UK interest rates down 1.5% to 3%

[PoppyAnna]

I disagree. This rate drop was needed to put some liquidity back in the system, especially in the face of falling house prices. Thousands of people are now going into negative equity, the government needs to step up and sort the mess out - lowering the interest rate is one way to do this. TBH, saving has not been particularly high on the agenda for most people in recent years - not only due to increasing costs, but also because it has largely been pointless given inflation levels. After you've accounted for the interest earned to counteract inflation, not much is left.

Further rate drops are expected at the next MPC meeting, and will be welcomed by most once again.

Thats a lot of the problem. Short term is what most people have been concentrating on. Perhaps people should have been saving a little bit more rather than spending obsurd amounts of money on consumer items. I understand that we have to spend but comsumer debt has increased the same amount in the last five years than it has since records began! Thats is a shocking statistic. In addition, if you actually study food prices, for example, they were at an all time low until the cost of moving food around went up, and we've become so dependant on runner beans from Kenya that we can't remember how to shaop and eat locally. In fact, people have had their essentials reletively cheap in the recent years, until a year or so ago.
As for negitive equity, house prices have risen extremely sharply in the last nine years, and these things are generally cyclical, I'm afraid it had to go down at some stage and your house should always be considered one thing - your home, a home you can sensibly afford. If you're using it to make money too, then there is always a risk you will lose. I'm all for taking risks, but never with the roof over our head. Mortgage lenders have given the average earner an absured amount of money to buy a home as there was no other way of getting on the ladder as the prices were so inflated.
I just think it's a shame on the savers that haven't gone out and bought flat screen TV's, Wii's etc that people seem to be addicted to purchasing and they're the ones that have been sensible and are now suffering......
Not mine, but nearly all kids these days has a Wii, Playstation, DS, flat screen TV's, expensive mobile phones as well as the family PC and the laptop etc.. I'm not against these things (we are in fact getting a Wii as a gift for christmas this year, but is a gift for our whole family) I just think it's out of control, and some people should have reeled it in a bit and shouldn't now be complaining that the cost of essentails have gone up and they now can't afford them.
It may sound really old fashioned to some of you but I feel if we bring up a generation a spoiled children that don't understand money and the need to sometimes wait for things we'll never get out of this credit mess.
I'm afraid the rainy day came.
I'm not pointing the finger at anybody on here.
Rant over.
Peace and Love