Madam, – Morgan Kelly’s article made for informative, if depressing, reading (Opinion & Analysis, November 8th).
One factor that he’s missed out on, however, is that the Government is actively pushing many people over the default precipice he is talking about.
Thousands of people have rental properties that they are madly trying to keep going, with rents far below mortgage payments and with asset prices plummeting.
As if that’s not enough to push people over the brink, they are now facing tax bills and levies, which many just cannot pay.
Being a landlord is the only business proposition in this country where you can be taxed on your losses as well as your profits, it seems.
This short-sighted but maybe populist view by the Government is set to push additional thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people into mortgage default.
Some of these could possibly have kept going, but just cannot any more. Next year, prepare to see tens of thousands of second home and rental property mortgages being defaulted on.
As usual, the Government will step in and bail out the banks. And raise taxes elsewhere instead. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If Morgan Kelly’s original economic predictions had been heeded by our political rulers, a lot of our present predicaments might have been avoided. I dearly hope that his article is digested thoroughly by all in civil and local government.
However, I would replace the phrase “anti-Traveller” with “anti-immigrant” in his predictions of the policies of a new hard-right party that will unfortunately and probably emerge. – Yours, etc,