Francis Mensah was approaching his fifteenth year as a clerk at Lehman
Brothers when the investment bank collapsed on September 12. Yesterday he
stood at the Jobcentre in Hoxton Street, Central London, wondering how he
was going to pay his mortgage.
The housing market slump could be over as soon as next year if the cost of
home loans falls by a further half-point, a leading housing market expert
told MPs yesterday.
The severity of the squeeze on family budgets from the rising cost of living over the past year was confirmed yesterday with the latest inflation rise.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has called for urgent regulation of the sale
and rent-back industry.
There used to be a reliable pecking order of professions that were held in
public disregard. Bankers attracted little sympathy but retained a certain
mystique. Politicians and journalists were still less respected. Estate
agents came beneath the lot. The past few weeks have overturned the
rankings. No group attracts greater derision and outrage than profligate
banking executives.
It is Black Friday in the financial world. As each hour passes, billions are
being wiped off the value of shares. But Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the
financial thinker of the moment, is enjoying a light-hearted lunch in a
North London restaurant called Flaneur. It is one of his in-jokes - he is
the epitome of Baudelaire’s flâneur, a man who strolls the city, absorbing
the spirit of the place: part of the crowd while also set apart from it.
Howard Brown talked to a fish, cavorted alongside cartoon purses and rode on
the back of a white swan. Somehow it seems impossible to imagine Alistair
Darling going through similar routines to promote Halifax in the same
amiable way as the former star of the bank’s advertising.
One in ten people have cancelled their pension contributions in an effort to
save money and avoid investing in the stock market, The Times has
learnt.
The Chancellor and Treasury have sought to clarify proposals calling for HBOS,
Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to resume lending to homeowners
and small businesses “at 2007 levels”.
Nationwide has scrapped its mortgages for borrowers smaller deposits and hiked
rates on its tracker deals following the Bank of England’s base rate cut
last week.