"Homeowners face painful rises in mortgage rates in coming years, Tory big beast Kenneth Clarke warns today. In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, he said rock-bottom loan rates protecting borrowers from the worst of the recession are bound to end, whoever wins the general election. “Anybody buying a house now must realise the rates are unnaturally low and will go up in future years.� Mr Clarke warned borrowers: “In working out whether you can afford a house, you have to work out if you can afford a quite perceptible increase in interest rates, regardless of who the government is.�

I have been watching developments in this case closely. I pointed out that if Uddin was lying to the expenses committee she was a fraudster. If she was found to be truthful (that her main home was in Kent) then she should lose her social housing tenancy. But she isn't as dim as I thought!

Good news this, but thanks to government support?! The £5000 government subsidy for electric cars must apply to imported cars too. Perhaps we should thank a weaker £pound instead (for which we can thank our spendthrift Govt!).

Posted by mountain goat @ 04:17 PM 9 Comments

Britain's manufacturing skills gap could be improved if the City stopped poaching the brightest engineering and science graduates, according to BAE Systems' chairman. Recently people have looked more closely at what creates value and can be exported," he said. "The result is high-end engineering and manufacturing, which are a hugely good way of getting ourselves out of these recessionary problems. Already India is producing 650,000 engineering graduates a year compared to Britain's 20,000. He said Britain needs to produce at least 25,000 engineering graduates a year, to meet the estimated requirement for 970,000 engineers in Britain by 2017

Posted by cat and canary @ 03:39 PM 15 Comments

Evidence for LVT "There is a strong case for decisions about land use – at all levels, and across different land use sectors – to reflect a much broader concept of the value generated by land. Only then will the greatest benefits be unlocked, and tensions effectively managed." "This process itself may need to be part of a deliberative process of arbitration over particular decisions, but could be facilitated by a general review of taxes and subsidies or payment schemes." "The guiding principle for a more coherent approach would be to combine a more sophisticated understanding of how land creates value for society with governance which more proactively incentivises achievement of better value and the delivery of a wide range of sustainable and valued land services."

Many investors in first-lien mortgages (bundled securities holders) will accept principal writedowns in order to move on and use their money for other purposes, rather than having it locked in underwater mortgages with a high likelihood of foreclosure, but holders of second-lien mortgages (banks) are a major obstacle to this. These second liens have little value – the first liens are well underwater, and the prospect for any real return on the seconds is negligible - but accounting rules allow holders of these seconds to book them at artificially high values. So many refuse to write down the loans, thus preventing a correction and a moving on

I really hope they come for hbos and rbs directors......HBOS bad loans are over £200 billion lent often without security probably on the golf course.....at least nick leeson did some time and he was only down £250 million went he did a runner...now its a weeks bad loan write-offs

"Revisions for this financial year have now reduced borrowing by £2.9bn, meaning full-year borrowing could beat the government's £178bn forecast." ....brilliant, government borrows £175.1bn instead of 178.0bn, ...lets get the cocktails in, have a blast, hire a few more quangos, let your hair down!!

The Co-operative Group has recorded a boost in profits as a result of an influx of new account holders disillusioned with Britain's banks. Profits at Britain's largest mutual retailer soared on the success of the merger with Britannia building society and also the purchase of the Somerfield supermarket chain. The group, which traces its roots back to the founding of the co-operative movement in Rochdale in 1844, posted a jump of 85 per cent in profits before payments to members, reaching £402million in the year to January 2.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: "The mortgage approvals information from the Bank of England survey, in particular, adds to the impression that housing market activity has faltered early in 2010. "(It) reinforces our belief that prices will be prone to corrections and no more than flat over the year as a whole amid still largely unfavourable economic fundamentals and tight credit conditions."