Economy of the madhouse

[Virtual_Cliff]

I just don't get this - are we all riding for a spectacular fall or what?

With the decline in faith in pensions and shares, people in the UK are speculating in houses. This is big business here, but it's driven the prices up so high that now only 4 per cent of the non-home-owners can now afford to buy one. Rents are tied to property prices so now everyone is working two or three days per week just to live where they live. With no new buyers coming on stream, the whole market has got to crash hasn't it? The accepted wisdom is to build more, but this is only going to attract more speculation and make the crash worse.

This is a basic problem with investment for gain (money for nothing). It screws up whatever it touches - art, antiques, even tulips. The UK economy is now almost entirely funded by a few financial wizards who buy here and sell there but produce nothing. I know nobody who does any work that makes money directly for this country. No-one manufactures, there's little farming. We are all passing money around but where does it come from?

I can't see any future in all this. Surely a day of reckoning has got to come. In the end we are going to come back to making and growing. Perhaps there is wisdom in the old biblical laws against usuary. Perhaps we would literally be better off without it.

Any views?

[wil]

tis all a big ponzi scheme...

without interest no one would loan anyone anything because they wouldn't get return on their money and they'd be better off starting a business themselves...

sounds like the US no money down, real estate investment craze has crossed the pond...over here we have periodic crashes/corrections 5-10% but then the buyers swoop back in and a new market is created...there also exists and ebb and flow in various neighborhoods/cities...who knows exactly what the outcome will be...but if one doesn't want to continually stay behind one must ride the wave to keep up.

[Francis king]

property is theft... dunno who said it, though...