... or Seats?

With regard to Skoda's, I'm very impressed with them. Hired a Fabia about a year ago. Never liked their appearance but it was very nice to drive and fuel economy was excellent. I liked it so much I would buy one.

About 2 months ago we got a new Yeti 4x4 and although it's early days (and we don't use it that often - although we gave it a bit of an airing on holiday) I have to say that so far (just 3,000 miles) it is looking like being the best car we've ever had.

So, still no-one popped along to tell us how casualisation and low pay is the future?

It appears not.

And I was trying hard to create an all-inclusive opportunity for a sensible discussion on the issue.

Our resident right-wingers are far too busy not answering questions on other threads to bother themselves with not answering questions on this one

A very good OP this is a challenge for the economy as a whole in Europe. In the days when we had fuller employment say the 60s was the average wage relatively higher or lower than today taking into account inflation?

What is causing the economy to stall - is it lower wages or high cost of goods and services? Once we understand that we can take the appropriate action to correct things.

As we strive for efficiencies in the work place through process improvements then casualisation will be a consequence as firms are more targeted and strategic about how they use labour. It is in everyone's interest that firms prosper would we rather they employ more at lower wages or less on higher wages? Labour flexibility really gives firms competitive advantage. To work properly the employee needs to be guaranteed at set monthly income but with variable hours to match demand within WTD. So they will work 1820 a year for £30k for example, they will get £2,500 ever month but they could work 120 hours one month but 200 in another.

We need to find a way of getting young first time buyers on to the property ladder, they can afford the repayments but they cannot do that and save a hefty deposit. This would stimulate spending as house moves will lead to new stuff being required all along the chain.

What to do about utility prices? how do prices in the UK compare to the rest of Europe - perhaps the government could start its own firm and sell to the lower paid at competitive prices - if that is indeed possible?

I don't think there are many right wingers on here asking for greater deregulation - just not any of dad Milliband's brand of politics.

I think to hear Cameron bemoaning the fact that people can't get 95% mortgages is disgraceful and dangerous. It's all about trying to create a "all back to normal" up to 2015 and then it'll be stuff the first-time buyers. The point is 95% mortgages and high multiples of income were not the norm - they were a short-term abberation that caused global financial turmoil (and still, possibly collapse). To try to encourage a return to that is foolish beyond words.

Cameron is well aware, which you clearly are not, that one way to get money flowing into the economy again is for a flux of new house building and the new addition of availability of 5% deposits to all first time buyers - not only does it stimulate the building trade and its allied hundreds of other businesses but it gives a target for the financial institutions to lend to (for which they have failed dismally in recent years) and it costs the treasury relatively little in hard cash terms for great benefit.

I completely disagree - I bought my first house in 1984 with a 95% mortgage that's 30 years ago and it was and has been the norm for first time buyers since that time. The majority of issues in the property market are not with people who have a single home but those greedy individuals who believed a fast buck could be made out of owning several properties. Given the cost of housing in some areas 5% represents a significant investment and provided they can make the repayments and owning a house is seen as a long term investment I fail to see the issue.

Perhaps you want to keep the average joe from owning their own property - I would hazard a guess you own your own property and can see the longer term benefits of doing so.

I don't have an issue with 95% mortgages because, as you say, they were the norm but also for the reason that, by saving towards that 5% deposit, the buyer demonstrates that they have the income to be able to afford the repayments once the house has been bought.
All that sounds good and sensible to me.

However, Help To Buy guarantees up to 25%, interest-free for up to five years.
That is way outside what you or I would recognise as the norm.
Also, it is available for houses up to £600,000 ... now that is not what I'd call a typical first-time-buyer purchase, even in the South East.

One of the biggest problems was Building Societies forgetting their principal purpose by demutualising and going for risky high profits by borrowing cash themselves to use in selling mortgages as big as they possibly could, then selling that debt and using the cash from the sale to get lots of lovely profit.
Hence they were happy to sell 110% mortgages, after all it was a rising market so the asset would soon be worth that 110% price, plus they were selling the debt on, so they wouldn't hold the risk for long anyway, so were also happy to sell self-certified mortgages.
As they were quickly selling the debt on, they didn't need (or so they thought) to have large amounts of capitalisation to cover the debt (on their borrowings) and risk (on the mortgages sold but not yet sold-on) that they were carrying at any one time.
But a major hiccup such as a dip in selling the debt or large numbers of defaults in mortgage repayments or one bank getting into liquidity trouble would bring the whole thing tumbling down ... and it did, bringing any institution that had over-invested in that dodgy debt down with it.

I think Dally may be seeing the "up to 25%" deposit from the Help To Buy scheme as potentially fuelling another housing bubble ... and he may well have a point (if that is indeed his point) because, as well as helping people onto the ladder, it could well also encourage overspend and, hence, higher house prices, bearing in mind that, at the moment, the average house costs 5.5. times the average wage.
Back in the day when you and I bought into the housing market, one could only borrow 3 to 3.5 times one's annual salary, which acted as a brake on prices.


Anyway, interesting as discussing house prices might be, it doesn't answer Mintball's original question.
It seems as though no-one wants to defend the government on that issue.