Down Amongst The Dead Men

10 January 2009 - Down amongst the dead men

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has estimated that UK GDP fell by 1.5% in the fourth quarter of 2008, and Benjamin Williamson an economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research said the manufacturing sector was in "free fall" after it was reported that it had incurred the biggest slump in 28 years

The US lost 2.6m jobs in 2008, the most in a single year since 1945. The national unemployment rate now stands at 7.2%. The worst part is that the rate is accelerating as the months pass

In the early days of this diary, much emphasis was placed on the housing market as the area in which most direct remedial action was called for. It is therefore interesting to read that a report by Danny Gabay and Shamik Dhar of Fathom Financial Consulting proposes that the Government buys UK homes on the brink of repossession. At an estimated cost of £50bn over five years this action, it is claimed, would help to prevent a further unravelling of the housing market and avoid the social unrest which accompanies repossession. Their suggested plan is for the homes to be bought at a discount to market prices and then rentrd back to their former owners. At a later date, the Government would have an option of either retaining the property or selling it back to the private sector perhaps with a first option to the former owner. Interesting: some of us are old enough to remember council houses and if you are one such person, you might also remember the big programme to sell them back to the sitting tenant.