Doomed

[sasguru]

I can say what I want. I don't give two tulips about the housing market and am only interested in it if there are mega falls.

HTH

[Bagpuss]

Why am I suddenly getting the image of Bonnie Langford in Just William

I can say what I want, and if you don't let me I'll scweam and I'll scweam and I'll scweam

[tim123]

There was a 'discussion' on R5 last night. There was one guy who said "prices were going to 'correct' by 30-40%" and another who said that "yes there has been a little fall, but that's the end of it and prices would stablise".

The guy who said that prices would fall, justified his stance with some thought out economic reasoning, you may have disagreed with his reasons but at least they were coherent. The naysayer could only come up with "house prices have been the most profitable investment in recent time", as if that actually proved anything.

Of course the naysayer was 'winning', because because most people don't want to believe the alternative. But if you were neutral and scored the debate on performance, you had no choice but to side with the 'correction' because the other guys justifications were worthless.

tim

[sasguru]

Why am I suddenly getting the image of Bonnie Langford in Just William

I can say what I want, and if you don't let me I'll scweam and I'll scweam and I'll scweam

Violet Elizabeth Bott

[wendigo100]

But if you were neutral and scored the debate on performance, you had no choice but to side with the 'correction' because the other guys justifications were worthless.

A few years ago, I remember Peter Hain's entire argument for the UK joining the Euro was: "Because we'd be crazy not to."

That first alerted me to the fact that we might have a Prescott Mk II in the making.

Mind you, plenty of contractors on PCG at the time were won over simply by being able to buy a latte in Helsinki with the same coinage as in Rome.

[tim123]

Mind you, plenty of contractors on PCG at the time were won over simply by being able to buy a latte in Helsinki with the same coinage as in Rome.

It saddens me that this is still the reason touted out as to why it is good, even by people who live in the Eurozone.

ISTM that the reasons that we did not join as the start were:
a) all the mickey mouse economies were being allowed in and that that would cause it to fail.
b) the rate was wrong.

So now:
a) perhaps the mickey mouse economies where allowed in, but it didn't fail and is now rather successful.
b) The average rate has been pretty much stable at 1.44-1.46 and this would seem to be a rate that we should be in at. This was the rate until 2 weeks ago until it dropped a couple of cents.

Personally I now can't see any reason not to join at the above rate (assuming that we get back there)

tim

[DimPrawn]

It saddens me that this is still the reason touted out as to why it is good, even by people who live in the Eurozone.

ISTM that the reasons that we did not join as the start were:
a) all the mickey mouse economies were being allowed in and that that would cause it to fail.
b) the rate was wrong.

So now:
a) perhaps the mickey mouse economies where allowed in, but it didn't fail and is now rather successful.
b) The average rate has been pretty much stable at 1.44-1.46 and this would seem to be a rate that we should be in at. This was the rate until 2 weeks ago until it dropped a couple of cents.

Personally I now can't see any reason not to join at the above rate (assuming that we get back there)

tim

How about not being able to set your own interests rates?

[sasguru]

Personally I now can't see any reason not to join at the above rate (assuming that we get back there)

tim

Because we cant let the ECB set interest rates for us.

HTH

[Bagpuss]

If we had joined at the start we would have joined at circa 2 euro to the £

[Spartacus]

If we had joined at the start we would have joined at circa 2 euro to the £

And we'd've had interest rates of 2% back in 2003 rising to 4% now. If you think we're boomed now, just think how boomed we would have been had we joined.

The average two bed flat in London would have financed the purchase of a medium sized East European country.