It used to take 3 years for a British family to save for a home down-payment; now it takes 20 years

[gellfex]

@anon50609448

but I can’t believe there are good policy reasons to have it set at 0.5%, and I think that has essentially been a transfer of wealth from people who are trying to establish themselves (young people/poor people) to people who have already established themselves (old people/rich people).

Actually, low interest rates hurt the retired quite a lot too, they tend to have their wealth in safer investments most closely tied to to the rates. Part of what is driving bubbles is institutional retirement managers like CALPERS looking for returns that will keep their clients solvent. As usual, it’s the very wealthy coming out with ever more from this system.