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‘I bought my three-bedroom shared ownership home aged 25 with only a £13,250 deposit’ Teacher Farhana Mallick bought a shared ownership home in the Royal Docks, at the centre of a £2bn regeneration zone. https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/buying-mortgages/i-bought-my-threebedroom-shared-ownership-home-aged-25-with-only-a-ps13-250-deposit-b1155069.html Farhana Mallick was only 25 years old when she found herself exhausted by renting in London. “I decided I was done losing my money on rent,” Mallick, now 27, says. “I wanted to invest in a property and have a home I could make my own.” Previously she’d lived at home with her parents in east London, where she was raised, or rented a tiny room in a shared house for £400 a month. As a history teacher at a school in Barking and Dagenham, she was one of the key workers increasingly priced out of living in the city where she worked. But scraping together a deposit large enough to buy somewhere near her family and workplace was tough. “In London, the house prices are now very high — if I hadn’t bought with shared ownership, I would still be renting or living with my parents,” she says. “It gives you a lifeline, especially for someone in their 20s or 30s.” Mallick took out a mortgage on a 25 per cent share of a three-bedroom apartment in the Royal Albert Wharf development in Newham, east London. The property was on the market for £530,000, so a 25 per cent share equated to £132,500. That required a deposit of £13,250 — far below the three-figure deposits buying in London can now require. “Shared ownership really appealed to me because it meant I required a much smaller deposit than if I was buying privately,” says Mallick. Her monthly costs are £1,391 for the three-bedroom flat. Of that, £606 goes on her mortgage and £497 on rent for the part she doesn’t own, plus a £288 service charge. Although it’s much more than she was paying on rent for a room, Mallick is very happy with the level of freedom and space her home gives her.

Your having a laugh Dave reckons we got loads of money

I would not be to sure about that ,second hand cars were very cheap for the best part of a decade until the coof hit The lease market is dead now ,but it`s that market that fed into the second hand market ,it was the sheer volume that lowered prices ,there will be a correction but, my money is on far lower volumes will put a floor under the market above what we use to see in the second hand market I hope i`m wrong i`m going to need a new car sooner rather than later and it wont be "new"

5% was just a random number I picked out the air, its more the concept of just creating the money outright without credit.

2% worked for a long time,5%+ now is whats causing the problem.We dont produce enough for that (mainly because we stopped producing energy).Iv got some huge equations on it of course,its the basis of macro strategy.Another huge problem now is the multipliers are doing the damage.For instance the printed money is all going to the none producing instead of the productive.BOE and economists think the invisible hand of the economy will respond with extra production,but its cannot because we dont producue the inputs ourselves,and the EMs wont accept being fleeced 5%+ a year anymore.

I suppose what I'm getting at is, how should Jared Bernstein have answered the journalist's question?

I've asked in the past the question "what is money" and never had a reply. It has several functions which is maybe why no one has tried to answer the question I posed. The issue with MMT is that it ignores one of the functions of money, which is that money is a mechanism to ration resources. MMT supposes that resources are unlimited and giving people more money will allow them to consume the resources they want/need without giving any thought on how to provide or produce those resources.

The wikipedia page on Modern Monetary Theory is fairly expansive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory As a quick definition, this paragraph in the section "Interaction between government and the banking sector" is pretty good: "A sovereign government typically has an operating account with the country's central bank. From this account, the government can spend and also receive taxes and other inflows.[33] Each commercial bank also has an account with the central bank, by means of which it manages its reserves (that is, money for clearing and settling interbank transactions).[48] When a government spends money, its central bank debits its Treasury's operating account and credits the reserve accounts of the commercial banks. The commercial bank of the final recipient will then credit up this recipient's deposit account by issuing bank money. This spending increases the total reserve deposits in the commercial bank sector. Taxation works in reverse: taxpayers have their bank deposit accounts debited, along with their bank's reserve account being debited to pay the government; thus, deposits in the commercial banking sector fall" That wiki page will be tough going to anyone who isn't familiar with all of central, investment, commercial and retail banking - and to be honest who is?!

Happy to debate that in the appropriate thread

You are going to fit in well here. Nice work.

Can anyone briefly explain MMT? The only answers you receive from the proponents of MMT basically amount to gaslighting, they make out you're thick whilst giving you some garbled nonsense about it being impossible to go bankrupt if you are the World's reserve currency or issue debt in your own currency. I think Jared Bernstein's explanation was probably the most coherent answer so far that I have heard, with regard to MMT. Bitcoin another concept that I can't get my head around, I just don't see the utility in it.

I’m mid 30’s mortgage free. Started investing aggressively since December 2023 when I paid the mortgage off. initial plan is to buy UK Dividend paying shares. basically copying the top holdings of a UK dividend income fund, so I can enjoy the diversification without having to pay the fees. the rough plan is to have dividends offset the arrival of children next year, and the loss of my other halves income. the plan is to use the dividends to further diversify, mostly higher dividend payers to start with, to get that initial impact, then over time get the lower dividend payers. it’s handy as the UK is cheap right now, where the US S&P is due an imminent pop. historically the US outperforms for around a decade, then the rest of the world then outperforms for the next, so basically we are due America to poop itself and rest of the world (including the FTSE100) to do OK. so far have roughly £10k invested, spread about in: - British American Tobacco - Imperial Brands - HSBC - NatWest - National Grid - Legal and general - Tesco - AVIVA - BT group next month adding - M&G group - ITV roughly it equates to £50 a month average income, should be over £100 a month average income by the end of year 1. should work out as about half the contribution to living costs that my partner pays into current account by the time baby comes. Meaning that in my mid 30’s I should be able to continue investing for the next 20ish years and be retired at 55, possibly before that. initially I’m aiming for a good base-line of dividends, then eventually move onto more exotic stuff. I DO NOT like the bubble US tech/AI stocks in the US. don’t fancy catching that falling knife. should pass £100k combined SIPP and S&S ISA this year, and from that point onwards things should speed up a bit. I’m lucky that I have time, that’s probably the most valuable thing right now. Compounding can do its thing. The nice thing with dividends is that generally the companies paying it actually make profits, it’s not the sketchy start-ups which hope to make money in the future. plus income is my main goal to help the transition into family life. it’s nice that finally I’m no longer paying interest to others, but I have crossed to rubicon, and finally some money is flowing towards me. currently it costs me and my partner £1050 to live each month, so £50 a month income is a fair dint into not having to work, obviously the outgoings will go up with kids, but should only take a few short years to reach FIRE.

I seen this map quite a few time recently and while an impressive feat, it’s not comparable to the shambles that is HS2. It’s probably better to compare it the UK during the Industrial Revolution which was probably built at a comparable speed when comparing technology. From my view HS2 shows the downsides of democracies when it comes to large infrastructure projects. Most of the cost overspend is caused by CPO and tunnels to avoid nymyism. When the railway was first built in the UK only the lords were able to demand changes to avoid their estates. The peasants were just turfed out the way with minimal compensation or fuss. BRICS will continue to see considerable growth over the next few decades, they are just hard to invest in due to the scale and immaturity of their exchanges. While the West might be struggling I still think the S&P500 will be all the BRICS exchanges over the next 40 years. Lots of BRICS chat just not many investment opportunities. Of the bunch I probably prefer India at the moment, although they’ve got a long way to go.

How many? What criteria? etc. We should only let in those with money already and those who have specific skills that we need. And everyone should be fully health screened - otherwise you might just be creating a massive health expense.

Some calculations put a lifetime average wage of £45-50k being required to break even in terms of net contributions, high due to the NHS. Most immigrants don't contribute enough over their lifetimes so don't add value. That is the biggest gripe. Most can't articulate that but know it when they see declining public services and a reduced standard of living. If the average immigrant in aggregate contributed much more than they consumed then the country would become wealthier (the middle east expat model)

The way I look at it is that issuing new money as credit creates the illusion of maintaining currency scarcity because the assumption is that the debt will be paid back at some point so there the concept that it is "bringing forward" consumption - that we spend today but repay tomorrow thus restoring the integrity of the currency. But of course we all know this almost never actually happens. Now that we routinely issue ever more credit the illusion that it will ever be repaid is all that remains of a wafer thin veneer of plausibility that we are doing anything other that outright money printing. What we have now though is actually worse than out right printing - we are increasing the amount of currency in circulation and we have to rent that money (in the form of interest) from the banks. I think the way to go is to scrap the credit system and just have a statutory money creation rate of say 5% GDP which the government can issue and spend.

It is mental. His monthly payment is more than our mortgage plus maximum allowed overpayment every month. Before insurance, road tax, fuel etc. Then he moans he can't SIPP or save any money each month.

What is actually wrong with "immigrants"? Is there some sort of natural law that says wherever you're born, you have to live your life? What if you don't like it and prefer somewhere else? As I've said many times both my children are immigrants (from UK gone somewhere else) and it is all working fine for them and adding value to the places they now live in.

Basically he can't come out with the truth that fiat money is "made" at zero cost. You can imagine the calamity it will cause when all the interest groups realise the government can give them money for free because they are "worth it"! It's all part of the slight of hand that fiat money has value. Issuing money as loans locks in the value proposition of ensuring the money is put to productive use. Whether that is right or wrong is a large debate on it's own. As noted by others time = money and as each person is an economic unit issuing a fixed lump sum to each person for the number of days they live could be the basis of a new economic system. However the switch over would be horrendous!

Correct..... but! You can with a Bloomberg terminal and Excel application interface! I'm going to guess from a military and paramedic background you have never used one? They are a bit pricey if the company is not paying for it, though people have had a crack at putting one together without the subscription. https://medium.com/@felixbaron/how-to-build-your-bloomberg-terminal-for-free-ff7df730b88e https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-create-your-own-bloomberg-style-terminal-for-under-1000-2010-2 For someone like yourself @sancho panza it would be like conducting the whole orchestra for a financial symphony

Its insane.The insurance alone on them is more in a year than i spend keeping a car on the road over 5 years all in.Its very very rare i see an older car than mine now wherever i go,its 17 years old.Passed last MOT,just a spring and two tyres in a year.Pretty obvious though going forward its going to be very hard to do very cheap motoring.Mine has cost me £17 a week since i was 19 all in.I kept a record,thats buying,repairing ,not insurance and car tax.

Agreed. The NI is important when you compare Higher Rate tax vs Corp+Dividends structure for paying a director for example.

I thought it was Leslie Nielson doing a naked gun clip.

Too grey for me. Pretty sick of grey weather dont know why you'd paint your house in miserable weather grey

Explains why my mate with the leased range rover is always complaining about being skint!