Very good story on the development of a cheap vaccine that can be produced pretty well worldwide in old style vaccine facilities - but also has a high tech, apparently very effective spike protein mimic design.
Thanks for sharing. I think this once again shows how below the radar advances in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology have fundamentally changed how we do biology and medicine. The new standard is that everything now has to be understood at the molecular level and designed at that level. It is no longer engineering as tinkering (although there are still strong elements of that) but engineering as design for purpose.
The excellent piece @Nigelb shared over the weekend explained that Moderna had developed a vaccine without ever having any of the virus. They worked on the genome of the virus and regarded it as a "software" problem.
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Just dreadful numbers. I very much hope it is a one off.
Isn't there a day lag?
These are Easter Sunday numbers. That will be a low only comparable to Xmas Day and Boxing Day I would have thought?
The whole weekend figures have been terrible. I find it bewildering that such life saving work is being disrupted by a religious holiday. I hope that it is not indicative of what we can expect for most of April. The amount of available vaccine was to fall but surely not to this level.
I suspect it is just people who are reluctant to book for Easter weekend. They have other things they are doing. We will see next week.
Another by election . Cheryl Gillan has passed away.
Chesham and Amersham is the sort of seat that the Lib Dems would once have really fancied at a by election. Not sure that they are in that sort of state right now though.
I don't see it - it's the Tory equivalent of those old donkey with a red rosette places. The toughest part of this by-election will be the fight selection with the winner getting a safe seat that will see them through to retirement.
And how you handle the question of HS2 which if my parents are like others in the constituency will be the only topic of discussion.
The Liberal Democrats support HS2 so I can’t see how that’s a likely campaign issue. Anyway, with construction having started StopHS2 effectively wound itself up last month with Joe Rukin finally finding another job (as what, nobody seems to know) so it’s only a few nutters like ‘Swampy’ still getting seriously worked up over it.
So I would be surprised if this seat wasn’t a fairly easy Tory hold.
It's a safe Tory hold - but HS2 is literally the main topic of conversation round there as according to my parents everywhere you go another hole is being built or another road is closed for HS2 building work...
I can imagine there’s lots of grumbling (it’s going to cause fun and games for me in a few months as there are major construction sites on my route to work) but given both leading parties support it, and given it’s not feasible to stop it now, I can’t imagine how it’s going to be an election issue. Even if the Greens (who are opposed) stand a candidate they will promise - what? To stop it?
Of course, her uncompromising opposition to HS2 may be one reason why Gillan had a big majority, and there could be an element of unwind there, but as you say it’s hard to see how it unwinds far enough to bring the seat into play.
Another by election . Cheryl Gillan has passed away.
Chesham and Amersham is the sort of seat that the Lib Dems would once have really fancied at a by election. Not sure that they are in that sort of state right now though.
I don't see it - it's the Tory equivalent of those old donkey with a red rosette places. The toughest part of this by-election will be the fight selection with the winner getting a safe seat that will see them through to retirement.
And how you handle the question of HS2 which if my parents are like others in the constituency will be the only topic of discussion.
The Liberal Democrats support HS2 so I can’t see how that’s a likely campaign issue. Anyway, with construction having started StopHS2 effectively wound itself up last month with Joe Rukin finally finding another job (as what, nobody seems to know) so it’s only a few nutters like ‘Swampy’ still getting seriously worked up over it.
So I would be surprised if this seat wasn’t a fairly easy Tory hold.
Could become a rallying point for an anti-covid national ID app? Depends on whether an anti candidate gets some traction. If the Telegraph comments page is anything to go by, the faithful in the shires are bloody outraged.
Richard Tice? Still be a Tory hold I suspect though.
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
What's your thoughts on the whole bull market that began in the late 90s and carried on right up to the crash was set off and aggravated by the tax on pension dividends by Gordon Brown? That investors took money out of their pensions and moved to buy to let as investments. Combined with increases in migration, property speculation became a one way bet.
The 90s and 00s financial bubble (inc property) was quite something. I wouldn't try and understand it all, or mainly, through the prism of Gordon Brown's demerits if I were you. You handicap yourself quite badly that way.
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
What's your thoughts on the whole bull market that began in the late 90s and carried on right up to the crash was set off and aggravated by the tax on pension dividends by Gordon Brown? That investors took money out of their pensions and moved to buy to let as investments. Combined with increases in migration, property speculation became a one way bet.
The 90s and 00s financial bubble (inc property) was quite something. I wouldn't try and understand it all, or mainly, through the prism of Gordon Brown's demerits if I were you. You handicap yourself quite badly that way.
Your well established aversion to dealing with the real world facts you find inconvenient is well understood.
Definitely not Boris but Rishi would be interesting
Rishi makes sense. He's personally popular - with net positives in Scotland - and is the embodiment of the UK Govt furloughing scheme which is supporting so many jobs and livelihoods. His personal manner - modest, reflective - contrasts well with the various raving egos that are currently disfiguring Scottish politics at the moment.
Politico.com - ‘It’s Not the Dog’: What’s Really Behind the White House Dog’s Biting Problem What Major’s biting episodes tell us about White House workplace stress, the need for calm leadership and why dogs don’t dig the furry baby talk.
"What Major is saying [when he bites] is that he doesn’t feel safe yet," expert dog trainer Cesar Millan said. "And if he doesn’t feel safe, he can’t trust. And if he can’t trust, he can’t feel calm."
President Joe Biden just moved in, and already in the neighborhood he’s the guy with … that dog.
Major, a 3-year-old rescue from a Delaware shelter and the younger of the first family’s two German shepherds, has been “agitated” at the White House, jumping, barking and “charging,” according to CNN’s reporting. Back toward the beginning of March, Major bit a Secret Service agent. More recently, he “nipped” a National Park Service employee.
The White House has tried to cast the episodes as mostly no big deal — a case of “a sweet dog,” in the president’s words, merely trying to get used to his new, busy and disorienting digs. “Major was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said following the initial incident. “Major is still adjusting to his new surroundings,” Michael LaRosa, first lady Jill Biden’s press secretary, said in the wake of the sans-injury second.
With the exception of the coverage on cable news, the basic parameters of the storyline are probably uncomfortably familiar to many American dog owners who think of their pets as beloved and blameless members of the family, only to suffer the chagrin of watching them misbehave out in public. Of course, when our pound pup lunges at the Amazon man, we don’t have to attempt to explain it from the podium in the Brady Briefing Room. The Bidens do, though — and all politics aside, the dog training world is not overly impressed with what they’re hearing.
A quartet of celebrity and expert dog trainers I talked to told me the response from the first family misses key points about a serious but eminently solvable situation. Jason Cohen, Larry Krohn, Joel Silverman and Cesar Millan — some of whom have written bestselling books and have starred in hit TV shows — are stationed from New York to California and have varying styles and focuses, ranging from easing dogs’ social anxiety to lessening their aggression. But they all agreed on one overarching thing.
As Millan put it?
“It’s not the dog.”
It’s the place and the people around the dog. . . .
For the most part, I would agree with that. But ... We had a rescue horse that was just evil. We thought calmness and regular loving contact would work. We are on our own 75 acres in the ag reserve, so a very calm and peaceful environment. But he kept on being irresolutely nasty. We eventually had to get rid of him when he double-barreled both the farm help and a trainer in one week. Fortunately, no serious injuries beyond cracked ribs, but he could have killed both.
So, in general, I'd agree that most pet problems are made by the owners or the environment. But not all pet problems - some animals are just different (NB that fact does not sell the animal experts' TV shows and products, so gets hidden. It is notable in the horsewhisperer documentary that he advises one horse owner that a particular stallion is beyond rescue). And rescue animals are notoriously hard to work with if you don't know the origins of their problems.
Just dreadful numbers. I very much hope it is a one off.
Isn't there a day lag?
These are Easter Sunday numbers. That will be a low only comparable to Xmas Day and Boxing Day I would have thought?
The whole weekend figures have been terrible. I find it bewildering that such life saving work is being disrupted by a religious holiday. I hope that it is not indicative of what we can expect for most of April. The amount of available vaccine was to fall but surely not to this level.
I suspect it is just people who are reluctant to book for Easter weekend. They have other things they are doing. We will see next week.
I also suspect the people doing the injections wanted the time off.
Another by election . Cheryl Gillan has passed away.
Chesham and Amersham is the sort of seat that the Lib Dems would once have really fancied at a by election. Not sure that they are in that sort of state right now though.
I don't see it - it's the Tory equivalent of those old donkey with a red rosette places. The toughest part of this by-election will be the fight selection with the winner getting a safe seat that will see them through to retirement.
And how you handle the question of HS2 which if my parents are like others in the constituency will be the only topic of discussion.
The Liberal Democrats support HS2 so I can’t see how that’s a likely campaign issue. Anyway, with construction having started StopHS2 effectively wound itself up last month with Joe Rukin finally finding another job (as what, nobody seems to know) so it’s only a few nutters like ‘Swampy’ still getting seriously worked up over it.
So I would be surprised if this seat wasn’t a fairly easy Tory hold.
It's a safe Tory hold - but HS2 is literally the main topic of conversation round there as according to my parents everywhere you go another hole is being built or another road is closed for HS2 building work...
Amazing isn't it? During the late 1990s even a seat like that would have been far from safe for the Tories in a by-election. Will we ever see an era that produces that level of political punishment beatings again?
Another by election . Cheryl Gillan has passed away.
Chesham and Amersham is the sort of seat that the Lib Dems would once have really fancied at a by election. Not sure that they are in that sort of state right now though.
I don't see it - it's the Tory equivalent of those old donkey with a red rosette places. The toughest part of this by-election will be the fight selection with the winner getting a safe seat that will see them through to retirement.
And how you handle the question of HS2 which if my parents are like others in the constituency will be the only topic of discussion.
The Liberal Democrats support HS2 so I can’t see how that’s a likely campaign issue. Anyway, with construction having started StopHS2 effectively wound itself up last month with Joe Rukin finally finding another job (as what, nobody seems to know) so it’s only a few nutters like ‘Swampy’ still getting seriously worked up over it.
So I would be surprised if this seat wasn’t a fairly easy Tory hold.
It's a safe Tory hold - but HS2 is literally the main topic of conversation round there as according to my parents everywhere you go another hole is being built or another road is closed for HS2 building work...
Amazing isn't it? During the late 1990s even a seat like that would have been far from safe for the Tories in a by-election. Will we ever see an era that produces that level of political punishment beatings again?
I used to work with a guy in the late 80s who took out a mortgage in Swiss Francs at 5% as opposed to 15% in sterling. Everything was fine until the £ fell out of the ERM which left him totally screwed.
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
What's your thoughts on the whole bull market that began in the late 90s and carried on right up to the crash was set off and aggravated by the tax on pension dividends by Gordon Brown? That investors took money out of their pensions and moved to buy to let as investments. Combined with increases in migration, property speculation became a one way bet.
The 90s and 00s financial bubble (inc property) was quite something. I wouldn't try and understand it all, or mainly, through the prism of Gordon Brown's demerits if I were you. You handicap yourself quite badly that way.
Of course, things are never the result of single events. Something particularly weird happened in the hosing market from the late 90s onwards, and even more so in London. There are many a Member of Parliament of the time who became millionaires from flipping london houses (often paid through mp second home allowances).
Very good story on the development of a cheap vaccine that can be produced pretty well worldwide in old style vaccine facilities - but also has a high tech, apparently very effective spike protein mimic design.
Thanks for sharing. I think this once again shows how below the radar advances in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology have fundamentally changed how we do biology and medicine. The new standard is that everything now has to be understood at the molecular level and designed at that level. It is no longer engineering as tinkering (although there are still strong elements of that) but engineering as design for purpose.
The excellent piece @Nigelb shared over the weekend explained that Moderna had developed a vaccine without ever having any of the virus. They worked on the genome of the virus and regarded it as a "software" problem.
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Yep. It creates a strong case for destroying the remaining libraries of smallpox - why keep live virus when you can store the sequence in silico and, should the need arise, simply print it out on your DNA/RNA desktop printer?
However, the life as software analogy can be taken way too far. The genetic material is the equivalent of the software code. To do anything useful, it still needs the computer and peripherals, and the operating system. And those elements in biology are wet systems with very tight energy constraints - usually getting an organism to produce something it does not naturally produce comes at the price of getting it to stop producing something else it evolved to produce, and that results in strong energy conservation pressures to evolve out what the bioengineers have designed in.
Just dreadful numbers. I very much hope it is a one off.
Isn't there a day lag?
These are Easter Sunday numbers. That will be a low only comparable to Xmas Day and Boxing Day I would have thought?
The whole weekend figures have been terrible. I find it bewildering that such life saving work is being disrupted by a religious holiday. I hope that it is not indicative of what we can expect for most of April. The amount of available vaccine was to fall but surely not to this level.
I suspect it is just people who are reluctant to book for Easter weekend. They have other things they are doing. We will see next week.
I also suspect the people doing the injections wanted the time off.
Indeed. If we capacity to do 1m a day but only have 2-3m jabs a week, then not even sure why we would need a seven day a week service? Offer it 3 or 4 days a week and let the GPs/Pharmacists fully concentrate on their normal work the other days, or enjoy a day off.
Very good story on the development of a cheap vaccine that can be produced pretty well worldwide in old style vaccine facilities - but also has a high tech, apparently very effective spike protein mimic design.
Thanks for sharing. I think this once again shows how below the radar advances in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology have fundamentally changed how we do biology and medicine. The new standard is that everything now has to be understood at the molecular level and designed at that level. It is no longer engineering as tinkering (although there are still strong elements of that) but engineering as design for purpose.
The excellent piece @Nigelb shared over the weekend explained that Moderna had developed a vaccine without ever having any of the virus. They worked on the genome of the virus and regarded it as a "software" problem.
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Yep. It creates a strong case for destroying the remaining libraries of smallpox - why keep live virus when you can store the sequence in silico and, should the need arise, simply print it out on your DNA/RNA desktop printer?
However, the life as software analogy can be taken way too far. The genetic material is the equivalent of the software code. To do anything useful, it still needs the computer and peripherals, and the operating system. And those elements in biology are wet systems with very tight energy constraints - usually getting an organism to produce something it does not naturally produce comes at the price of getting it to stop producing something else it evolved to produce, and that results in strong energy conservation pressures to evolve out what the bioengineers have designed in.
The smallpox one had occurred to me. What I hope we will see is medicine that is tailored for the recipient greatly reducing side effects, the dosages required, the painful experimentation that is so common in mental health in particular to find out which anti psychotic or anti depressant works for that particular patient as well as further vaccines for diseases that still cause so much misery and death in the developing world. But your analogy of the rest of the body being the hardware is a good one. I think I'll pinch it!
Just dreadful numbers. I very much hope it is a one off.
Isn't there a day lag?
These are Easter Sunday numbers. That will be a low only comparable to Xmas Day and Boxing Day I would have thought?
The whole weekend figures have been terrible. I find it bewildering that such life saving work is being disrupted by a religious holiday. I hope that it is not indicative of what we can expect for most of April. The amount of available vaccine was to fall but surely not to this level.
I suspect it is just people who are reluctant to book for Easter weekend. They have other things they are doing. We will see next week.
I also suspect the people doing the injections wanted the time off.
Indeed. If we capacity to do 1m a day but only have 2-3m jabs a week, then not even sure why we would need a seven day a week service? Offer it 3 or 4 days a week and let the GPs/Pharmacists fully concentrate on their normal work the other days, or enjoy a day off.
Many of the centres and many of the GPs have not been running 7 days a week anyway. My GP seems to be running a series of "campaigns" - each one taking 3 days or so - which gets the current group done.
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
Bullshit.
(i) is never true.
When base rate is say 3% then the banks offer less than 3% on your deposit. When base rate is say 6% then banks offer less than 6% on your deposit. At no stage is it ever considered "a lot" to keep your sum on deposit. Not to forget there is inflation to take into account too.
Go back to 2007 and find me a single finance article, anywhere, ever that advised people to keep their large sum on deposit because "it was earning a lot". It is never the case. At no stage did anybody think "ooh the interest rates are high, I better keep my money on deposit right now". Its just isn't true.
Which is why the facts in the real world don't match your claims.
The reality is that the number of households looking for houses and the number of houses available is the key determinant to p/e ratios, not interest rates.
Ok, so the general negative correlation between interest rates and property prices is not universally accepted.
Because there's you.
There's me and the facts on the ground.
Please find any actual evidence since the rise of BTL cash buyers that give a significant correlation between interest rates and property prices.
When it was just people buying with mortgages their own home then it was true, but BTL broke the link. If people can't buy with their own mortgage they need to rent instead, meaning higher rents, more profit from BTL, so more BTL demand.
If rates goin up you won't see prices go down, you'll see the share of FTBs go down as BTL step in to keep prices high as profits will be there.
Something from the BoE here if you want to take a dive rather than just bashing away at the keyboard. All about the relationship between interest rates and property prices -
Politico.com - ‘It’s Not the Dog’: What’s Really Behind the White House Dog’s Biting Problem What Major’s biting episodes tell us about White House workplace stress, the need for calm leadership and why dogs don’t dig the furry baby talk.
"What Major is saying [when he bites] is that he doesn’t feel safe yet," expert dog trainer Cesar Millan said. "And if he doesn’t feel safe, he can’t trust. And if he can’t trust, he can’t feel calm."
President Joe Biden just moved in, and already in the neighborhood he’s the guy with … that dog.
Major, a 3-year-old rescue from a Delaware shelter and the younger of the first family’s two German shepherds, has been “agitated” at the White House, jumping, barking and “charging,” according to CNN’s reporting. Back toward the beginning of March, Major bit a Secret Service agent. More recently, he “nipped” a National Park Service employee.
The White House has tried to cast the episodes as mostly no big deal — a case of “a sweet dog,” in the president’s words, merely trying to get used to his new, busy and disorienting digs. “Major was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said following the initial incident. “Major is still adjusting to his new surroundings,” Michael LaRosa, first lady Jill Biden’s press secretary, said in the wake of the sans-injury second.
With the exception of the coverage on cable news, the basic parameters of the storyline are probably uncomfortably familiar to many American dog owners who think of their pets as beloved and blameless members of the family, only to suffer the chagrin of watching them misbehave out in public. Of course, when our pound pup lunges at the Amazon man, we don’t have to attempt to explain it from the podium in the Brady Briefing Room. The Bidens do, though — and all politics aside, the dog training world is not overly impressed with what they’re hearing.
A quartet of celebrity and expert dog trainers I talked to told me the response from the first family misses key points about a serious but eminently solvable situation. Jason Cohen, Larry Krohn, Joel Silverman and Cesar Millan — some of whom have written bestselling books and have starred in hit TV shows — are stationed from New York to California and have varying styles and focuses, ranging from easing dogs’ social anxiety to lessening their aggression. But they all agreed on one overarching thing.
As Millan put it?
“It’s not the dog.”
It’s the place and the people around the dog. . . .
I looked at a house yesterday. Very nice new build. Beautiful part of the Country. Quiet, country location. Idyllic.
Then I looked up the planning application.
A note from HS2.
Please be aware this property may be subject to compulsory purchase...
I am guessing it was an earlier version of the route. At least I hope so!
My concern wouldn't be the fact its subject to compulsory purchase - it would be that it was close to the route but they didn't buy it.
In which case you would get all the noise with little chance of escaping.
High speed trains would be a fair bit quieter then diesel hauled freight.
But to offset that, there will of course be a lot of them.
I used to live a few hundred yards from a major express railway line. With double glazing the trains didn't disturb us. We could hear the freight trains even at night in the summer when the windows were open, but it never disturbed our sleep.
In the day outside you could hear them, but they didn't really disturb, just background noise that you get used to.
Very good story on the development of a cheap vaccine that can be produced pretty well worldwide in old style vaccine facilities - but also has a high tech, apparently very effective spike protein mimic design.
Thanks for sharing. I think this once again shows how below the radar advances in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology have fundamentally changed how we do biology and medicine. The new standard is that everything now has to be understood at the molecular level and designed at that level. It is no longer engineering as tinkering (although there are still strong elements of that) but engineering as design for purpose.
The excellent piece @Nigelb shared over the weekend explained that Moderna had developed a vaccine without ever having any of the virus. They worked on the genome of the virus and regarded it as a "software" problem.
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Yep. It creates a strong case for destroying the remaining libraries of smallpox - why keep live virus when you can store the sequence in silico and, should the need arise, simply print it out on your DNA/RNA desktop printer?
However, the life as software analogy can be taken way too far. The genetic material is the equivalent of the software code. To do anything useful, it still needs the computer and peripherals, and the operating system. And those elements in biology are wet systems with very tight energy constraints - usually getting an organism to produce something it does not naturally produce comes at the price of getting it to stop producing something else it evolved to produce, and that results in strong energy conservation pressures to evolve out what the bioengineers have designed in.
The smallpox one had occurred to me. What I hope we will see is medicine that is tailored for the recipient greatly reducing side effects, the dosages required, the painful experimentation that is so common in mental health in particular to find out which anti psychotic or anti depressant works for that particular patient as well as further vaccines for diseases that still cause so much misery and death in the developing world. But your analogy of the rest of the body being the hardware is a good one. I think I'll pinch it!
IIRC the "we can print smallpox, if we ever wanted" idea was discussed a decade or 2 ago. There was some consideration to each of the countries still holding their samples destroying them simultaneously. Again, IIRC, the view that making a species deliberately extinct was wrong, won out.
Very good story on the development of a cheap vaccine that can be produced pretty well worldwide in old style vaccine facilities - but also has a high tech, apparently very effective spike protein mimic design.
Thanks for sharing. I think this once again shows how below the radar advances in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology have fundamentally changed how we do biology and medicine. The new standard is that everything now has to be understood at the molecular level and designed at that level. It is no longer engineering as tinkering (although there are still strong elements of that) but engineering as design for purpose.
The excellent piece @Nigelb shared over the weekend explained that Moderna had developed a vaccine without ever having any of the virus. They worked on the genome of the virus and regarded it as a "software" problem.
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Yep. It creates a strong case for destroying the remaining libraries of smallpox - why keep live virus when you can store the sequence in silico and, should the need arise, simply print it out on your DNA/RNA desktop printer?
However, the life as software analogy can be taken way too far. The genetic material is the equivalent of the software code. To do anything useful, it still needs the computer and peripherals, and the operating system. And those elements in biology are wet systems with very tight energy constraints - usually getting an organism to produce something it does not naturally produce comes at the price of getting it to stop producing something else it evolved to produce, and that results in strong energy conservation pressures to evolve out what the bioengineers have designed in.
The smallpox one had occurred to me. What I hope we will see is medicine that is tailored for the recipient greatly reducing side effects, the dosages required, the painful experimentation that is so common in mental health in particular to find out which anti psychotic or anti depressant works for that particular patient as well as further vaccines for diseases that still cause so much misery and death in the developing world. But your analogy of the rest of the body being the hardware is a good one. I think I'll pinch it!
Yeah. I think we are in the very, very early days of truly personalized medicine. Perhaps cancer treatment in countries with large numbers of very wealthy individuals (Gulf states?) is where we'll first see it on a larger scale - creating optimal treatment regimens specific to the individual patient and the specific cancer.
I used to work with a guy in the late 80s who took out a mortgage in Swiss Francs at 5% as opposed to 15% in sterling. Everything was fine until the £ fell out of the ERM which left him totally screwed.
Like people who pay them through a service company to avoid tax and then complain theyre not getting proper support from furlough and declared hrmc self employed support,
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
Bullshit.
(i) is never true.
When base rate is say 3% then the banks offer less than 3% on your deposit. When base rate is say 6% then banks offer less than 6% on your deposit. At no stage is it ever considered "a lot" to keep your sum on deposit. Not to forget there is inflation to take into account too.
Go back to 2007 and find me a single finance article, anywhere, ever that advised people to keep their large sum on deposit because "it was earning a lot". It is never the case. At no stage did anybody think "ooh the interest rates are high, I better keep my money on deposit right now". Its just isn't true.
Which is why the facts in the real world don't match your claims.
The reality is that the number of households looking for houses and the number of houses available is the key determinant to p/e ratios, not interest rates.
Ok, so the general negative correlation between interest rates and property prices is not universally accepted.
Because there's you.
There's me and the facts on the ground.
Please find any actual evidence since the rise of BTL cash buyers that give a significant correlation between interest rates and property prices.
When it was just people buying with mortgages their own home then it was true, but BTL broke the link. If people can't buy with their own mortgage they need to rent instead, meaning higher rents, more profit from BTL, so more BTL demand.
If rates goin up you won't see prices go down, you'll see the share of FTBs go down as BTL step in to keep prices high as profits will be there.
Something from the BoE here if you want to take a dive rather than just bashing away at the keyboard. All about the relationship between interest rates and property prices -
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
What's your thoughts on the whole bull market that began in the late 90s and carried on right up to the crash was set off and aggravated by the tax on pension dividends by Gordon Brown? That investors took money out of their pensions and moved to buy to let as investments. Combined with increases in migration, property speculation became a one way bet.
The 90s and 00s financial bubble (inc property) was quite something. I wouldn't try and understand it all, or mainly, through the prism of Gordon Brown's demerits if I were you. You handicap yourself quite badly that way.
Of course, things are never the result of single events. Something particularly weird happened in the hosing market from the late 90s onwards, and even more so in London. There are many a Member of Parliament of the time who became millionaires from flipping london houses (often paid through mp second home allowances).
Yes, I recall London prices really motoring back then. Just not sure about the link to Brown and his actions. So many Tory Story types try this on and so my default position is skepticism. Wasn't there an 80s boom too? And didn't prices start rising sharply again in the early to mid 90s? And wasn't there a little mini correction in 98? Dunno. Can't remember it all. Doubt that Gordon will be the biggest factor though.
Interest rate rises are best for buy to let landlords making cash purchases.
A decade ago I used to work with someone who invested in buying homes to let. He left the company as he was making so much more money as a landlord than he was from his day job. He was debt-free and said from memory that every 20 homes he owned per year gave enough profit to buy another home for cash, debt-free.
People like this couldn't care less about interest rates since they aren't paying for a mortgage in the first place. If mortgages become harder to afford then more people need to rent, so he can make more profit.
The idea that interest rates rising would suddenly see a collapse in house prices is for the fairies. There's a reason interest rates falling did not see a rise in house prices. All you would do is make it harder for those who need a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and allow those buying for cash to keep on buying and letting and making even more profit than before.
People need somewhere to live so the one true determinant of prices is supply and demand. Build more houses and prices go down, increase population and prices go up. Whatever the interest rate is people need somewhere to live, the higher the interest rate the more you just tip the scales in favour of cash-only purchasers which is the already wealthy or buy to let landlords.
Interest rates are not wholly irrelevant to a cash buyer. If you're getting a juicy return on your cash for just letting it sit in a bank it can be a disincentive for doing other things with it - eg buying property.
And yet price/earnings ratios peaked when base rate was 6%, not 0%. The stampede of people buying to let peaked when base rate was 6% and has gone into reverse in recent years when base rate was 0%. Why is that?
Because no bank actually offers base rate as their savings rate. Borrowers pay Base + adjustment, savers get paid Base - adjustment.
Interest rates are just one of many factors in play with house prices. But there's no doubt that by and large falling rates are supportive (of prices) and rising rates are a dampener. You'd be alone in the known world if you are disputing this. It's not one for a tumble unless you are desperate for a tumble.
They're a massively, massively overrated factor. Yes I do dispute it.
If interest rates were a major factor then price ratios should have surged after interest rates were slashed from 6% to 0%. They didn't. Why didn't they?
People look at the fact that we have high prices and 0% interest rates and blame the high prices on the 0% interest rates, while ignoring the fact that the prices increased when rates were 6% and haven't risen since.
Blaming house prices on interest rates is about as economically literate as blaming the UK's 125k dead of the virus on the UK's high vaccination scheme - it completely reverses the order in which things occured.
Prices rose in the 00's because population surged far more than construction did. Not because of interest rates or any other crap.
Rates are an overrated factor (in property prices) where people overrate it as a factor ("it's ALL about interest rates") and are an underrated factor where people underrate it as a factor ("nothing to do with interest rates and all that crap") but one thing is as sure as eggs. Rates are a factor. In property prices.
How big of a factor, when buy-to-let purchasers are primarily cash purchasers? 🙄
The idea that all the cash purchasers out there would keep their cash in the bank instead of buying homes and letting them if base rate was 3% or even 6% is one of the most incredible uneconomic ideas out there. 🤦♂️
Price/earnings ratios are no different in 2007 when base rate was close to 6% than it was in 2019 when they were close to 0%. Quite frankly there is no link there between interest rates and P/E ratios.
Need to de-clutter. Consider:
(i) You have a large sum on deposit earning a lot because rates are high. (ii) You have a large sum on deposit earning peanuts because rates are low.
Situation (ii) is an incentive - relative to (i) - to take your money out of cash and "put it to work" by purchasing other asset types, eg shares or property.
Thus property demand (and hence value) is inversely correlated to interest rates. Ceteris paribus, if rates go up property prices fall, and vice versa. Of course in practice we don't get ceteris paribus. There are many other factors in play at the same time and many of those are in turn cross correlated - it's a helluva rich soup - so one can't isolate precisely and scientifically the impact of each one in isolation. But that interest rates are a significant factor in property prices and the correlation is negative is undeniable and universally accepted. Philip.
What's your thoughts on the whole bull market that began in the late 90s and carried on right up to the crash was set off and aggravated by the tax on pension dividends by Gordon Brown? That investors took money out of their pensions and moved to buy to let as investments. Combined with increases in migration, property speculation became a one way bet.
The 90s and 00s financial bubble (inc property) was quite something. I wouldn't try and understand it all, or mainly, through the prism of Gordon Brown's demerits if I were you. You handicap yourself quite badly that way.
Of course, things are never the result of single events. Something particularly weird happened in the hosing market from the late 90s onwards, and even more so in London. There are many a Member of Parliament of the time who became millionaires from flipping london houses (often paid through mp second home allowances).
What was notable (to some anyway) was that buying a house on living expenses was quite specifically forbidden in the private sector. For tax reasons, IIRC.
I used to work with a guy in the late 80s who took out a mortgage in Swiss Francs at 5% as opposed to 15% in sterling. Everything was fine until the £ fell out of the ERM which left him totally screwed.
Ooo that is like doing the deposit linked swap without the forward cover. Very risky.
I used to work with a guy in the late 80s who took out a mortgage in Swiss Francs at 5% as opposed to 15% in sterling. Everything was fine until the £ fell out of the ERM which left him totally screwed.
Ooo that is like doing the deposit linked swap without the forward cover. Very risky.
One very, very bright chap I knew rolled his own mortgage, complete with cross currency swaps.
Puts to mind the one about "Creating real stupidity takes real brains"....
O/T but i see the Economist has an article, dealing with the issue we discussed here a couple of days ago. A big reason for growing Conservative success in the North and Midlands (including Red Wall seats) is housing affordability. People can afford to live in a manner that makes them likely to vote Conservative. In London, they can't.
It would explain why Labour prefers to keep people poor.
Indeed, Labour wants as many people renting as possible to ensure they keep voting Labour, the Tories want as many people owning properties as possible to get them voting Tory
Even by your standards, that's nonsense. Evidence?
1979 to date.
Tories see more home ownership, Labour less home ownership.
That still doesn't explain away HYUFD'S sweeping statement.
O/T but i see the Economist has an article, dealing with the issue we discussed here a couple of days ago. A big reason for growing Conservative success in the North and Midlands (including Red Wall seats) is housing affordability. People can afford to live in a manner that makes them likely to vote Conservative. In London, they can't.
including Red Wall seats
Not just including but especially.
And allied to their affordable housing and good communications its noticeable how visually attractive many of them have become in recent years as the slagheaps and old industrial land has been landscaped and redeveloped.
Comments
This is going to change medicine more profoundly than anything since penicillin. Its astonishing.
Of course, her uncompromising opposition to HS2 may be one reason why Gillan had a big majority, and there could be an element of unwind there, but as you say it’s hard to see how it unwinds far enough to bring the seat into play.
Richard Tice? Still be a Tory hold I suspect though.
You still even deny that Brown overspent.
But, yes, keep Boris away,
So, in general, I'd agree that most pet problems are made by the owners or the environment. But not all pet problems - some animals are just different (NB that fact does not sell the animal experts' TV shows and products, so gets hidden. It is notable in the horsewhisperer documentary that he advises one horse owner that a particular stallion is beyond rescue). And rescue animals are notoriously hard to work with if you don't know the origins of their problems.
It quite evidently doesn’t.
Just the party getting the beatings has switched.
Then I looked up the planning application.
A note from HS2.
Please be aware this property may be subject to compulsory purchase...
I am guessing it was an earlier version of the route. At least I hope so!
I knew her, she was one of the best as Tracey and others will affirm, and maybe her successor is for another day
Rest in peace Cheryl
In which case you would get all the noise with little chance of escaping.
However, the life as software analogy can be taken way too far. The genetic material is the equivalent of the software code. To do anything useful, it still needs the computer and peripherals, and the operating system. And those elements in biology are wet systems with very tight energy constraints - usually getting an organism to produce something it does not naturally produce comes at the price of getting it to stop producing something else it evolved to produce, and that results in strong energy conservation pressures to evolve out what the bioengineers have designed in.
But to offset that, there will of course be a lot of them.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2019/uk-house-prices-and-three-decades-of-decline-in-the-risk-free-real-interest-rate.pdf?la=en&hash=7C12A901353CB615C3FC1A58557918D50775E470
In the day outside you could hear them, but they didn't really disturb, just background noise that you get used to.
The first is twat.
The second is c....
from cases
from hospitals
Puts to mind the one about "Creating real stupidity takes real brains"....
refused to carry a vaccine passport
Not just including but especially.
And allied to their affordable housing and good communications its noticeable how visually attractive many of them have become in recent years as the slagheaps and old industrial land has been landscaped and redeveloped.