Interest rates

[Duke Drennan]

#1 The title of this post always gets up my nose. I recognise interest rates of what I have saved in the bank. I grew up with 8.5% of interest on the houses I bought without a word of complaint. When the interest rates were O.5 % everyone was slashing out taking advantage of the low rates and living above their means.There was no mention of the old people who had saved all their lives for retirement and had to survive on .2% interest on their frugal savings .My attitude to those today spewing about their repayment of mortgage rates is tough luck its your turn to be short of money and I have little sympathy for you. The higher the rates go as far as I am concerned the better will be the lifestyle of the little thought of , the other side of the community . Live with it and maybe you will learn by your mistakes , My advice would be to get a second job and pay your way in life. JS .

Personally, i think your comments are a bit harsh and you tend to tar current homebuyers with the same brush. Sure, things were different 50 years ago when we bought our first homes and, like you said, most, if not all of us worked two jobs to get by. We were fortunate in that employment, part-time or whatever was easier than it is today what with employers reluctant to offer a guaranteed 40 hours. However, like today, we could not foresee where the financial markets were headed but we still stepped on the home ownership ladder. Young couples today are forced to take on the same financial risks that we took. Yes, I’d agree that some may not fully weigh the risks and plunge head first into house purchases but others take the risk in order to provide a decent home for their young families. This is hardly a reason to decline any sympathy for their predicament, they have no control over the financial markets. We can hardly compare apples for apples.
Just my thoughts on the matter.

[Keith Tindell]

I listen to all the comments , and agree life is hard, but i still say that the main words in life are *wants*, and *reality*, if the reality is you cannot afford it, then you have to continue work until you can achieve your *want*, wants always exceed pay check, thats for sure.

[James Curry]

Think I bought my first computer in the early 90's. Curry's had a deal on pay, 25% deposit and you got interest free credit just as long as you cleared the balance within 6 months? Well paid the deposit using my flexible freind (Access card) anyone remember that. I do and always have cleared my credit cards before interest charges kick in.
So come the day when the credit has to be cleared I turned up at the store to clear the remaining credit.
Sales person logs on to the account gives me the balance to clear. £xxx? Pulled out the Access card!!! Oh says the sales person you cannot use a credit card to clear credit. Well if the credit card was good enough to pay the deposit WHY is it not good enough to pay the Balance. He took the card, obviously they were banking on people not being able to clear the account. They were now going from 0% interest to 29%? or some such extortionate rate.
Only reason I went to Curry's in the first place was it was 0% interest. My atittude was by leaving my £500 or whatever it was in my own bank account for 6 months it earned a few quid. So I played them at there own game.

[j.sabourn]

#6 Brenda I am one of the old fashioned ones , my wife has never brought a salary into the house I wouldn’t want her to, she is better off looking after the young ones in the family abode. I was always brought up to believe it was the mans place to supply for the family and the wife going out to work was a last resort. There will be yelps of excuses to this and how one wage is insufficient maybe it is, however I am not going to complain about my beliiefs and am too long in the tooth to change my moral upbringing onto another course. If one wage is insufficient then the man should go out and once again find a second or even a third job as necessary instead of squeeling like a stuck pig. And by all accounts there are plenty of job vacancies . JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I find it odd that in most Western Countries there is an excess of labour but Companies can't get workers, I think it speaks volumes about the wages paid. Like most on here I went to sea at 7pounds a month, but adding in the cost of living made it a pretty good deal. Now they pay poverty rates where there is no Union protection, but where there is there is, there's no complaints about the wages, maybe there is a moral there.
Des

[j.sabourn]

As have previously said Des I see no moral issue with a well run Trade Union. It is the only guardian the worker will ever have. However there have been too many instances of bad behaviour in certain trades which no doubt has been amplified by an anti union press. The other side of the coin is rarely shown by the misbehaviour of certain employers , there is always two sides to a story. Seems the Trade Unions are always being held to account and rarely a mention of the other sign of the coin. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Bought my first house in 1970 for 4500GBP, I see it is now valued at about 387,000GBP. Just a two bedroomed one at that.

Here in Oz back in the 1990's we had mortgage rates at 18.5% and we managed.
We have a similar problem of workers required but a shortage of them.
But in reality not a shortage but a large number willing to live off the state rather than get their hands dirty

The younger generation complain that they cannot get into the housing market, too expensive they say, not so I say.

There are plenty of cheaper houses in thew outer suburbs, but no they want to live in the inner leafy suburbs to be near mum and dad.
You only start at the top when digging a grave, start with a cheaper house as we did and build up some equity, them move up the ladder.
Then we have the ones who want all the bells and whistles to start with, not work for them.

The world owes you nothing, if you really want it go out and work for it.

The biggest problem we have now is that the current inflation is not caused by the regular system, rather by outside influences such as supply shortages, China only working at half pace and the war in Ukraine.

[cappy]

I find it odd that in most Western Countries there is an excess of labour but Companies can't get workers, I think it speaks volumes about the wages paid. Like most on here I went to sea at 7pounds a month, but adding in the cost of living made it a pretty good deal. Now they pay poverty rates where there is no Union protection, but where there is there is, there's no complaints about the wages, maybe there is a moral there.
Des

Des in shields when slater was the seamans union guy .........i was on about 28 quid a month......slater comes into the eagle vaults a good seamans pub .....if we get a breakaway union .......i promise the sky is the limit for wages ....200 quid a week .......we have all seen the result .....noships no shipbuilding ......no seamen ...where was slater a few years latyer .....fancy london offices .......chauffer driven jaguar......gold plated pension ......where were the shipowners.....gone .....why ....because every third world country bought an old banger or two filled them with any body daft enough to go on them .....where was the seamans union .......gone with all the funds amalgamated into some other union in the 50s and 60s the worlds seaports were filled with red dusters ......by 1970 there where flags of landlocked bleedin countries filling the seas ......every month ships in shields fromrussia poland india ......no food aboard .....no wages paid ...ships being fed by shields folk .....its the seamans mission going round begging for food for them .....its called economics ......get it right wonderful ...get it wrong disaster .....we had in the uk hundreds of shipping companies .....why did they disapear .....answer no return on capital ....great example the old avonmoor rotten through ....sold to the chinese run on a handfull of rice ......how can anyone compete with that .....while the seamans union callled for strike after strike .along with the other lefty unions .....well they have all gone now .......sadly ........R683532 .....HAVNT HEARD FROM LOUIS LATELY ......I CAN HEAR HIM SPLUTTERING HERE IN YORKSHIRE LOL

[j.sabourn]

#10 Thomas remember 67/68 or the year of the Montreal Exhibition when our Harold Wilson put a limit of 50 pounds leaving the shores of Blighty. I spent nearly a year running into Montreal and of all the British subjects I met it didnt bother them so must have had money outside the UK. It may have been inconvenient for Joe Bloggs the window cleaner but its usually the working man that takes the brunt of all the slings and arrows. Whatever happened to the Gold standard where they could only print money if they had money in the bank vault to cover the monoply money, or did some poxy politician make off with it. That system worked for centurys. Cant trust anyone these days. Cheers JS

[cappy]

John methinks the gold standard rule went after brown sold the gold.....jeez you couldnt make it up .......r683532