12 +0000

Here is a post from secretsquirrel, reproduced below.

There are various deals with various companies that, as part of a package of phone/broadband etc, offer free calls abroad. Often, there will be a time limit - I have Talk Talk (and the service has been fab!) and there is a 70 minute limit - so you have to hang up and redial.If you have a lot of friends/family abroad, you really need to look into www.skype.com. It's calls made computer to computer (using a headset/usb phone) and is totally free this way. You can use it to make cheap landline calls as well, but computer to computer is free, so the best option!!!

I am a massive massive fan of Skype. My OH lives abroad and we spend HOURS on skype each evening chatting, totally for free. The quality is good and because it's computer to computer and we both have laptops, we can still talk if we're away at hotels etc.

Whilst chatting the other evening, we thought it'd be interesting to figure out how much money skype saves us in phonecalls. We figured out the average conversation length per night, and the cost per minute of a BT call from the UK to the country he's in. Over a year, we worked out we would spend �4,000 on our current phone usage if we had to pay for it on BT!! So, we wouldn't be able to chat as much or as long - and, there would be more pressure on the time that we were connected to be saying something meaningful - whereas when it's free, we can chat about all the rubbish we want to - and have been known to watch TV together over the telephone!!! It's not a choice between chatting and flights, we know the chatting is free!

So, if you have friends and family abroad, I suggest you go to www.skype.com, download the programme now and get yourself a headset/usb phone and start enjoying the benefits of free calls now!

Time to ride the gold bubble?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:26:26 +0000

Knowing what we saw with the property ramping over the last decade, I have a gut feeling we
are about to wittiness the rise of the next fashionable place for investment money - GOLD.

There are going to be a lot of investors just itching to inflate another asset bubble, and gold
may be their next choice.

Looking at the Bubble ChartYou could argure that the gold cycle is just entering the mania stage.

That is, its only just being spoken about in the media as an alternative investment opertunity for the public,
the BBC has recently just run a few shows on buying gold - featuring ATS-Bullion on The Strand, London

I think we are going to see the back of property porn television shows, and the rise of commodity investment programs.

This is all my personal opinion, so please go off and do your own research first before buying in to gold - don't put
all of your eggs in one basket - you might want to visit DrBubbs GEI site for more professional discussion on gold investment.

As for myself, I have bought a little amount of gold and think the gold bubble has a long way to inflate - I hope to rideit up.

It's surprisingly easy to buy gold bars and coins, just walk in to you nearest dealer - hand over your cash or debit card
and you are suddenly the owner of a heavy lump of gold.

For a while after buying you have a strange but comforting feeling, that you have removed yourself from the fiat paper
money system and don't run the risk of standing outside another Northern Rock wondering if you are going to ever seeyour wealth

For more gold info you could also visit Gold Is Money
Protect your wealth.

Bubble Chart

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:09:36 +0000

Economic bubbles, asset bubbles, investment bubbles - the news is full of comments on financial bubbles.

What are they and how do they play out?
Below is a nice chart with the different phases on a bubble, the time scales could be anything, 5 to maybe even 15years, and if you can spot a bubble you could do very well.

A recent well known bubble is the UK housing market, try and fit the media hype and public awareness of this property cycle to the above graph, interesting eh?
I think the UK is in between the "return to normal" and "fear" phase on that chart.
We are undeniably heading south.

Kirsty Allsop to eat her hat live on TV

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:52:49 +0000

[Webmaster: After reading about krusty, check up on the latest CREDIT CRUNCH NEWS: All the latest UK headlines, including swine flu. Bookmark us.]

Well, at least I wish she would.

Here she is next to todays latest house price crash data, those house prices are slip siding away!

Here is a nice tasty selection of hats that she might like to choose from.

Todays financial times has picked up on our "pwaperty gurus" promise to globalhousepricecrash.com to eat her hat if property prices in the UK fell, she was red face at the time and was so angry just so angry that she looked likeshe was going to throw her toys out of the pram.

Shes not the most sharpest tool in the box and with comments such as "If only the Government would cut stamp duty. That would stop house prices falling" - not too experience in the global credit crunch problem - Daft mare.

The conservatives recently employed her as their property adviser , which I think has backfired BIG TIME... Alsop a first class clown, David... if your going to appoint anyone try Merryn Somerset Webb at the MoneyWeek website, the public have a lot of respect for her.

I hope Krusty does eat her hat, no doubt all of the first time buyers on the property shows (and the ones watching) that were forced to buy at the peak and now losing all their cash would love to shove that hat down her neck.

Her wikipedia entry is a war ground, members of the propery price crash forums have been trying to out the truth butI think Kristy has PR men on that site. Here is the latest edit, to her wikipedia entry, which will be removed shortly so I reproduce it here;

Kirstie promised to 'eat her hat' if property prices did not rise by mid September 2005 in a BBC Radio 5 interview.[6] As a result of some of the criticism she has received a number of unflattering nicknames have become widely used on internet forums as a way for posters to indicate their dislike of the way she has allegedly ramped property. These include, Krusty the clown and Krusty Allslop. Examples of this can be found on the web forums.

Phil Spencer, her co-presenter on Location, Location, Location, has also faced criticism. In an article published in the Daily Telegraph (April 18th 2008) he was described as a "confidence trickster" and a "smarmy snake-oil property-porn merchant". He was accused of "peddling tripe" and told he had "helped to cause harm to thousands of families".

Here is the FT LINKAnd here is the Allsop looking oh so stupid... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-mM88Fk080 warning, you might feel unclean after watching her.

Packed Lunch

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Buying your sandwiched from your favorite shop could cost as much as 7 pounds, including a drink. Add the odd takeaway coffee, your looking at 10 pounds a day, 50 pounds a week and 200 pounds a month!!! Think about it this way, would you pay a 200 pound monthly subscription fee to someone to supply you with moist and pathetic cucumber sandwiches each day? No, well I would not either. Get your self a loaf of bread at the beginning of the week, make all you sandwiched on Sunday night ... choose a filling that will last, such as cheese, ham peanut butter. Okay, you not looking at the most glamorous ingredients but we want to save some cash and fill the hole in your belly. That should cost no more that 10-15 a week, thats a saving of at least 35 a week, 140 a month!!! You could also buy a thermos and take your own coffee to work or if you are allowed a kettle, make you own instant.

Food Shopping

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:45:28 +0000

A lot of money is spent by supermarkets on finding new ways to make you spend more money than you originally wanted to, ever leave the supermarket with more in you basket than you planned for? Try to do the following * Write down what you need before you go to the supermarket - make a shopping list - stick to it. * Buy a cook book, or better yet - scan the internet for recipes. Making your own food is often cheaper and tastier than ready meals. * Change your supermarket, try those cheaper supermarkets, they really are great value for money. * If you do want to keep shopping in upper market places, at least try and buy their own brand products. * BOGOF? (Buy one get one free) Do you really need to buy them? Nothing is for free, these offers are a marketing tool. * BOGOF again, if you do find a good deal, you may want to team up with a friend and split the cost. * Buy your food at the weekend markets, wait till near the end - often sellers don't want to carry their fruit and veg back and slash the prices.

Valuers mark down your properties by 30%

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:38:57 +0000

Well, if you just bought at the top of the market your money just went up in smoke.

There is not much to comment on really. The headline speaks for itself, here is a link to todays times.

Timesonline.co.uk

Again, you will find some clutching at straw remarks on how property is about to recover,

don't pay attention to these; we are at the beginning of a re-run of the last crash and the headlines are very similar.

30% price slashing is being enforced by home valuers as property is just not shifting,

no matter how hard some journalists and "property experts" try to talk the market up.

My oh my, how fast do some things change.

And here is a forecast in the guardian, for price crashes of 35% - how do you like them apples?

www.guardian.co.uk

Credit crunch hits London 2012 village financing

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:45:30 +0000

The ability of developers to raise loans and have forced organisers to consider drawing on contingency funding in the Olympics budget! http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7598676 What has gone wrong? I have the sneaking suspicion, that these 'private' funding methods involved selling properties to the general public off plan. Since the credit crunch began, property buyers have decided to wait for the house price crash before buying property - so what could this mean? It means, the company was trying to sell current day property , a lump of mud, dressed up as future tried and tested property value. It's like selling tulips that have not been planted.. and not even had the seed harvested of which they would be grown from. That reminds me, have a read of this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania People are either not falling for the rubbish estate agents dish out, or, they can't secure the money to buy because of the credit crunch. More lies, fraud and the like. FSA where are you teeth?

Estate Agents hunted down by the LAW, Kursty and Phil beware!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:20:39 +0000

Sub-prime crisis, Credit Crunch, House Price Crashing, the first time many of you here in the UK would have heard these terms would have been in USA stories only a few months ago. Today, we know the UK is suffering the same problems. Well, now there is a new property action sweeping the USA; angry home owners who have been miss-sold or have been encouraged to take on more debt; or have been coerced in to parting with more money than they should have, are now happy to see the Law getting involved. Estate Agents, Mortgage Brokers and even big investment bankers are now being chased up and down the USA and being arrested by the FBI for the part they played in making the credit crunch and property crash worse than it should have been. Two former Bear Stearns managers in New York were arrested following the collapse of a fund linked to sub-prime mortgages, who were found out sending emails to each other admitting the property market was 'toast', who then went on to tell investors that it was a sound investment! A clear demonstration on why you should not trust, builders, estate agents and television presenters. Approximately 406 other property market players have been arrested as part of the USA crackdown on mortgage fraud, and property ramping. You have to ask, how long before we see the FSA and police start taking action against UK estate agents; do you remember the BBC expose of Foxtons here in the UK last year? Shocking and arrestable offenses I think, and they should be running scared. If you're in the business, you're probably better of shopping your colleagues now before they grass you up. Oh, a message to the FSA, before you put away the likes of Kirsty Allsop and Phil Spencer for encouraging the young to enter a life of debt slavery, please put them in stocks in Central London so the population can get rid of their old vegetables. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7464298.stm

The credit crunch and the London economy seminar

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:23:06 +0000

Thursday 26 June 2008 City Hall, London, SE1 2AA Seminar summary: The credit crunch represents one of the most serious tests for the UK economy (and particularly the London economy) of the past decade or so. This seminar will look at the impacts of the credit crunch on financial services - a sector crucial to London's economy. It will also address specific impacts of the credit crunch on London's property markets. We will conclude with GLA Economics' latest forecast for London's growth in output, employment, household expenditure and household income in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Speakers: Shamik Dhar, Director Fathom Consulting Peter Damesick, Head of UK Research CB Richard Ellis Ltd Kevin McCauley, Director CB Richard Ellis Ltd Gordon Douglass, Economist GLA Economics Christopher Lewis, Senior Economist GLA Economics For more information and to book your place, please call GLA Economics on 020 7983 4922 or email glaeconomics@london.gov.uk http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/economic_unit/events/creditcrunch.jsp

Nationwide borrowers face near 8% mortgage rates.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:41:41 +0000

Yet again this month, pressured by the credit crunch, Nationwide has had to up their lending rate by up to as much as another 0.5%, raising most products to just shy of 8%. We have not seen rates of 8% + since the last great property crash in 1996, and we are seeing an almost weekly rate rise now from lenders. Lenders are concerned by the general inflation level in the UK, which is now noticeable in the rise in the cost of food, energy and petrol prices - which has today reached �1.99 per liter at some pumps. With inflationary pressures, the forecast for future interest rates is upward movement and in reaction to this, many more lenders are expected to follow suit and increase their rates. It was only last week that, amongst others, Halifax and The Royal Bank of Scotland increased their fixed rate deals. Home debtors (mortgage payers) who are coming to the end of their fixed rate, re-mortgaging or moving home will be in for a financial shock. Many more first time buyers this month will either no longer be able to afford to buy a property, or would have seen sense that buying in a falling market, especially with debt servicing at current costs, are going to be waiting it out to buy cheaper properties.

Desperate developers caught cutting new-build prices by 50%

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:27:46 +0000

Desperate property builders have thrown the towel in and raised the white flag, faced with the current economic climate and the credit crunch they are cutting their losses and running. In this article in the telegraph one company is reported as meeting government targets for providing affordable new builds by selling flats this week for 55,000 pounds. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2008/06/12/npbudget112.xml This spin is quickly wiped away when using the toolbar at http://www.property-bee.com , after installing the toolbar and visiting the development mentioned in the telegraph, http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-19536137.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy the history appears to show that at one point they were selling the flats for 101,000 pounds! That would be a price crash of almost 50% ! They have been on the market for at least a month at 101,000. Thank you property-bee again, for providing this amazing service. If brand new "new-builds" are going for such a cheap price, what must the BTL investors be thinking right now with second hand "new-builds", probably worth no more than 25,000 - 30,000. Ouch.

War on waste - Grow your own.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:49:17 +0000

Tonights "The One Show" has just done a piece on grow your own veg, potatoes, carrots and onions.

The main emphasis was on saving money and feeding your family.
The pill is being sweetened by the old "Lets make it fun for the family" and
"utilise unused lawn space to grow your veg".

I think the truth is closer to a government campaign to lift the pressure on the
UK food bill by persuading people to grow their own through mild suggestions.

You would think we were heading for a depression.

There is even a war-time vegetable garden exhibition in St James' park,on for a few more months so get your self down there if your interestedin gardening.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/digforvictory

House Prices to Crash at least 16% over 2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:56:45 +0000

The latest data shows that house prices have fallen yet again in May, and the year on year (YoY) fall is
the biggest we have seen since 1993, and each month from this point on will be a record breaker.

Todays interest rate hold at 5.00% will have not lifted the pressure on many mortgage payers who are hoping
for a cut, but unfortunately rate cuts are not being passed on and in fact mortgages are getting more expensive.

Many cheap and 100+% mortgages have been withdrawn and available rates have risen in spite of three rate
cuts since December.

First time buyers are no longer fueling the market and the bottom of the market has obviously just dropped out.

We can expect 16% falls this year and if this rate of fall continues over the next few years we could see 30% - 50% falls.
On a 300,000 flat in London that would save a first time buyer at most 150,000 - at the same time many people who have
recently bought will find themselves in negative equity.
BBC Story here...

Barclays Bank stops paying interest on your current account.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:55:08 +0000

Thats right, you read the title correctly, Barclays bank copies First Direct in this crazy idea. A spokesman says that Barclays customers don't value the interest payments on their current accounts so Barclays are scrapping them. If we all stop paying the interest on bank loans and try and get away with that... it wont be long before the debt collectors are round to claim the cash. This bit of news was hidden away in the weekend papers, apparently if you have a current account with Barclays you will now no longer receive an interest payment - anyone with more details? http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1194&pid=2789&st=0&#entry2789 They want to persuade customers to use paid services, so you will have to pay for a current account that pays out on interest. At this stage, I would be tempted to keep my money under my mattress, as 1) I don't want them to be able to profit from my cash, for free. 2) The fee of an interest earning current account would wipe out my current account interest gain anyway. 3) If I can't profit from my cash, why should Barclays and their shareholders? I would urge anyone out there, if your bank stops paying interest on you account... take your current account else where and also take your savings with you. Don't let them use your money for free. http://www.independent.co.uk/money/invest-save/julian-knight-flood-warning-how-long-will-insurers-step-into-the-breach-837637.html

New Statesman magazine looking for those affected by credit crunch- tenants, first time buyers

Fri, 30 May 2008 15:31:33 +0000

New Statesman magazine are printing in our next issue a feature regarding the effects of the housing crunch on the British people. We are particularly looking for personal stories/examples where the credit crunch had driven rents up and affected tenants in the private housing market. Or forced people to sell out.

If there are any affected parties-tenants and landlords-who would be willing to talk to us in a few words and to maybe be quoted in the article, please get in touch by phone or email.

Kind regards,

Owen Van Spall
New Statesman Direct line:
020 7881 5648
Email: intern2@newstatesman.com
Britain's award winning current affairs magazine
www.newstatesman.com

-4.4% YoY - Nationwide - House Prices Continue To Crash

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:43:07 +0000

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical/May_2008.pdf

Your house is now worth 4.4% less than last year, prices are not slowing - they are CRASHING.

Looking at the Halifax/Nationwide graphs, the trend is down, deep and sharp.

We have had price falls for the past 7 months, each month a deeper drop. We are accelerating
quickly and should catch up with the housing slump in America very soon.

The spin placed on this report is we are better prepared to weather the storm than in the 1990's,
we are not.

Also consider the predictions for the current property price falls were violently refused by the general media pundits and
our glorious leader, Gordon Brown. Yet here we are, in the beginning stage of the worst house price
crash this country will have ever seen. Please remember only months ago we were told house prices
never go down and this time next year they will increase by "200%", what a load of tosh.

Visionary websites such as www.globalhousepricecrash.com (and www.creditcrunch.co.uk ) have been
shouting loud about the creditcrunch and it's effects, which include a devastating house price crash,
for a very long time now. But not many have taken us seriously.

Do not buy property now, what ever you are told.

Please continue to use BeerHunters website, www.property-bee.com to track the house price falls in the UK and
take a look at TOOLS for other tools you might find helpful.

Remember, at this stage in the game for each month you do not buy you will;

1) Save 1000s of pounds of the price of a property.
2) As interest rates are going to be heading up, your deposit will be earning a nice profit in your bank account.

In other words, if you wait, you will get a bigger house for your cash with a smaller mortgage.

If you are a seller, you should take a profit hit now by lowering you price by a substantial amount rather than
chasing the market down, consider that in america prices have fallen by up to 40% -- even Gordon Brown regularly
on television at least admits this problem (which he believes originated in America) is spreading this way.

Yes, the property market really is doomed - and they dont want you to find out.

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:42:21 +0000

Inflation up and breaching the 3% limit.

Budget re-written

Back paddles on full steam regarding 10 pence tax hike.

Black Eyebrow dye going up in price

Tax increase to pay for the above

Northern Rock losing good debt.

And they are caught out hiding the truth about the property market from the public,

... which is stuffed.
Picture below shows a report by Caroline Flint, demonstrating how far up the creek the government is.

And yet, Gordo and Co. are pushing young innocent first time buyers to place themselves in a risky debt position by taking on more debt, to buy houses they KNOW are going to fall and trap them as debt slaves.

Exactly how is this showing that they are "on the peoples side" ?

Absolutely criminal.

There are so many things that I could point out in this report.

I will stick to this one.

1) House prices will at least fall 10% this year.

Why is this important?

Well, for how long have you the general public had "prices will only go up", "they wont let ithappen" shoved down your throat by the general media and governent press releases.

And in the picture, plain black and white is says.

1) House prices will fall at best case 5-10%

2) They know it will get worse but don't know how much.

So; now what do you do if you have just over exposed yourself because of all the property porn shows, and the false government misinformation?

I would suggest panic.

http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1177&pid=2752&st=0&#entry2752Here is a great spoof we found on the net

TELEVISION COMPANY SEEKING FIRST TIME BUYERS AFFECTED BY THE CREDIT CRUNCH

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:10:23 +0000

IWC are developing a programme about the credit crunch and its impact on the property market. We are keen to talk to first time buyers who are finding it difficult to obtain a mortgage as a result of the credit crunch. If you�re interested, we�d love to hear from you. Please call Jasbir on 0207 031 4057 or email: jasbir.saund@iwcmedia.co.uk

House prices to crash at least 30%

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:14:20 +0000

Mortgage owners will see up to �1,000 a week wiped from the value of their properties.

Recently stretched borrowers who have seen cheap mortgages disappear from the market
who are already being pushed to their financial limit will find no comfort in knowing that
each week, their house will fall in value faster than they can earn money. Many will suffer from
negative equity, paying a crippling monthly payment on a property they can't sell, at least at a price to clear their debts.

Nationwide have just reported a year on year house price fall, this means the house price crash is well under way.

It seems, mortgage interest payments are now dead money - and renters and first time buyers who have chosen
to sit out the market will pick up bargains in a few years time.

www.metro.co.uk

Credit Crunch Week : April 28th to May 2nd

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:17:00 +0000

The National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA) is to host Credit Crunch Week, which will run from April 28th to May 2nd and will include a range of tailored events across the country, including seminars, workshops and surgeries and the chance to access one-to-one independent, professional financial advice. More information, direct at the NFEA website: http://www.nfea.com/index.htm?page=activities/creditcrunch.htm Other news links. http://www.colchester.gov.uk/news_det.asp?art_id=6777&sec_id=657 http://www.financemarkets.co.uk/2008/04/14/credit-crunch-week-launched-for-small-businesses/ http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=103326

Brown returns furious to face 10p tax row

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:03:33 +0000

He is reported to be "furious" that the row overshadowed his trip to the US.
I could not care less about his holiday across the Atlantic.

The simple fact is, he did not abolish the 10p tax as he would like you to
think. He has in fact, doubled it to 20p. Thats a 100% rise in tax!
No wonder he's going mad that the public have found him out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7355901.stm

TV production company looking for families feeling the credit crunch

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:47:21 +0000

I'm currently doing some research for the TV company, TwoFour Broadcast, and would be really interested in speaking to any middle-class families that are feeling the bite of the credit crunch. Whether the recent economic change means that you'e having to take on a second job, or having to completely reassess your incomings and outgoings, then I'd be really keen to speak to you to help us progress with our research. Kind Regards Kim Harris kimberley.harris@twofour.co.uk

Darling failed GCSE maths

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:01:47 +0000

Or at least from his most recent comments you could expect he did. He conceded on Friday that the present turbulence was "the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression". But in his interview with the BBC, he downplayed fears that the UK is heading for a 1990s-style housing crash. "The key thing though is, unlike in the past, our interest rates are a lot lower." Darling, you are a complete fool - you could at least try to argue with some original material and not simply regurgitate Browns old familiar words. The key, Darling, is the following. I, and many others, would rather have a 17% interest rate on a 60,000 repayment mortgage (on a nice 3 bedroom house) than an 8% interest rate on a 300,000 IO mortgage (on a studio flat) - if you can't grasp which of the above is more affordable (long term, as property is a long term purchase) for your population you need to give up the day job. I'm reluctant to vote conservative, but blimey... i'm voting your government out at the next election.

Gordon Caught with his pants down.

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:41:23 +0000

WARNING: If you are offended by strong language please turn away now. I am deeply offended by Brown. Here is what our glorious leader said today. [quote]Because we've got low inflation we can cut interest rates, because we have had low debt, we can afford to keep our public spending programme in line[/quote] 1) Low inflation? Bollocks to that, I know, you as a reader know, the whole country knows. a) My/Your weekly shopping bill has rocketed! b) My daily petrol costs have rocket! c) My monthly electricity and gas bills have gone up! d) Although he wants to cut interest rates, banks have told Gordon to feck off and have raised all their mortgage rates and removed their cheap deals. Exactly HOW HAS INFLATION STAYED LOW? 2) Low debt? The UK is the NUMBER ONE 1!!! in the rankings for personal debt, in the WHOLE world. Our debt is at least twice that of the USA. Heres another quote from today. [quote]Gordon Brown says the slump in the UK housing market is "containable", after the sharpest monthly decline in prices since the early 1990s.[/quote] What just like the Credit Crunch was "containable"? Just months ago Gordon Brown denied we would ever be at the stage we are today because of sound fundamentals such as, low inflations (oops, see above), low debt (oops, see above), low unemployment (oops, jobs are being cut left right and center if your not affected chances are your friend are, I know from experience) I would give Gordon Brown only a matter of Months before he is thrown to the Lions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7336642.stm

House prices fell by 2.5% in March

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:21:27 +0000

The latest monthly figure from the UK's largest mortgage lender

was significantly worse than the average analyst prediction of a 0.4% fall.

This means, as a first time buyer, for every month you do not buy,

the more you save and the more bricks you will get for your cash.

Gordon Brown deserves stringing up, read on.

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:17:20 +0000

Gordon Brown is a slippery character, he is vastly under-qualified for the premiership he holds. He's a liar and a cheat. He called off an election, ah.. that's Brownian democracy for you. He's drummed on about providing stability, sustainability, eliminating economic bust, well that is all complete bollocks. Gordon Brown has had 5 years of warning from the IMF lighthouse on the direction in which our economic ship was sailing, it seems that if our one eyed leader was not able to take on board the warnings how the hell is he going to see us out? Here is a link to a list of news releases from the IMF letting us know the awful truth that power grabbing Brown would prefer you not to read. http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1118&pid=2626&st=0&#entry2626 He is an incompetent fool, a leader by default and a coward for bottling out of an election i which he should have been ousted. Gordon the bottler: http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/ecards/gordobotgen.htm

Mortgage Crunch

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:11:08 +0000

Today at least 3 UK lenders cut back their lending, some refusing to take on any new mortgages and others removing their fixed rate deals. The credit crunch has bitten hard accross all forms of credit, be they cards, mortgages and personal loans banks simply just do not have the money or confidence to lend anymore. Lenders affected 1) Halifax 2) HSBC (First Direct) 3) Co-op http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1100&st=0#entry2595