Mortgage rates continue up
The BBC reports a disturbing trend of mortgage providers raising their rates. Just to prove I was right about the recession.
This is especially disturbing because the Nationwide originally offered the most competitive rates on the market, as if using its competitive position over the weakened HBOS and Lloyds to claim a larger share of the [...]
No, the recession is not nearly over
A lot of interesting stories coming up today, showing the continuing turmoil in the financial world.
First up, Edmund Conway claims the recession is over, which is about as optimistic as you can get.
Much of this unfounded optimism seems focused on the fact that the property market has seen a positive bounce over this spring – [...]
Car insurers see big rise in fraud
As the economic crisis continues to unroll, one of the minor news items to emerge from this is the increasing problem of insurance fraud.
The trouble is, this also affects everybody because policy premiums are simply increased to pay for the costs of fraud.
We’ve already seen reported in the news that police are now reporting a [...]
Is vehicle tracking ready to go private?
There are a number of well known ways in which you can reduce your premiums on your car insurance.
Simple obvious ones include having an alarm system, steering lock, and other immobilisation devices fitted.
Others include parking off the road in your garage, or having advanced driving training.
Fairly common sense stuff.
Interesting enough, though, the commercial fleet sector [...]
Why the Bank of England rate cut is wrong
This week’s move by the Bank of England to cut the interest rate to an all time low of 1% is a bad move for all of us, especially those trying to save money.
It is an unfortunate double whammy, because while the tax payer is subsidising the banking system via RBS and Lloyds especially though [...]
Cheap insurance is not always the best
An easy trap for consumers to fall into is to buy on price, rather than quality.
The result is the familiar sayings:
“You get what you pay for”
“Buy cheap buy twice”
Unfortunately, the insurance industry is little different as those companies who offer the cheapest quotes often do so by cutting quality of service in some way, such [...]
OECD says worse to come for America
The BBC gives quite long and extensive coverage on a report from the OECD on the economic challenges facing the USA, and it is not pretty:
US faces deep problems, OECD says
The OECD paints a grim picture of the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration, which takes office on 20 January.
It says that “the US economy [...]
Should Woolworths have been saved?
It’s a sad day indeed when a towering high street brand such as Woolworths goes into administration.
The problem was not a declining business model as much as the inability of the company to service its debts.
When the government has done everything it can to infuse a huge amount of money into UK banks, it remains [...]
Global Financial Crisis News
While I’ve been away from blogging, the world has seen something that can only be described as a Global Financial Crisis.
What began as a fall-out from sub-prime loans last year has spread like a disease through all aspects of the financial system:
1. Credit markets truly froze
2. Even banks could not get day-to-day funding
3. Stock markets [...]
Food prices threaten Christmas
It’s common to complain about the necessity of buying food and groceries, but according to reports, things are going to get tougher.
Food prices have already been rising through the year, not least due to increased demand from China and India.
However, severe weather conditions over the summer have badly affected food harvests across the world. Drought [...]