The turning of the screw.

In the strange world lived in by those concerned with matters of finance, narsty things are happening in the woodshed.
A report out today tells us that house prices are not increasing, but are in decline. This is great news for those wishing to get on the property ladder, but not so good for those who borrow on the backs of their houses, and not good at all for those who lend money to sub prime borrowers and can see their equity disintegrating.
Britain has been kept afloat for some years now with the bubble of borrowing, fuelled by sub prime lenders such as Pink and Amber (subsidiaries of HML, which is in turn a subsidiary of Skipton building society) who lend with some rates approaching 12% to borrowers who might have many CCJ's against them, and amounts of up to 5 times self certified incomes.
These financial events have led to the first British casualty, Victoria mortgages, which called in the administrators this week, and Pink are complaining that no fewer than 67 mortgage products have been withdrawn from them in a period of 12 weeks. They have also dipped a toe into packaging an IVA product.
If you don't know what an IVA is, then you're lucky, you wouldn't really want to know.
Meanwhile Countrywide, America's largest home loans company with a turnover of over $280 Billion this year has announced a few job cuts.
12,000 to be precise.
Having put many eggs into the basket of HML, Craven district council may well be wondering just when the start will be made on their new offices on what was a protected site on Gargrave Road.
Paakwa has the same wonderment, but knows that the old offices are over 40 years old, and new ones must be desperately needed.
Just as that old site on Gargrave Road will be much improved when Pink or Amber or HML or whatever they're called show the world again just what they can do in modern building styles.