$$$

At 5% interest, £1000 a month on a mortgage is roughly £170k. Someone earning £30k would have to borrow over five times their salary which is pretty stupid. Self cert mortgage was it? People like your daughter are just as much to blame for the global banking crisis by over borrowing and artificially inflating house prices by throwing easy money around.

No it’s not. There are plenty of people who work for a living who have no chance of being able to afford the rent given to those who choose not to work. Why the hell should a single person be given rent for a 1 bedroom flat when they don’t work. What is wrong with lodging in a shared house. Why should my taxes pay for a massive house for some slut that has popped out multiple chav brats so each can have their own bedroom. I had to share a room with my brother when I was a child and I’m sure that I’m far from the only one. Check out Rightmove, plenty of very nice houses available for less than £400 a week. If you can’t find one, move somewhere cheaper...

The standard BlackBerry browser is proper turd. I'm using Opera Mini 5 very successfully on my phone and I've seen good reports for Bolt browser as well. Both are free and can be installed via the standard browser...

Load of cack. The lack of payment plan will screw a few mates I sit with. Haft tempted not to bother renewing with the way the club have gone about this...

It’s actually pretty simple. The NHS along with every other employer would have had to pay increased NI contributions for the staff they employ. As NI won’t be raised, the extra money required to pay the increased NI contributions can be diverted to pay for cancer drugs instead. At least that is the theory...

http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/money-property-and-tax/content.aspx?ID=399144 :biggrin:

With a mystery mid 10% drop. Check out this dude http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/Market%20Crash.mp3 :smt043

Something is spooking the markets! Everything has been dropping like a stone for the last hour...

Hey Johnny, the forum I got that quote from is http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/. Overall it is pretty right wing, just watch out for the tin foil hat wearing nutters who are buying gold and stockpiling tins of beans in preparation for the forthcoming financial armageddon. Talking of sandal wearing, what are your views on this site? http://www.libdemsalter.org.uk/

I believe that the removal of stamp duty only had a very minor affect on demand if that. Increased mortgage availability and affordability due to low base rate combined with increased confidence in the market are far more responsible. Transaction volumes are still less than half peak volumes and a good 30k+ off the volume historically needed to keep neutral HPI. End of the day, the price is set by what the purchaser can afford/borrow. If people can borrow 10x salary and 100%+ value of property, values will shoot up. If people can only borrow 3x salary, need 25% deposit and pay stamp duty, sellers will need to drop their prices to have any hope of selling. VAT on new builds will just mean the builder will offer less for the land he wants to build on. Not directly to you Johnny but have stolen this from another forum which sums up how seriously the different parties are viewing the current housing crisis - Lib Dems: They say we must undo the financial manipulation that allowed uncontrolled inflation in house prices. They oppose the construction of tower blocks of one-bed apartments, built largely to cater for BTL speculation. They want to build more of the family homes that people want and need. They accurately predicted the problems of the housing market and openly say it is one of the two most important issues to voters. Labour: Want to promote more shared ownership in order to artificially prop up the housing market with taxpayers' money. Conservatives: Appoint Kirsty Alsopp as housing adviser. High house prices are bad for this country. Each rise makes this country less competitive and sucks more money into a black hole.

By a chap called Jean-Paul Rodrigue. Interview with him here http://canadianfinanceblog.com/2009/08/06/is-the-current-market-a-return-to-normal.htm which explains it in more detail. From that article - At some point statements are made about entirely new fundamentals implying that a “permanent high plateau” has been reached to justify future price increases and If the bubble is linked with lax sources of credit, then it will endure far longer than many observers would expect. Makes sense the bigger the bubble is, the bigger the bull trap and capitulation stages will be. There is an advert/article here http://info.moneyweek.com/special_report11.php?jchk=1&nolog=1&jlnk=LSL0070#/that has some other graphs you may be interested in...

Second homes, buy to let and capital gains associated with them should also be taxed heavily. Funny how all the parties have skated around the subject of house prices... Guess where we are at the moment? Bring it on!!!

I’ve just sold my old 1999 Corolla after owning it for five years. During that time, absolutely nothing went wrong with it despite ragging it constantly. It still drove fine when I sold it. I have just replaced it with a 2005 Corolla T Sport and fingers crossed, the luck will continue. Build quality in mine appears fine and Toyota’s are always close to the top of any reliability surveys. Apparently official parts can be expensive but I’ve never had to buy any. Blue Print do cheap parts for jap cars that are pretty good. I use a local ex Toyota mechanic to do all my servicing who is very reasonable. I’ve no experience of the diesel models but would recommend being wary of any modern diesel. To comply with emissions and get more power, they have started getting pretty complicated. Things like direct injection, dual mass flywheels, particulate filters etc will cost a fortune if they go wrong. Unless you are doing a mileage that warrants a diesel, you may be best off with a petrol. I seen a couple of posts on a Toyota forum about the EGR valve on diesels getting clogged up and needing to get cleaned. Does not seem to be a difficult job. People will always say they are boring cars which is just following the stereotype much like french cars having crap electrics, italian cars rotting and two seater convertibles only being suitable for hairdressers. Certainly my car if anything but boring from 6k to 8k rpm. At the same time, the unfashionable image means cheap insurance and no chaved up corsa trying to get a race at the lights.

I would say the 9700 as it is the only one that has 3G. You can compare features at the BlackBerry website...

What was the pound/dollar exchange rate back then?

How about a Mazda 3 MPS? Has a 2.3 turbo engine with about 260bhp. In the £400 tax band but seemed cheap to insure compared to similar cars. Fuel consumption not too bad considering the engine. Styling is pretty laid back and most people have no idea what it is. Test drove one a couple of weeks back and loved it.

and? Any normal person would be spending their time hitting F5 on the main forum or BBC, trying to get a online feed etc. They would certainly not putting the finishing touches to a comic strip about their rivals during a game. As I said, the skates have a point about certain people posting on this thread...

Is he the nobber that got the box in the Itchen North when they first got promoted?

9pm tonight? LOL, how about getting a clue and spending your time cheering on the team I presume you support. The skates have a good point about some people posting on this thread...

Fairly good article for the people. Don’t think anyone here has considered future ticket sales for their away games and refunding season ticket holders before. Maybe the PL can use the skates parachute money to compensate those clubs. Big LOL at thinking Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is going to go anywhere near farton. Is this the person you have been hinting at for the last few days Merovingian?

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=monte-carlo-or-bust%26method=full%26objectid=22041665%26siteid=93463-name_page.html "Portsmouth are in talks with a mystery Monte Carlo-based fan in a desperate bid to stave off liquidation"

oops http://www.cccp-project.net/

Install CCCP http://www.cccp-project.net/[/url

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/Pompey-Talks-with-HMRC-are.6056538.jp "The News understands that even if a deal is agreed tonight between Pompey and HMRC, the High Court hearing will go ahead as a formality - even if it is to close the case." Guess it would be the same for Grosvenor Basingstoke.

Meeting is running last so I’ve come up with this while wasting time, needs a bit of work To the tune of Sunny Afternoon The taxman’s taken all their dough And they’ve remortgaged their ****hole All they’ve got ‘s that pikey with a bell And they can’t pay their bills Website down, canteen cupboards unfilled All they’ve got ‘s that pikey with a bell Someone please put the skates out of their misery They’ve got a space waiting for them in the blue square league And we’d love to live so pleasantly With the skates below us in the league As long as they take that pikey with a bell Pikey with a bell Pikey with a bell