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Mr Fraser

Scale the problem for us. Are the British figures too low? Do the Americans have a much larger problem in relation to their economy? How do any of the timescales add up, figures to end Sep, projections to end Dec, projections for 2009.

Or is this just a story to scare the bairns?

Also, isn't foreclosure easier on families in the US? Don't they just post the keys and walk away from the debt, whereas we would have to go bankrupt to escape?

Assuming that some form of capitalist economic system will prevail, the US economy looks set to follow the politically attractive "V" shaped recovery - short and sharp on the way down and more importantly, on the way back up. Here in the UK, we appear determined to be unique - we seem destined to suffer the worst of all scenarios, a protracted, eventually deep slowdown with only a muted recovery at some point in the distant future. Economies need to suffer correction and populations need to adjust to the economic reality facing a nation - that is what creayes the basis of recovery. Our current policies of attempting to protect businesses and individuals from being sequestrated or going bust is a nice gesture, but ultimately futile. The US economy lost 530,000 jobs in novemeber alone - they are in rapid adjustmnet mode. We're still at the stage of being told that the UK ecomy is amongst the best positioned to withstand the forces of this downturn. We need reality to be aired or we're in for a depression that may last for decades.

So whenever this is all over and life returns to some form of 'normality' - who will YOU trust - the banks, governments, lenders, stock brokers, multi-national corporations? We were only too willing to accept - without questioning the logic behind, 'living off the fat of the land'. We knew things were 'wrong' and ignored them because it was inconvenient - after all it was only money - no one was being harmed. Our problem is that two cultural dogmas have clashed - the 'work hard, play hard, save for a rainy day' have squared off to the 'party hard, party long, borrow loads' tribe. It's not party political - it's not partisan - it's simply commonsense, we can't disown them, we can't wash our hands of them -but if and when we get out of this financial Sargasso Sea I hope we will make it law to demonstrate basic reading, writing and arithmetic (must incl. percentages and fractions) before you can lend or borrow money.

#2: Foreclosure and bankruptcy almost always go hand-in-hand here in the US. There are cases of people just cleaning out a house, and leaving the keys in the door, but they are in (or are headed toward) bankruptcy.

They have to live somewhere, and can't easily just change identity.

#3: 'corporationtax'--I hope you are right, but Congress seems determined to drag this out.

Everyone, keep fingers crossed. There's more bad news to come before the good news begins again.

I am always suspicious of this emphasis on the US sub prime. We have our own sub prime. Mortgages which were 'self-cert' and the ridiculous amounts loaned for house purchase without any real checks on ability to pay. Couldn't we just cut out the 'let's blame America ' stuff and look at our own mess.

Douglas....
It is sad that there are so many Nightmares on Elm Street and on many other streets across the world...right now!