Making even more credit available to shore up a gigantic, self inflicted,government sanctioned debt bubble must surely be the economic theory of a lunatic.Someone, somewhere some how has got to pay for this disaster and whoever does would be wise to leave the poor, bled dry, taxpayer out of it.

philip, Ipswich,

Gordon Brown miscalculated last November by not calling a General Election when Labour were ahead in the polls. His position is much weaker now and the Banks will realise that they only need wait before Tory policies will resolve the situation.

john, milton keynes,

If we savers withdrew most, or even all, of our money from British banks and building societies, they would forced to raise savings rates to improve the 'liquidity' that they claim to be short of. Further cuts to the base rate may well lead to this trend happening anyway with the resultant that Sterling collapses completely and then Gordon Brown would go down in history as the man who killed our currency.

All those 'analysts' and 'experts' talking up the 'necessity' of cutting the base rate should be careful what they wish for. We savers could pull the plug on this country quite easily. We have positive equity after all, something which is in short supply.

Paul, Coventry,

I didn't think the Times would print my comments made earlier today. After all, I did use the word "manufacturing" a few times.
It's not really a word we hear often enough- maybe it's a bit "Old Labour", dark satanic mills etc. It's not really as sexy an idea as "currency hedging" or "the property developer- led economic model" is it?

But it works. It also provides the spark for everything else to happen on the back of it. If you make something, you trade it, you earn money, you eat. If you have excess money you can trade that too, and earn from that as well.

Get rich quick schemes, property development, a house valuation rather than a market price, speculation, spending money that you don't have- it is not really an economic boom built on anything is it? Perhaps a ludicrous situation that we have all allowed to develop requires an equally ludicrous solution-- let's knock a nought off every house price tomorrow and see what happens!

Mark Burnard, Peterborough, UK

Do demands that lenders pass on recent base rate cuts, amount to another stealth tax?

Apparently the PM and Chancellor actually want to prop up the property market at its current, unsustainable levels.

Do they think it's economically desirable that average houses cost 7-9 times average salaries?

Do they approve of gross distortions in our savings and investment markets thanks to artificially low interest rates (that do not reflect the true price of risk)?

Do they think that lenders should further weaken their balance sheets by cutting interest rates to existing and new borrowers - despite the fact that the rates they they pay in the money markets have risen?

Do they care that this will effectively be mean a new STEALTH TAX on savers (the difference between lower savings rates and money market rates) to pay for this bailout?

Do they think they can buck the market?

Is this really prudent management of the economy - or simply political expediency?

Huw Sayer - Business Writer, Norwich, UK

The decade of social engineering to create a hand-out dependent society for the purposes of re-election has consumed all of the available tax revenue and created an unprecedented level of public borrowing with nothing to show for it. Brown and Darling would have us believed that we are "well prepared to weather the storm". Yeah right.

Duncan, Bristol, UK

Yet again, short termism in the UK. Just when the going gets tough, we end up making it easier....is it no wonder that the UK just end up being 'spoilt'?

As a nation, we end up making the 'greedy' richer and the 'poor' poorer. Is that what the government is all about?

As a nation, we end up with the attitude that if there's any signs of trouble, some magic might come along to bail them out.

As a nation, it is no wonder we don't achieve as much as we could. E.g The England Football team....all talk and no action......

James Cole, London, UK

At 73 yrs old I really have seen some shocking things got away with.
The highly highly paid banking fraternity have presided over the subprime fiasco and now expect the young working people to pay for it.
Any body with half an ounce of wit could have deduced that if the Yanks were selling it, then it was'nt any good or they would have kept it. At least they new greed when they saw it.
Hardly anything or anybody thought to check on the quality of these securities and I hope at least that someone sues in America. Much good may it do them though, for as they say in Lancashire " They are all peeing in the same pot"
What are you doing about it Gordon??

Ronald John Bentham, Nantwich, Cheshire

People already have the RIGHT to buy a house. That does not mean that just because they can't afford one the Government should provide one. I would love a Ferrari but as I can't afford it does it mean the Government should provide me one? NO.

People can rent or live with relatives as I could rent or use a smaller car. People need to realise they cannot have what they want all the time.

The real problem is the economy which is acting like an iceburg. The houseing price drop is the bit you can see but of itself is NO danger. Thats coming from below, the bit you can't see yet- inflation!

The massive rise in the cost of energy (15%+), fuel (20%+) and food (10%+) are not yet reflected in the RPI. That is due shortly when we will see MASSIVE rises. I guess a RPI of 6-7%by year end. As worrying, this increase is not wage driven. That is next as wages rise to try and match RPI. Before you know it inflation is out of control. Next stop economical meltdown.

Lance, Crawley, UK

The three day week in the 70's was down to poor investment by the Heath (Blue == Tory Party?) which Labour cleaned up.

I think the point is that Labour have run out of ideas, like the tories did after 18 years in power which stated simply means that we should revert to an American System and only allow power to be held for a limited period (ie two terms) before a change.

The idea that we hand over power (mid term) aha Major and Brown is rediculous. The UK public did not vote for Major when he became PM nor did they vote for Brown.

Langley, London, UK

If 100% of estate agents reported a fall of 0.1%, pessimists would still be predicting a crash and optimists would be predicting the end of it. If 100% reported a rise of 0.1%, the optimists would be predicting a boom but the pessimists would be reporting it as the smallest rise for however many months or years.
When the Halifax recently reported a monthly fall, it was headline news. They also reported a (small) annual rise which was not good press and therefore hardly received a mention.
If all the predictions were guaranteed by hard cash, they would be worth listening to but surprise, surprise, none of them are. Would the people telling us that we will be able to buy a house in five years time for two thirds of its price today be making the same prediction if they had to pay out any losses were they to be wrong?!

JC, London,

What absolute lunacy that an already over-inflated market should be shored up at this stage.

The boom of the last decade, fueled in no small part by the greed of buy-to-let investment, has left a lasting impression on our cityscapes and outlying urban areas, now contaminated with an oversupply of poorly designed and built blocks of shoebox apartments.

I completely agree with the comments made by CS (above). We need a rebalancing. Many European cities provide a blueprint. Above all we need to start seeing our built environment as the backbone of regeneration and social activity, not an investment vehicle which leaves people with little money to actually enjoy themselves.

Dan Brown, Gloucestershire, UK

Property is an investment and as we all know the value of investments can decrease as well as increase. The main problem being that the UK population have borrowed so much that a noteable percentage cannot pay back.
World backs are veiwing us as a liability and money leading rates to our banks are not good. It's time to wake up and see that it's not the government that controls lending rates it's supply and demand. Gordon Brown may be able to bully our own banking system but it will not solve the overall problem if you lend irresponsibly you may never get your money back

MB, Penzance, UK

Mark, Epping, Essex: “If Brown is serious in this mission then he has no grasp of economics (which is scary)”
Brown got his PhD by writing a thesis on the Scottish Labour Party. He has no qualifications in Economics, Business Management or anything else. He never has held a proper job! NOW THAT IS SCARY. And probably accounts for the mess the UK economy is in.

However, look on the bright side; a substantial fall in house prices is going to reduce materially the Death Tax for most people, though it means the Government will be even greater in debt, i.e., OUR NATIONAL DEBT will increase.

Brown has really caused a an economic disaster for the UK, despite getting an economy in good shape in 1997. But then is this not what always the case when Labour is elected?

M. Cawdery, Portadown, Co. UK, EU.

Paul Savage from Lambourn,

Gordon Brown's three million new homes target is already put on hold - since the 1970's the government has built less and less housing and is now completely reliant on the productivity and volatility of the private sector house builders who only build to demand as any manufacturer does.

What do you think these firms are doing now? They are cutting staff numbers, slowing down production and focusing on longer term developments opportunities without planning permission. The overwhelming undersupply of housing will continue long after any price correction.

With our restrictive planning system and NIMBY's making up the majority of voters, UK property will always be a sound (long term) investment.

Tom, Reading,

As long as our despicable politicians and MPs expend most of their energies in taking public money for themselves, Brown and his cronies are in no position to lecture the banks on probity.

Richard Crompton, Baden, Switzerland

Early 1980s, Armageddon for 18 months then back to growth ending in boom and early 1990s Armageddon (again) for 18 months then back to growth ending in boom and in late 2000s Armageddon (yet again, for 18 months?) then back to growth ending in .....
Nothing new to the Vienna school of economics.
David from Stourbridge is right about Brown spending on public-sector jobs, but who else would employ them?
BIG problem - China and Far East produces, someone has to consume - no job, no consumption, no production, no job, social unrest.
Economies and life are crude things, this is just life.

Eddie Reader, birmnigham, england

I hope the government plans to practice what it preaches - I have yet to receive confirmation from my mortgage lender, Northern Rock, that it will be reducing its standard variable rate in line with the recent drop in the BOE base rate.

CG, London,

Why should everybody 'own' their homes? In the rest of Europe many people rent, as they once did here.
My friends abroad pay very fair rents for large, well built apartments, and save money too, as well as having great lives. They can move easily when they want as well.

We are all in hock to building societies for pokey little rabbit hutches stuck out on inhospitable estates which can never be made into real homes.

Oh, and Brown put up tax on alcohol and cigarettes, which fuels that same inflation he is trying to suppress. The man is an idiot.

I reckon we are going down fast and that there won't be a lifeboat this time.

I don't want to go to the Philippines, which is overcrowded and going hungry, but I am looking for a way out of this disaster country.

CS, Norwich, UK

Some of the prudent banks, should tell Brown, they will take no lectures from a two bit waster.

A Walton, Leicester, England

So housing is no more about somewhere to live it's a " market', a 'ladder'. So be it, so let it self correct.
You simply cannot reconcile "investment" with a one way bet.

Every "investor" wants to make easy money, risk free money. Unless value is aded, no money is made, only inflation created.

We are led by financial donkeys, who feed on greed and damn the future.

Tom Taylor-Duxbury, Ludlow, UK

You can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink. The die is cast and today's meeting is nothing but an empty gesture. What will the government do next? Persuade reluctant buyers to buy?

anthony, london, england

Er..... didn't Gordon Brown continually boast that he gave the Bank of England freedom to set interest rates. Why is he now trying to interfere? People are now realising that Banking is a money making game. It's not there for the benefit of the not-so-well-off to buy property. If you've got money your a welcomed customer if you haven't your not. Simple as that.

George Sign, Nice, France

Saw it coming 3 years ago

a mighty monster



Smug with no widescreen

or mortgage supreme

Delighted in undebtfull bliss.



Yet since the blanket of fog has uplifted

reality unfolding

oflive on the dole

sub zero on a low mortgage

a pill more bitter than salt

for where I am now

you may be too



Show your cards of debt

in this high stakes game

that we all play

Andy, Manchester, UK

This daily scare-mongering in the press is not helping the housing market one bit!

L Newman, London,

Is Brown going to put a hold on his target of 2 million more homes by 2020 or will it happen automatically because nobody will be able to afford them if they are built?

Paul Savage, Lambourn, Berkshire

So savings rates will have to be cut.!!

Who will finance the housing bubble when we, unmortgaged savers, pull out deposits which no longer cover the inflation which has been encouraged by the reckless MPC/BoE and an impotent, scared, government?

You know the answer don't you.

Tony Peterson, Kendal,

The reason for the credit crunch is based in China which has for years had a huge balance of payments' surplus on the back of an artificially undervalued currency. Part of this surplus has been recycled within the rest of the world's economy in the as cheap money sometimes against doubtful lending criteria.

This has allowed large short term profits to be made by many companies by using the leverage available, but has not always been supported by sound asset valuations.

This demonstrates how important it is for all countries to operate within a system of genuinely floating exchange rates which permit correction of such capital imbalances.

We must be prepared, in the future, to take whatever action (including use of import duties) on countries which deliberately manipulate their currency values. Unfortunately, i do not think, for reasons of political expediency, that this will happen

Maurice
Co. Durham

S.M. Cooper, Consett, Co. Durham

Rob - in fact >90% of the population would be better off. Homeowners looking to trade up would lose some money on the value of their current home, but gain more in the discount on the value of the larger home that they planned to buy. Only those who bought property 'as an investment' would lose (and we all know that investments can go down as well as up).

The UK is bizarre in that it sees high house prices as a good thing. For the vast majority it is actually bad, robbing investment from assets that actually create wealth and impeding social and labour mobility.

Ben, London, UK

Whilst there are many reasons why banks should be less severe on borrowers in distress (they lent too big a proportion of the value of properties, their mortgages were too short term etc etc) it is totally disingenuous of Brown to ask the banks to bear the brunt. They borrow their money at prevailing rates which are not in tune with the base rate. What Browen should be doing is reducing government spending and cutting taxes. Unfortunately ten years of Labour profligacy has already resulted iun another massive devaluaiotn - how long before the IMF intervenes. New labour old problems - the 70's and 60's all over again

Pete, Barry, Wales

Rob, London - given the 180% rise in house prices over ten years which bears no resemblance to changes in earnings or living standards, do you seriously expect prices to just slow down or conveniently stop at zero growth? That isn't the way in which asset bubbles deflate, as much as Gordon Brown might wish for it.

JP, London,

The UK economy is at last starting to face the Harsh reality:
- If you borrow on a credit card you have to pay it back sometime.
- House price rises don't keep rising wildly every year.
- Average house price is now £180,000 Average salary £24,000.
- There is a limit on the number of people that can make a lot of money from a buy to let business.
- The consumer boom has relied on borrowed money.
- We are importing more than we export and are exposed to the effects of inflation in China and India.
- A house price crash is now unavoidable.
- The influx of over a million immigrants has further distorted the reality of the UK economy.

Kevin Herbert, Greater Manchester, UK

The banks should pass on rate cuts to their borrowers to ease the pain but can't because they lost billions gambling on dodgy loans to dodgy borrowers, whilst paying millions in bonuses to their staff for selling them. They're snivelling over their loss of profits. The government should be cutting taxes to stimulate the economy but can't because the Labour government borrowed billions to create hundreds of thousands of unnecessary jobs in the public sector, with large pay rises all round, in order to boost their voter pool. They squandered billions effectively on creating a 'feelgood' economy built on credit not production. They're broke.
Now we have to pay for the party.

David Thijm, Stourbridge, UK

I can buy a 1000 square metres building plot here in the Philippinnes today for 5,000 pounds next to a city but in a village. Food and petrol are almost free compared to UK. IDEAL FOR RETIREMENT I THINK.

Mr Trevor N Moore, New Lambuno, Philippines

Rob of London - If there is no correction in the market the bubble just gets bigger and explosion more painful.

The sooner the correction comes the better.

The main problem has been the ease of which people have been granted credit. People have over borrowed, over spent and over-stretched themselves. If you continue to provide them with cheap credit they will continue to dig themselves deeper.

Some efforts to ameliorate the pain does have the effect of reducing the agony, but effectively efforts to allow credit to be lent cheapily continues to be madness.

As someone who has no debt I actually resent the fact that my cash/credit is under-rated in it's value by the banks (while not being able to 'sensibly' afford a house of my own). If people want to use my credit to fund their over-spending they should've been paying more for it (although I know that's a simplification of the credit market).

Duncan, Wokingham, Berkshire

Sophie London 'let in all come down for the sake of those eager to buy!'......that is a ridiculous comment. Say that those looking to get on the property ladder represent 5% of the housing market (5% is a guess so i dont know how accurate that is but it cant be too far off).

Letting the housing market crash to satisfy 5% of people, what about the other 95% of the population? The knock on effect on the economy of a crash could be large.

Letting the housing market cool off a bit probably isnt a bad thing everyone new that continual annual growth in the region of 10% wasnt sustainable for the long term so a few years with slower growth or even no growth woulnt be bad. On the other hand a crash...that might cause some problems.

Rob, london,

If Brown is serious in this mission then he has no grasp of economics (which is scary). More likely he is just being populist -
a token meaningless gesture to show that he understands our pain. Frankly it would be refreshing to see him being honest with
the people about the nature of the problem. Meanwhile the conservatives seem to be hooked on mindless mudslinging.
Vince Cable seems to be the ONLY politician who has communicated any kind if understanding of the problem. It is a bubble created by low interest rates imposed to prevent a recession from occuring in the aftermath of the dot-com crash and 9/11. The Tories are right however in attacking Brown for using the bubble to boost public spending in ways that have not been helpful. Had the government given every household a solar panel we might now be the only country not faced with ever increasing fuel bills instead we have the worlds only millionaire public sector employees.

Mark, Epping, Essex

too little too late me thinks, its downhill from here on in, crash-tastic

dick, auckland, nz

UK house prices have been overvalued for years and I think it is now time for downward correction. Prices should drop by at least 25% in the next 2 years.

John, Hong Kong,

The UK has a problem because people cannot afford to pay their mortgage.Cure,lower rates so that prices can continue to rise.This is madness,isn't it?The party has to stop sometime.You cannot create a £1.4 trillion debt mountain and not expect some sort of pain.

stephen hulton, eure, france

It sounds like Mr Brown is trying to save his skin!

Steve, Auckland,

RICS are hardly in a position to comment.Didn't they predict a 40% rise in house prices over the next 5 years on Monday 24th July 2007?

stephen hulton, eure, france

"Banks are told to cut rates"

Mugabenomics comes to Britain.

Bruce Robertson, Brighton, UK

The Bottler needs to consider young people who cannot get on the housing ladder rather than 'boosting' the housing market. We have financed this boom with 10 years of debt! And those buyers in distress helped to maintain the boom by borrowing more than they could afford. Let it all come down for the sake of those eager to buy!

sophie, london,

The UK has spent too much time on speculation on property, the fear to UK business now is for the small businesses whose home is securing business debt.
The UK is in for a hard rocky ride.

Geoff Marginson, Mission, BC Canada