Get In! Or More Accurately – Get Out

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The news today is that 46,000 homes were repossesed last year – a 14 year high (link in title).

That figure is far too low for my liking.

I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who borrowed what they cannot afford. They all pushed up house prices so many young people who cannot afford them. So they deserve to suffer the consequences of their bad decision-making (I’m not saying that I want anyone homeless, just not to be home-owners if they cannot afford it).

Really, the Bank of England should have put up interest rates many years ago when the bubble was forming. Regulatory authorities should have had their eye on what the banks were doing to allow this. And the Labour government should have spent some of their vast sums generated from stamp duty on new council housing stock, thereby increasing the stock of housing and reducing demand (yes a Conversative saying build more council houses!).

Of course, the Labour government would not dare upset the middle classes whose votes they depended on for re-election in 2001 or 2005, by introducing a policy which may have made their houses worth less.

Hence we are in a bit of a pickle with the old economy. All of the above are to blame for the recession. Not just the bankers. Not just the government.