Interesting Links for 04-10-2020

[andrewducker]

Boris Johnson: "We need a repeat of the 2008 housing crash"

I'm actually fine with working out how we can get more people able to buy houses. But someone needs to ask the difficult questions about how we avoid 2008 happening again if we relax lending requirements.
(tags:housing mortgages regulation UK Doom conservatives )

Harvey Weinstein to Face Six New Sex Assault Charges in Los Angeles

(tags:movies abuse rape )

Manchester professor has her classes revoked because she wasn't teaching face to face in the middle of a pandemic

(tags:Manchester university pandemic OhForFucksSake )

Ex president Jed Bartlett comments on Trump getting infected

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1311917089888890880.html
(tags:TV pandemic politics USA funny )

Turnberry hotelier tests positive for coronavirus

(tags:headline Scotland funny pandemic )

Blur - Song 2, but every "woohoo" is done by Mario

(tags:viaSwampers music Mario funny )

Cineworld to Close All U.S., U.K. Cinemas

(tags:cinema UK USA Doom )

Comments

[drplokta]

To avoid 2008 happening again, legislate that mortgage repayments can never increase by more than 2% per year (except where such an increase is required to catch up on arrears). That avoids all the people being sucked in by crazy initial deals, planning to refinance on another crazy initial deal in two years when the first deal is up, and then getting caught out when the deals evaporate. But remember, UK mortgage lending practices weren’t actually the problem. Northern Rock’s loan book wasn’t that bad. The problem was that mortgage lending in the US was much much worse, and when that collapsed the flow of finance that Northern Rock relied on to roll over its own finances dried up.

[andrewducker]

True, it's a global issue. But if we want to encourage the USA to keep sensible limits then we need sensible ones ourselves.

Limiting the increase per year would put most of the risk of a rate rise on to the mortgage providers, which seems fairly reasonable. They're best place to calculate and plan against it.

(I did like that insurers were recently told they couldn't offer ridiculous initial rates. https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/news/insurance-firms-will-be-forced-to-end-price-walking-as-fca-reveals-rip-off-remedies/1434623.article )

[channelpenguin]

Have to say again - most Germans rent. Even middle-class professionals. Even middle-class professionals who are also landlords... I don't see any collapse of capitalism here! I do see better conditions for renters though ...