Ireland's Mortgage Mess - Another warning for the UK

The property price crisis remains the biggest danger§ How many times must we point this out but helplessly look on as the second government in a row does absolutely nothing to address the approaching disaster. A report in the Irish Independent this morning, linked here, details the numbers of mortgagees within the Irish Republic having their mortgage interest payments met by the state, an incredible 17,500 recipients, such policies are not sustainable and merely serve to maintain house prices at their ludicously high levels to the benefit of nobody while steadily eroding the resources of the state! In the USA such numbers appear microscopic, in the two years since the US Federal Government assumed responsibility for the mortgage providers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the cost to the Treasury in direct government aid was 150 Billion, that is correct 150 Billion dollars, see Reuters from this link if you do not believe me. Government Ministers who rate their own wealth in the value of their property portfolios, often obtained on the basis of capital gains accrued on mortgages funded by the taxpayer, seem unlikely to be able to grasp this nettle, hence the lack of any plan let alone rational consideration of the true awfulness of the crisis being faced. Such wealth is illusory, grasp that fact and go from there. Exchange rate depreciation and inflation will not cure the problem that exists up and down the country where professionals necessary for the provisions of community services cannot afford the properties in which their families need to live at the salary levels the local communities can afford to pay. This blog has tried to suggest sensible solutions which I have now become tired of linking. State payments to subsidise underwater homeowners is like the squillions paid to the failed banks, waste pure and simple.