Londonomics: Crunch Time

‘Credit crunch’ is surely the front-runner for phrase of the year. The long and tortured story of how iffy loans turned into high-rated assets and then turned into dust has been well-covered elsewhere. But has it affected anybody other than City bankers and the head of Merrill Lynch?

The way to tell if the crunch has really trickled down to street level is to find out if people who previously had little trouble getting credit are now being turned down for loans and cards. We’re thinking that the ideal bellwether-type person would have a decent salary but relatively few assets, high student loan, mortgage or other debt, and would live somewhere where housing and related costs were relatively high. Sound like anyone you know?

Now personally we haven’t had any let-up in 0 per cent card offers – but it’d be interesting to hear if any Londonist readers have had trouble getting credit.

But let’s end on a high note. As others have already pointed out, bad economic news is, er, not always bad. Housing becoming more affordable ... pound vs. dollar at record high...talk of an interest rate cut...at street level, parts of this ‘crisis’ are sounding rather good.

By MikeW

Image taken from The Consumerist's Flickr photostream.