Freelance writer and editor
Guess who said this back in September 2006:
… by leaping into home ownership many people risk borrowing much more than they can afford, overstretching themselves and getting into financial ruin.
Answer: Martin Lewis, the self-styled “money saving expert”. Kudos to him for that. Read the rest here. His advice at the time was “plan for the worst and hope for the best” – advice which some people would have done well to take!
Robert Reich, a key figure in President Clinton’s first administration, had this to say in a recent blog post:
It’s always easier to stir up fear and anger against something that’s amorphous than to stir up enthusiasm for it.
He’s talking about US healthcare proposals, but he could just as easily be talking about anything to do with the EU.
Earlier this week, the Audit Commission warned that the second wave of the UK recession would lead, among other things, to an increase in domestic violence.
Today, we learn that sales of Stella Artois are surging. That’s a beer better known to hardened drinkers as “wife-beater”.
Can’t be just a coincidence, can it?
Interesting analogy from the BBC’s outgoing Washington correspondent Justin Webb in his last report from the US for Radio 4′s From Our Own Correspondent . Having described the country as “little more than an eating competition, a giant, gaudy, manic effort to stuff grease and gunge into already sated innards,” he goes on to analyse the origins of the global financial crisis:
You could argue that the sub-prime mortgage crisis – the Ground Zero of the world recession – was caused mainly by greed: a lack of proportion, a lack of proper respect for the natural way of things that persuaded companies to stuff mortgages into the mouths of folks whose credit rating was always likely to induce an eventual spray of vomit.
As one of Justin’s American friends might say: Eww! Gross!
