It's all the landlords buying to let out apparently. The same reason, it turns out, house prices were artificially high before.

If we need money, RECLAIM THE £120 BILLION OWED IN FRAKIN TAX! It's not rocket science.

Buy-to-lets were a problem because the government allowed them to be. Even Tony Blair and many MP's got in on the scam. If there was capital gains tax on all homes it would have reduced the benefit for speculators. Capital Gains Tax charged at the persons marginal tax rate would have kept many out of the market. Long term investors with very large equity and low leverage would not have distorted the market much. If rules were introduced on buy to let mortgages regarding amounts of equity it would mean that much more stability could be achieved. The allowing of banks to get into residential mortgages was probably the biggest mistake. With their access to cheap wholesale money markets they were able to decimate the building societies. Those building societies that converted to banks have all disappeared. What is needed now is a ban on banks involvement in residential mortgages. This might cause a short term rationing of mortgages for some time but that might be needed to kill the "property always rises attitude" It will mean that people will need to save for deposits. That will reduce the risks for building societies and borrowers alike. The government should also restrict mortgages to repayment only with fixed rules on maximum loan to values. These rules will not stop people buying a home but kill the speculation on property. A home is not the way to wealth. That comes from investment in businesses.

Or a strengthening of tenant rights and more regulation on rental charges. This may start to slowly change the apparent need of everyone to own their own house. Renting is by far the norm on the continent, with contracts for years not 6 months, but then tenants have rights.

Sometimes they have too many rights though, my GF's dad rents out in Germany and he's had nothing but hassle of anyone he's had in.

Better tenants rights would be a good thing. Maybe the automatic right to stay on an pay the rent directly to the bank or building society instead if the landlord defaults. It would then give the company much more time to decide what they want to do. If they did that the councils would have less problems housing people. Building societies or banks would not face losses on the building. They could even sell to the tenant in future. It would not depress local house prices if there were a number of them to be returned to the bank at the same time.

How to dodge credit card fees

Your credit card is supposed to offer you convenience. You can pay for things quickly and simply and spread the cost of expensive items. But how much are you prepared to pay for that convenience? Many retailers, in particular those in the travel industry, charge customers a surcharge when using credit cards. And the amount they charge is rising fast.
What are credit card surcharges?

All banks charge retailers a 'merchant fee' for processing payments on debit and credit cards. These charges do differ – for example, supermarkets can negotiate smaller fees due to the volume of transactions – but in general a credit card fee will be between 1-2.5% and for debit cards the charge is usually around 10p, says the UK Payments Administration. In most cases the retailers absorb these fees themselves so you never know about them. However, some retailers pass the charge on to the customer, and some are charging far more than they need to – Monarch Airlines, , for example, charges 5% to customers who pay with a credit card and 3.5% to those who use a debit card. And the worst culprit? Ryanair, which charges a credit card fee of £5 per person per flight.

This is profiteering. The credit card companies charge Ryanair a tiny percentage of what Ryanair charges the customer. Worse still, Ryanair charge the same for debit card users when the transaction will only cost them 10p. This is a huge money-spinner for Ryanair, possibly raking in more for them than the airfares themselves.

Company Credit-card fee Debit-card fee Notes
Bmibaby £4.50 pppf* £3 pppf Visa Electron exempt
EasyJet £3.50 + 2.5% £3.50 Visa Electron exempt
Monarch 5% (min £5.49) 3.5% (min £2.44) Visa Electron exempt
Ryanair £5 pppf £5 pppf Prepaid MasterCard exempt
Thomas Cook 2.5% Capped at £50
Thomson 2.5% £2.95 Visa Electron exempt
Thetrainline.com £3.50
Irish Ferries £5 £5 Visa Electron exempt

*per person per flight. Source: Which? Money

The travel industry is developing a bad reputation for overcharging customers who pay by card but they aren't the only retailers who do it. Insurance companies, ticket agencies and even some local councils charge over the odds for letting you use your flexible friend. In some cases the charges may be unavoidable – if you can't afford to pay for your insurance in one chunk it can make sense to pay the surcharge to use a credit card. Then you can spread the cost by paying off your credit card in chunks (just make sure it's a zero interest credit card). But on many occasions you can sidestep at least some of the extra charges.

How can you avoid the fees?

As you can see from the table above, there is one form of plastic that skirts most of the fees, Visa Electron. Travel companies can only get away with advertising their trips without booking fees if they maintain at least one way of avoiding these fees. Most of them have chosen Visa Electron as the fee-free card – mainly because most people don't have one.

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A Visa Electron card is a debit card – check your bank card for the Visa Electron symbol. The only real difference is that with a Visa Electron card you have to have the available funds when you make a payment. It won't let you go overdrawn. To get one, you could ask your bank if they can provide you with one for your account, or you can switch bank accounts to a bank that offers them.

However there is an even simpler way to do this. Get a Post Office Travel Money Card. This is a Visa Electron card that you can pre-load with cash. The card itself is free to buy, but there is a 1.5% charge for loading it with pounds sterling as opposed to a foreign currency – it's mainly intended as an alternative to travellers' cheques. But at 1.5% it's still a lot cheaper than the fees you'd be charged if you used a credit card.

To avoid Ryanair's fees you'll need a Prepaid MasterCard rather than Visa Electron – try the CaxtonFX Global Traveller card which charges a fee of £1.50 per transaction.

Also, when you are shopping around for the cheapest deal make sure you take all the extra fees and charges into account. It may be that once you've included the budget airline's fees for everything from daring to take luggage with you to paying with plastic, you could have booked a cheaper, and much more pleasant flight with a different airline. For example, return flights for two adults to Rome from London Gatwick in December cost £263.75 with EasyJet but for only £245.20 you can fly with British Airways. So don't always assume the budget airlines are the cheapest.

http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finan ... 04207.aspx

Hope I never have to fly Ryanair - I'd deny O'Leary the smell of yesterday's sh1te never mind my money...

Savers 'losing £12bn in interest'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11621219

I should really sort out my accounts, but it's too depressing and time consuming. And don't the bastards know it....

And they do not make it easy to find the best accounts and definitely do not tell you that your money is in a bad one.

I thought they changed some rule so that they did tell you know, it's just that 99.999% of customers don't read the letters

I hate my bank

Tax-free Junior Isa plan unveiled

A new tax-free savings account for children is to be introduced as some compensation for the loss of Child Trust Fund contributions.

The Junior Individual Savings Accounts (Isas) will lock in funds until the child reaches adulthood.

But, unlike Child Trust Funds, there will be no government contributions into each child's savings pot.

The government hopes the new system will be in place in a year's time, the Commons has been told.

Savings

The new accounts will be similar to the adult version of the Individual Savings Account (Isa) in that there will be a cap on annual contributions, and investments can be made by cash or stocks and shares.

They will be run by private providers and the government will not put in any public funds.

In May, the coalition announced that it was phasing out its contributions to Child Trust Funds, which were set up by the Labour government to encourage parents to save for their children. Labour's idea was for children to have some savings at the age of 18, to assist with costs such as university funding.

Before May, parents of newborns received a minimum £250 voucher to invest for their children, who had access to the money from the age of 18. A further payment was made when the child reached the age of seven.

But these payments were reduced sharply in August, and the payments will end entirely from January, in order to save the government £320m this year, and £500m in future years.

When it announced the end of contributions, the government suggested that there might still be a programme to encourage a nest-egg for children, who are likely to see rising costs for higher education and housing.

"I am committed to ensuring that all parents can save for their children's future in a simple and straightforward account," said financial secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban, announcing the new Junior Isa plan.

"The introduction of this new account means that we can still offer people a clear way of saving for their children, while saving the half billion pounds a year that we currently spend on Child Trust Funds."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11630458

That actually strikes me as a much better option overall - I'd guess that a lot of the CTFs only had the government (taxpayer's) money going into them, or not much else

As long as it will mean that parents who give money to their kids will be exempt from tax on the interest I can see this being successful. What are needed are simple accounts with decent returns to encourage savings. No ways to block transfers or to limit it to new accounts only. Otherwise people will be stuck with dozens of poor performing accounts. Share based ISA's could be very unpopular if there is another stock market crash. It will wipe out billions of savings from people who really should not be taking such risks. They are popular with the City because it encourages money to go to them and they can skim the funds for fees.

Britain backs EU rescue measures for debt-ridden Ireland

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010 ... bt-ireland


Too late. RBS apparently have €46 billion loaned to Allied Irish. Which they could lose, and guess how much more cuts we will have to endure as a result?

In addition to that, all the activity today is because some counter-parties are no longer providing funds to irish banks on the interbank market. This is what happened to Northern Rock, meaning that a irish bank run is highly likely. So a bail out is likely probably before the end of the year now. Then the attention will probably turn to Spain and Portugal.

I did not have to wait long to be proven right.

Free banking damages competition and customers, says FSA chairman Lord Turner

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... urner.html


Well if they break the banks up first then lets see what happens. I would like to see the end of the big banks and all their risky overseas lending.

UK household finances still stretched, survey suggests

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11979894


Clearly a lot of people are not feeling the benefit of the governments lax monetary policy.