May 15, 2014

With respect to the UK housing boom FT has not earned the right to criticize much.

Sir, you express a lot of concern over excessive financing of houses, like the Help to Buy scheme, “Carney and the UK housing boom” May 15.

But you never express concern about the sad fact that if a bank lends to a small business or an entrepreneur, those who could help create the jobs by which house owners could pay their bills, then it needs to hold much more equity than when financing the purchase of a house.

And this of course means banks make much higher risk-adjusted returns financing houses than financing jobs… which is pure lunacy… and that of course means immensely more subsidizing of houses than the Help to Buy could ever aspire to signify.

And so with respect to this I consider that FT has not really earned the right to criticize that much.