Far more than just banks i'm afraid. Contains the world's greatest concentration of insurance companies. stocks and shares trading organisations, brokers, gold and precious metal exchange, base metals, diamonds, other stuff like aviation, shipping, energy, textiles, fuels. It earns the UK some 10% of our GDP and somewhere close to 20% of tax revenue. It is the one major aspect that keeps our economy afloat. It is ultra important to our survival and Cameron did exactly right in keeping it out of the reach of those trying to get to it.
Its 7% of GDP which really isn't that much, and the EU proposals only affected a section of the City of London.
We won't know if he's kept it out of reach for a while so its a bit premature to say he's made the right decision. I think nobody knows how the Eurozone crisis is going to pan out. His veto decision might come back to bite him on the bum if they have a raft of inter-govermental treaties which favour those inside. It might not. But the UK won't be voting on that now so we'll just have to take whats coming.
How much has it lost us over the past 3 years? And when I say 'us', I mean proper, ordinary fowk that really 'earn' a living.
Purely from a retail point of view London is keeping us out of a recession. It is absolutely booming at the moment, and if the big chains/brands didn't have London keeping it's total sales in growth, the country would be even more worse off unemployment wise than it is now.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view I can see the point of some of our 'to the left' posters here in that the wealth you refer to is Not manifesting itself outside of the SE and London. It may be true the economy would be worse off but I fail to see how much worse it would be as the North is seeing cut after cut with nothing of any significance in return. Property prices may be still buoyant in London but up here they are falling like a stone
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Property prices need to fall, they were unsustainable to start with, spiralling property costs helped get us into this mess. Until some sense of reality is brought into the system we'll never learn. £100k and more for a terrace is downright fecking crazy. I see all these new builds going up with prices at £200k, who the **** can afford that? I earn over the average wage and I can't afford it (or is it that I won't do it because to borrow that much is downright madness)
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Which is why the recent attempts to get the housing market 'going' again - by pretty much repeating the behaviour that nearly ruined us is insane. 'get on the housing ladder' - massive con trick on the British public, false wealth through owning an expensive house that you'll never benefit from.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view The housing bubble and the money magicked out of thin air has to be the biggest pyramid scheme in history. All those at the bottom who bought in last close to the credit crunch are trapped in an overpriced back street hovel/flat flung up anywhere that they can't sell. Those who couldn't get in can't get enough credit to buy the overpriced hovel in the first place. All that "you can't beat bricks and mortar, you'll never lose money" *****. I feel like screaming "no don't do it!" when watching repeats of property ladder and location location location as Kirsty and Sarah lure the punters to their doom.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Yep, we were one of the last in lot in 2006. Paid £135,000 for a two bed terrace in York. 97% mortgage over 40 years! (although swithced it to 25 years when I got a promotion). We just got desperate though, prices were going up and up. To be fair the year after the houses on our street were going for £150k so it could have been worse. They're going for £125k now. Main problem we have is that lenders will only give 90% mortgages, we haven't got any equity because of the price crash to pay the deposit and we can't save a deposit because of the big mortgage!
Re: Purely from a retail point of view If only the mortgage lenders had stuck to the 3.5 x salary rule. We would be better off, and with lower wages be able to compete with the rest of the World.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Generally speaking if you take the long term view then you won't. House prices double every 10 to 15 years... however it may take longer this time. We bought our bungalow in 1991 when prices had just crashed. It stayed at that value until 2001 and at the height of the boom it was valued at nearly four times its original cost. It is now worth about three times. We'll probably not see any benefit in this unless equity release become better regulated, but our kids will. I'm not being smug, I have the greatest sympathy with those who bought at the height of the boom and have to sell for one reason or another.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Imagine if some of the big brands started closing their doors outside London, because London stopped offering them the growth it is at the moment - it would be a lot worse than it is now.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view A couple of things that I've noticed from your post (And I apologise if i'm wrong as I clearly don't know your personal circumstances). Firstly is that if you're trying to save a bigger deposit to pay for a bigger/better house then why change your mortgage term from 40 to 25 years? Surely if you stayed at 40 years then the repayments would be lower and you'd be able to save for a deposit. Secondly did you really have a 97% mortgage? I don't understand that at all, my maths say that it means you only had a 4,000 pound deposit (is that right?) surely you knew that if you could only save such a small deposit then you must have known a £135k property was stretching your finances a bit? I don't mean to appear superior or judgemental but I really don't understand how people ever thought that was a good idea even if banks were offering it.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view By reducing the mortgage term we are paying it off quicker so increasing equity and therefore in effect a deposit. Added to which it significantly reduces how much interest you have to pay back. At that time you could even get 125% mortgages and to be honest the bank would have given us whatever we'd wanted. It was us who limited the amount we were prepared to borrow to 131k. At that time it was too much and it was a real struggle. Since then our incomes have increased substantially and the repayments are fine. The issue is to buy a 3 bed in York would be 200k so we need to save 20k on a 90% mortgage which will take years. Not complaining, its just the way it is. And I also would point out I have a habit of spending money we save on travelling! I feel like I'm coming across as self pitying which I'm certainly not trying to. We have a lovely house where we want to live and can afford it. There are lots of people won't ever get to buy or don't even have a home. Was just trying to illustrate the issue
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Unless, God forbid you and the Mrs need residential care and then it gets sold to pay for something that used to be provided. 'Property owning democray' has been the biggest con pulled on the British public - to look at houses as wealth creating rather than a home to live in.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view Oh don't get me wrong, I completely agree. I work in housing strategy and development so spend my life dealing with fallout of an economy based on proprty ownership. But until privaterenting is better regulated and tenants have better security of tenure, and rents aren't as high as mortgage payments, then people will push themselves to buy. Which, of course, continues to over-inflate house prices, all at a time when there is a chronic shortage of affordable housing. The problem is I don't think the clock can be turned back, and there is certainly no political appetite to challenge it when 70% of the electorate are home owners. Ultimately it just creates inequality as the only people who can buy are those who's parents help or receive inheritance. Interestingly the strongest economy in Europe is Germany who have a completely different attitude to buying and only have a 45% home ownership rate.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view I know what you mean about rental. We bought a house in Knaresborough for 200k (was on the market for 220k but they wanted a sale) in 2010. We had 50k to put down as a deposit so hopefully the house will never be worth less than what we owe. The worry for us is if the interest rates go sky high. Our mortgage repayments at the moment are about £600 a month, whereas a similar house to rent would be at least another £150 a month and IMO it is just money p!55ed away, you don't have anything to show for your money long term. The key point for me on owning a house is to ensure you have a house that is paid for when you retire.
Re: Purely from a retail point of view mortgage comes from 2 old French words for 'dead' and 'pledge' if I recall correctly..quite apt. Agree with all you say, best thing is I bought into the fcking idea ! We were brought up with the ethos that renting somehow made you less of a success than if you bought. Hey ho.
And by doing so is attempting to distance us from, even withdraw from, Europe - whose money is one of the major reasons that towns like us somehow managed to survive by the skin of our teeth. We got next to f**k all help from our own government.