The Kings New Clothes - An End to the Recession

When I bought this laptop that I am now using it was for a specific reason, and it still functions well as a portable word processor. At the time I got it, pre used, a new battery was nearly the same price as the machine so while I have used it over the years, it was never as useful as it could have been. However as I now know that I can buy a new battery for it for fifty pounds, a third of what they were, I may keep using it even after I get the new desk top sorted out. Even more so if I can get a CD drive for it too. This only has a floppy drive, and who still uses floppy discs? (The Wood Mouse puts his paw up and says I do)


While it is fourteen years old it is still in excellent condition and has proved more reliable than other machines. Also because it has a modular construction, there will be people who will probably tell me that they all do, if I can get the right bits, I am sure that I can keep this working for many more years too. With that in mind I switched on the screensaver. I had never used it on this machine as I only ever used it and switched it off before. Well I was delighted to see that the manufactures one mimicked the clouds theme of Windows 95 but had flapping notebooks flying across the screen, with the occasional flying pig! Now I have always said that before I ever won the national lottery I would get a flying pig, well after seeing the screen saver I splashed out a pound and bought a ticket. Well the Wood Mouse is now a winner. Mind you that ten pounds has cost me a million pounds to win!


I am pleased that I have now ordered the new hard drive for the desk top, I hope that by replacing that I will be able to salvage the files from the one that’s in there. The computer experts in the shop that my plan is a good one, but I will wait and see before starting any celebrations. As when I had the computer checked out by the store they said it looked like the DVD drive was failing too. Cheap "expletive" components. It may turn out that I have to replace more on the computer to get it functioning properly, well so much for buying a budget computer.


However, one good thing that may have arisen from this, is that I may have found a way to free myself from the cost and problems of running Microsoft software. I may end up loading linux. I already use Open Office a free office suite that works, as well as Office, and from most of the people, who now use it, it seems that linux is better than windows. I personally don’t care about who the manufacture is, I just want good software and as problem free as it can be. However, the part that always gets me, I get a pain right in the wallet, is the cost of Microsoft products. Its no wonder that Bill Gates became a billionaire.


Talking of prices, when I was looking to move to the village, I signed up to a couple of web sites so that I could search for suitable accommodation. When I was looking to move but stay in the village I did the same. Well as others have discovered before me, once these people have you on their mailing lists they don’t let you go. Therefore, I do get to know about the property in the area that is available to rent. But I also get sent the details of completed sales and the value of those transactions.


I have long said that locally at least, the prices of property were very over inflated and that they would fall. Well one of these messages confirmed that. It tells of a house, that I can see from my own, that was sold recently, not once but twice. In the first transaction it was sold for a price that I will not mention, then the following day it was sold again for a price twenty four thousand pounds less.


To most people they will think that there must be a mistake in the data, but no as I knew incompletely, what was happening. The property was bought to be refurbished and rented out. However, when the banks collapsed and property prices tumbled, the developer could not ever hope to get the true value of the property back. The developer was a builder that set up a property company. The builder buys the property, refurbishes it then sells it to the Property Company. The builder gets his profits but the Property Company has to resell the property at a loss. That way the builder saves his building firm but walks away from the debts of the Property Company. All legal, but is just one of the ways that the property market was being manipulated.


While it is not yet fully filtering through, there will be a fall in the rents for homes soon. I am already seeing it happening but there are still a few landlords that are clinging to the idea that the tenant will pay the whole mortgage on these properties. Yet the reality is these are the ones that remain vacant. Where landlords are dropping rents, they find tenants. The sooner that Estate Agents stop fooling themselves that people will pay any price, the sooner the recession can end.


While it has taken a while to happen, even the media are now acknowledging that property values will fall to pre 1999 levels before the recession ends. And that all those missing billions from the banks went out to inflate this property bubble. This is where the government and all the political parties here in Britain are making the biggest mistakes in their different approaches to resolving the recession, as they are all too focused on "kick starting" the housing market. While it would make people feel that they have more wealth, the reality is that houses and property are still grossly over valued. I realise that is very tough for the people that bought at the height of the boom, or have mortgages that are greater than the current market value. Yet if people had bought home to live in and not as a way to get rich quick, then much of the pain just would not be here.


While everyone was seeming to be making money from nothing, just as in the Hans Christian Anderson story, all it took was one person to look and see that the housing king was naked to get everyone to see that our apparent wealth was an illusion. The greatest shame is that it has hit the people who were responsible the hardest.