"Average interest paid by British households is £3,500 a year... Much of this debt is backed by property... How can houses, some of which are being acquired on mortgages of six times the buyer's salary, keep increasing in price at a rate of more than twice income growth? ... Shares in Spanish construction companies have collapsed like haciendas in an earthquake. Years of cheap loans, chronic over-supply of housing (facilitated by corrupt planning officials) and dodgy investment schemes, peddled to gullible foreigners, created an unsustainable boom. The bust is going to Costa lot, especially for thousands of Britons who borrowed heavily to buy a home in the sun, expecting rental income to pay the mortgage." - Up to our eyes in debt we can't see
"British pension funds and institutional investors are shifting away from UK-listed companies, selling a record of almost £30bn worth of UK shares last year. For the sixth year running, these institutions have increased their exposure to foreign equities, and other assets such as bonds and property, in search of better rates of return and lower risk, according to new research from Citigroup, the investment bank." Pension funds' record UK share sale
Sarkozy - whose side is he on?
"If the neocons and the Israel Firsters have their way, Sarko will come out the winner." Kurt Nimmo
Former envoy makes devastating attack on Blair's 'bullshit bingo' management culture of diplomacy - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2488807.ece
The Corriere reporter, Moncia Guerzoni, added that Sir Ivor also said that the Bush administration was "conditioned and pressured by groups of powerful Israelis". http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1105882004