I just don't get it. The UK is awash with debt it can't shift, yet the UK government thinks it's a great idea to ensure that people get £130bn of mortgages they can't otherwise afford.
A Treasury spokesperson is quoted in today's FT as saying that "there are rules ensuring that people can pay the mortgage that they have taken on." But if they couldn't have got the mortgage in the first place, how is that so?
It would be fair enough if someone were able to point to specific, unreasonably restrictive bank lending practices and get them changed. Yet neither the Treasury nor the Bank of England has been able to bring the banks to heel, so putting the taxpayer on the hook for 15% of a bunch of new high loan-to-value mortgages seems a little careless to say the least.
But maybe it's too late. Maybe we're just seeing the inevitable consequence of the fact that the UK state is already standing behind £491bn of UK mortgage debt, or 42%. The state simply has to be back even more. The US introduced this nonsense as a 'temporary measure' 70 years ago and, as Gillian Tett recently pointed out, is now behind 90% of the US mortgage market. How's that working out for them? You be the judge.
Welcome to Bubbleland.
Image from LuxLifeMiami.
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