It was a bit different in the 70s and 80s when inflation and interest rates were higher and so the initial cost was higher, but inflation rapidly reduced that cost. If we assume future inflation at 2… (View Post)

A country also needs to have headroom to borrow in crisis situations - war, pandemic, etc - so when there isn't a crisis situation then debt-to-GDP needs to fall so that it can borrow an extra 2… (View Post)

I'm a real person too, also looking to buy a house in the near future. There's no need to be unpleasant about this to me. If house prices were one-third lower the putative couple could buy … (View Post)

The normal rule of thumb is that a household should try not to spend more than one-third of their income on rent/mortgage payments. Do you really think it would be sensible for one-third of governmen… (View Post)

I think I can tolerate the puritanism, it's the ineptness that will be harder to bear. If you want to tackle problems with alcohol then the place to start is with supermarket sales of cheap vodk… (View Post)