Bugger me interest rates are still on hold.

[dicktimber]

Sorry,
Yes it's a buggar that the interest rate has been put on hold :lol: :lol:

 

[devonwoody]

Well, I considered a sex change on the NHS, so BSM could help fund it...........
Then get myself pregnant, claim for a house, housing benifit,child allowance, taxcredits, council tax paid etc......move to London cos I'd get a mansion
Then make £200,000 by selling my story to News of the World,...go on a Gillian Mckeith show..( cos I need a face lift and that tube stuck up my ar....)
Write a book about IVF, for sex change males....
and live happy ever after..

But the wife said I was talking a load of crap!

Heh, you the one who lives opposite me? Everything you have posted is happening only a few yards away from me. Its a bit scary as well cos. every time I go out my back door it appears, I'm sure I am being stalked.

And you StevieB have obviously been talking to Felder & co. Russel telephoned me a few minutes ago and trying to twist my arm to purchase a Hammer n4400, I told him the sad sob story about interest rates and so hadnt got the income to buy. (I dont spend capital, I buy with income) :wink:

So I reckon it would pay to increase rates, and it would be fairer and more beneficial than the other way.

 

[devonwoody]

If every pensioner withdrew their savings from Building Societies next week, there would be another run on the banks like last year.(and put in buy to let)

or
Banked here on line.

http://www.canstar.com.au/interest-rate ... rates.html

admittedly there is an exchange risk to carry. They might be able to live in Oz. 6 months a year on visas so some risk would be covered.

 

[RogerM]

I don't normally respond to these threads, but I'm with DW here. People who plan their retirement and build up savings to fund it are finding that their income has been cut by about 70% over the last 2 years. The financially profligate who have been baled out from over borrowing and who now crow about how their mortgage payments are a tiny fraction of what they were 2 years ago are being subsidised by savers who didn't over borrow. For example, 6 years ago my mother-in-law had to sell her house and move in to a nursing home. At the time her very modest pension and income from her savings were sufficient to pay the fees. Now the fees have gone up 40% and her income has halved - and in about 2 more years her capital will have gone, and heaven knows what we'll do then. This is the type of person who is baling out the reckless.

The savings system used to balance the needs of savers and borrowers - now it has all gone the borrowers way. We are told it's to encourage spending - which is what got us in to this mess in the first place. Pensioners are having to "eat their seedcorn". And of course it gets worse. Not only have they lost their income, but with the Bank of England printing money, inflation will follow in a couple of years and whatever savings they have left will be inflated away - along with the liabilities of those in debt. It's nothing short of mugging the elderly of their life savings and giving them to those who just borrow to fund their skiing holidays, buy their 4x4s and live in houses they can't afford rather than behave in a financially responsible way!

Rant over - and BTW I'm not reliant on interest from savings, but know many who are.

 

[Dibs-h]

I don't normally respond to these threads, but I'm with DW here. People who plan their retirement and build up savings to fund it are finding that their income has been cut by about 70% over the last 2 years. The financially profligate who have been baled out from over borrowing and who now crow about how their mortgage payments are a tiny fraction of what they were 2 years ago are being subsidised by savers who didn't over borrow. For example, 6 years ago my mother-in-law had to sell her house and move in to a nursing home. At the time her very modest pension and income from her savings were sufficient to pay the fees. Now the fees have gone up 40% and her income has halved - and in about 2 more years her capital will have gone, and heaven knows what we'll do then. This is the type of person who is baling out the reckless.

The savings system used to balance the needs of savers and borrowers - now it has all gone the borrowers way. We are told it's to encourage spending - which is what got us in to this mess in the first place. Pensioners are having to "eat their seedcorn". And of course it gets worse. Not only have they lost their income, but with the Bank of England printing money, inflation will follow in a couple of years and whatever savings they have left will be inflated away - along with the liabilities of those in debt. It's nothing short of mugging the elderly of their life savings and giving them to those who just borrow to fund their skiing holidays, buy their 4x4s and live in houses they can't afford rather than behave in a financially responsible way!

Rant over - and BTW I'm not reliant on interest from savings, but know many who are.

I sympathise with your situation Rog - every coin has 2 sides, the situation was completely reversed back in the days when Base Rate hit 14%. The misery was on a phenomenal level.

Whilst my rate is ultra low - I've been on base rate trackers for the last 10 yrs, preferring the transparency, but ours is an extremely low mortgage. Low - because we've never been abroad, nor holidayed in the UK and drive old cars, that I maintain. Holidays for the wife\kids mean a week or so in Brum staying with her parents. Just to get that shackle off as quickly as possible.

I know your not having a dig at me - but there will be lots of folk like me, who probably give prudent a new definition - (well Yorkshire already has one)

But as with all investments - the small print does say they can go up or down, etc.. I appreciate it's small consolation to your mother-in-law, but probably as small to someone who worked hard, supported a wife\children and when interest rates hit 14%, it all went tits up.

 

[thomvic]

Rog Wrote:

At the time her very modest pension and income from her savings were sufficient to pay the fees. Now the fees have gone up 40% and her income has halved - and in about 2 more years her capital will have gone, and heaven knows what we'll do then.

Rog

Don't worry too much. Providing that your mother-in-law is necessarily accomodated in a care or nursing home, when her assets are down to £23,000 the local authority has to step in to foot the bill. Now is the time to contact Social Services to ensure that all goes smoothly in two years time. My wife and her sister are currently going through a similar process on behalf of their maiden aunt.

Richard

 

[big soft moose]

Well, I considered a sex change on the NHS, so BSM could help fund it...........
!

youm dont need to go to that extent - just pop round here, ive got a tablesaw and two bricks.... :lol:

 

[dicktimber]

BSM...Even I laughed at that !!!!! :lol: :lol:

You know on the case of care for the elderly....
Why should the state fund the care, when people needing care,have homes (assets) that have to be sold to care for them?


If people, and I don't mean anyone who has posted, has a problem with the system they could take the person into their own homes and look after them, like the Indian people do.

If you go back only 50, or 60 years ago there were no care homes per say. People had to look after there parents, Uncles etc.

If you were a pregnant single mother, or a ******* child, you went to the'Work House', just to survive.
No state hand outs.

Times change.
If people have assets and require care, IMO, they should pay for it.

However, if you are a young person, you can take the alternative route.
Don't work, make nothing of your life and when the time comes you will have no bills for care to pay, because the state will look after you.
The choice is yours.

In life today,no one gives you something for nothing.
Right or wrong, that's the way it is.....???

 

[johnf]

Sod, sod,sod. ?><)^%

same here

 

[RogerM]

BSM...Even I laughed at that !!!!! :lol: :lol:

You know on the case of care for the elderly....
Why should the state fund the care, when people needing care,have homes (assets) that have to be sold to care for them?


If people, and I don't mean anyone who has posted, has a problem with the system they could take the person into their own homes and look after them, like the Indian people do.

If you go back only 50, or 60 years ago there were no care homes per say. People had to look after there parents, Uncles etc.

If you were a pregnant single mother, or a ******* child, you went to the'Work House', just to survive.
No state hand outs.

Times change.
If people have assets and require care, IMO, they should pay for it.

However, if you are a young person, you can take the alternative route.
Don't work, make nothing of your life and when the time comes you will have no bills for care to pay, because the state will look after you.
The choice is yours.

In life today,no one gives you something for nothing.
Right or wrong, that's the way it is.....???

I don't actually disagree with this too much. After all, why should struggling young families pay more tax to protect someone elses inheritance? My main point here is that the needs of the elderly to be able to generate some income from their hard earned capital has been completely thrown to the four winds. They are not the ones that created this mess, but they're the ones who are paying for it disproportionately through loss of income, and when they have no way of rebuilding capital once its' been spent. Likewise, the coming inflation brought about by printing money (euphemistically called "quantitative easing" - a bit like calling genocide "ethnic cleansing") will debase the value of their capital whilst devaluing debts.

the situation was completely reversed back in the days when Base Rate hit 14%. The misery was on a phenomenal level.

Whilst my rate is ultra low - I've been on base rate trackers for the last 10 yrs, preferring the transparency, but ours is an extremely low mortgage. Low - because we've never been abroad, nor holidayed in the UK and drive old cars, that I maintain. Holidays for the wife\kids mean a week or so in Brum staying with her parents. Just to get that shackle off as quickly as possible.

I know your not having a dig at me - but there will be lots of folk like me, who probably give prudent a new definition - (well Yorkshire already has one)

But as with all investments - the small print does say they can go up or down, etc.. I appreciate it's small consolation to your mother-in-law, but probably as small to someone who worked hard, supported a wife\children and when interest rates hit 14%, it all went tits up.

Yep - I remember 14% well. We were first time buyers in 1978. We went away on honeymoon with a mortgage rate of 9% and when we got back 2 weeks later it was 11%. then it carried on rising to 17% at which point over half our joint income went on the mortgage - and some people today are complaining about 5%!!!!

The problem is banks are borrowing money at 0.5% and lending it out at 15% if it's on overdraft, the largest margin there has ever been, so it's no wonder that the banks are making huge profits and thinking they've done something so very clever that they need £1m+ bonuses as a reward. I've always maintained that the problem has been lack of available credit. Many business and home buyers would be glad to borrow money at any rate - it's not the rate that's the issue. And if savers can't get a decent return on their capital they'll either spend it or not bother to save it in the first place - and then where will homebuyers get their mortgages from?

And finally I think it's a dreadful way to treat the generation that fought the war so that we might live in a free society. Is this really what my mother-in-law drove an ambulance around the east end of London in the blitz for?

 

[cambournepete]

Yep - I remember 14% well. We were first time buyers in 1978. We went away on honeymoon with a mortgage rate of 9% and when we got back 2 weeks later it was 11%. then it carried on rising to 17% at which point over half our joint income went on the mortgage - and some people today are complaining about 5%!!!!

I was so glad of my 12.25% fixed interest rate back then...

 

[RogerS]

......
In life today,no one gives you something for nothing.
....

Remind me to re-read this when I see the dole scroungers queuing up.

Your comments are pretty harsh and over-simplistic.

If I understand you, take an elderly couple - no children so no question of 'preserving' inheritance. They could have lived quite reasonably and quietly on the income from whatever pension or savings they might have. They probably have a modest house where they have lived for most of their married lives. They could have scrimped and saved all their lives. They could have foregone holidays etc in order to save for their old-age.

And now, through no fault of their own, they are struggling to make ends meet. And your solution? They sell up to release equity and move where? Some small flat? Noisy neighbours. They had to put their dogs down, of course, because they couldn't keep them in the flat.

Hardly fair.

 

[devonwoody]

I think the low savings/and bank of England rate is low because we are competing with the EU. ~We have a lower rate 0.5% and big money borrowing/business is coming to our banking system internationally.

So us poor mortals are suffering but bankers are doing very nicely.

 

[BradNaylor]

I dont spend capital, I buy with income

While agreeing with the principle of saving for one's old age, I've never understood the atittude that this money should never be spent!

Surely the point is reached sometime in one's mid to late seventies that you can only expect a certain number of years left; so why not make those years a bit more pleasurable by dipping in to the savings?

You can't take it with you, and if you need to go into care the council will have it off you in a flash!

Historically, interest rates have always been a few percentage points below he level of inflation. It is the natural order of things, and this is as true now as ever. As inflation rises, so will interest rates - or vice versa...


I wouldn't hold your breath though, DW. You might as well get spending your capital.

 

[devonwoody]

Very topical point Brad in our age group, the answer and action taken would be easy if we new judgement day.

One grandmother lived to 99, I recall calling on a client once who was 102 years of age and he was busy making a model gypsy caravan from a kit on his kitchen table. He said to me I dont want to pay for the best quality item I was selling ( :wink: ) because I cant surely live more than a couple more years.

So we do need to keep the highest level of capital we can because I would like to make some boxes at the tender age of 100 and I am sure there are no state benefits payable for a new tablesaw.