You will Not believe what just happened. A UK government Minister has quit his job because his mortgage payments went up from 800 to 2,000 a month and he couldn't afford to pay it on his ministerial salary I Know, incredible right? His ministerial salary, by the way was 8,300 There is just so much wrong with this that I had to share my thoughts and apologies to anyone with sensitivity to bad language or direct talking. There will be some in this video so you might want to switch over to watch a video with cute fluffy kittens instead. So we have this guy called George Freeman a conservative MP who was the minister of State for Science research and Innovation before resigning in November 2023.

And yes, this is not the prime minister or the chancellor. You know this guy is just a lonely Minister But unfortunately in politics, especially in government, if you can't take the heat, please get the out of the kitchen. and Mr Freeman has voted with the government in 99% I checked of the roughly 2 and a half th000 votes since he entered. Parliament When he resigned, he said it was to focus on my health, family, well-being, and life beyond the front bench.

but we just found out the real reason on his substack. George Freeman Posted this article called why We need a cross-party consensus for long-term policy to unlock the value of UK science, technology and Innovation And in the middle of that article he wrote wrot in November I stood down having served in five front bench rolls under four Prime Ministers Why did I Stand Down blah blah I've done a lot of stuff Also, I was so exhausted, bust, and depressed that I was starting to lose the irrepressible Spirit of optimism Endeavor and teamwork and progress which are the fundamentals of human achievement. Okay, so some reference to being burnt out and perhaps mental health issues? That's fair. that's a fair reason.

And because my mortgage Rises this month from 800 per month to 2,000 which I simply couldn't afford to pay on a ministerial salary. That's political economy 2.0 We're in danger of making politics something only hedge fund donors young Spin Doctors and failed trade unionists can afford to do so. According to this guy who earned $18,300 and had a mortgage of 800 a month, the fact that his mortgage went up from 800 to 22,000 meant that he could no longer afford it. First up, just talking about the numbers, a salary of 1 18,300 is equivalent to 6,230 a month after tax.

The maximum that an MP can contribute to their final salary pension is 11.9% And yes, unlike the rest of the country, MPS in the UK still get a final salary pension scheme because of course they only make the rules. They don't have to follow the rules duh. So even if George Freeman contributed the maximum of 11.9% he take-home pay would be 5,784 a month. And George lives in a household with two incomes because according to Wikipedia he is married to Fiona lead who is a theater and TV director.

So we have someone who makes about four times the average salary in the UK who apparently cannot afford the increase in his mortgage payment. His mortgage is roughly 33% of his take-home pay, which is below average. And yet apparently he got divorced and he has kids from his previous marriage and the school fees and whatever ever let me get out the tiniest of my violins for this particular sub. Story the divorce rate in the UK is 42% There are many thousands and millions of people not making 18,000 a year who also have the same exact problems.

If a government Minister on a salary that puts him into the top two, 2 and a half% of people in the UK cannot afford to pay his mortgage. What is everybody else meant to do? How are they meant to put a roof over their heads? Everybody else can't just go and quit being a minister and then land a kushy second third, fourth, whatever non-exec jobs to take advantage of the fact that you are in Parliament and in government, take advantage of your connections because according to his own substack, the day after I handed in my red box and said goodbye I suddenly had Circa 70 hours a week I didn't have before. So after he resigned as a minister, he apparently found a magic 70 hour hours a week that he doesn't have to do work anymore except wait after he resigned from being a government. Minister George Freeman still has the full-time job of being an MP which pays a salary of 886584179 in Parliament Only a part-time job.

You've got it right, because if you found 70 hours a week of free time, you cannot possibly be spending very much time working as an MP you know there's only so many hours in the day. in the UK MPS are allowed to take on second jobs. third jobs, fifth Jobs: 10th Jobs that pay them a boatload of money for nondescript, confusing advice that consumes very little of their time because they R Anmp. It's basically a legalized form of corruption.

so it is financially better for someone to not be a minister to stay being an MP and take on these second jobs that pay what are effectively bribes. Because why else would a company hirees someone who has connections and government you know, knows all the right people, but already apparently has a full-time day job so they can't spend very much time working for you. They can't commit time to your business. There is very little actual work that they can produce, right? Well, you'd think so.

according to official Parliament records in the whole of last year in the entirety of 2023, George Freeman Spoke in Parliament on only 10 days. he also submitted zero written questions. In fact, he has only ever submitted one question in the 14 years that he has been in. Parliament.

So I Guess yeah, being paid 865,000 is only enough for a small part-time job. As an MP, you know, why waste your time actually doing your work? But the real problem is the increase in the mortgage payment. His mortgage went up from 800 to 2,000 and that means that his mortgage is relatively new. It has a long term to go because that sort of an increase means that there is still quite a long period of time.

or it's some kind of part interest only or interest only mortgage. But the thing is, it isn't a very huge mortgage if you assume a term of, say, 25 years for the sake of argument and an interest rate of say, 4.5% At the moment, paying 22,000 a month means that you have a 360,000 mortgage. The median house price in the UK according to the land registry is 285,000 so it's a bit higher, but it's not a Million Miles Away There are millions of people in this country earning much less several times less who have the same exact problem with their mortgage. and they also have circumstances.

You know, money issues and they can't just go. And you know take on Kushy's second jobs because they are not a lazy scumbag lowlife. MP And actually they have to do their work in order to get paid I Know unfathomable. The fact is this guy was a government Minister He is, literally directly complicit as part of that group in the UK government doing all to solve this problem.

Now he's whining on his substack about being unable to afford to pay his M mortgage. It is baffling how incredibly stupid you have to be to act like this. What is this? Like a petulent child? Does he not understand politics? He's been in there long enough. It's like taking a shotgun, aiming it at your foot, shooting yourself in the foot with the shotgun, and then complaining that there was a gaping hole in your foot at the same time.

Yesterday, the Bank of England published some new data and all the headlines from the mass media are celebrating UK Mortgage approvals at 6mon high as average rate fors for the first time since late 2021 says The Financial Times. If you're wondering what this amazing increase looks like on a chart, here is the chart. This increas is the last point on the right and you can clearly see that this chart Pro conclusively that this increase is a cause for popping champagne. things are on the up.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England publishes other data as well, but this data is a lot harder to find because it's not publicly announced, it's not in the press release. it's not really published anywhere if you, unless you diing to find it. Here's a Consumer Credit Growth Rate Table and you can see that in December Credit card debt was going up at 12.7% year on year because people can't afford to pay for and in order to feed their kids, pay their electricity bill continue to be able to survive. They are resorting to using credit cards despite the very high interest rates.

So what is the government doing to try and fix the UK mortgage crisis? Well, apparently Rishy Sunak is planning to introduce new 99% mortgages backed by the government. The idea is that people who can't afford to save money for a deposit or people who choose not to prioritize saving money for a deposit can still go and get themselves a mortgage. This is Mentor Encourage people who rent to go out and buy a house instead. You can immediately see the actual idea here and the problem if you artificially create a load of new demand because suddenly a whole load of people who couldn't buy a house can now buy a house without needing to save for the house.

Then house prices will stay high, maybe even go up. And that is apparently what everyone really cares about. What's the house price going to do? You know, against the flow of what's actually happening in the economy? But while we're at it, why not go all the way? Why not offer 120% mortgages so that the mortgage can then pay for your legal fees, pay for your stamp Duty and you'll have enough left over to redecorate your house? What could possibly go wrong? Am I right? In addition: REI Sunak has told lenders to allow anyone who is struggling to pay their mortgage to own only pay the interest on the mortgage for 6 months. During those 6 months, you will repaid none of the principal balance.

Which means that it will take you years longer to repay your mortgage and you will pay thousands more in interest overall. But that's data. That's numbers. And we all know it's unfair to use data and numbers to show how incredibly pathetic and dumb these policies are.

But here is the next policy: If after those six months of interest only payments, you are still struggling because you know nothing's changed. Uh, the only thing that's changed is that you are going to have to pay a lot more debt, Your payments go back up and you can't actually afford to pay them. Don't worry, you can now remortgage your 25-year mortgage to a 40-year one so that your payments are a little bit less per month. But don't you worry about the fact that this means you will pay almost twice as much in interest? That is not important if you take out a 40-year mortgage on a 285,000 house which is the median house price in the UK, you'll pay about 40,000 000 extra in interest repayments.

So that's about half the price of the house that you're buying extra. And if you earn a median salary of 33,000 that extra. interest is equal to about5 and a half years of your salary after tax and pension deductions. So yeah, it sounds like a complete no-brainer to take out that 40-year mortgage right on an average house.

Your mortgage will drop from 1,584 to just 1,281 so that's 300 a month cheaper. But you will also have to work an extra five years just to pay for the difference in interest. So every single pound during those 5 years goes towards paying that interest. The solutions that the UK government have put in place are pathetic.

They are disgusting. They smell, they wreak of how little the government in the UK care for the plight of the people that they are meant to serve. The fact that a UK government Minister has quit his 118,000 job because he can't afford his mortgage payment shows how incredibly bad the situation is. The government chose to sit around sucking their thumbs around instead of doing their job.

They could have baned short-term teasers or mortgages immediately. Why does everyone in the UK remortgage every 2 to 5 years? It makes no sense. Well, it does make sense because it means that you can pay the bank a 2,000 remortgage fee every single time every few years. And you know when your prime minister Minister just happens to have worked in the bank and all the other government ministers have all of these connections to the banksters.

It makes a whole lot more sense in the US Mortgages are typically fixed for periods of 30 years, so unless you're moving house, interest rate changes are irrelevant because your payment is fixed once you buy the house until you choose to remortgage or the mortgage is repaid a bit Like how loans work, it also means that mortgage rates are a lot more steady because they average out over long periods of time when interest rates fluctuate up and down. It means that when interest rates are really low, nobody goes and gets a ridiculously cheap 0.8 1% interest mortgage. And it also means when rates go up, you don't suddenly have this huge problem with people not being able to afford their mortgage payment. Completely out of the blue, the government could choose to underwrite all or part of the risk of the interest rate fluctuations on these mortgages so that the 30-year mortgage ratees would be reasonably cheap to consider consumers.

This would work a lot better and cost a lot less than the that they're currently trying to come up with. Well, they're not really coming up with anything much, they're just sticking things. They putting a plaster over a plaster that's already over another plaster. What about fixing the supply chain? today? Brand new regulations come into play at the UK border, which will add a small mountain of paperwork and a boatload of bureaucratic to things like food coming in from Europe.

Since Brexit, the UK has signed a handful of negligible trade deals with countries that have very little trade with the UK and this is being positioned as a massive win by the UK government. While trade with Europe is suffering, the truth is, since the vote in 2016, the government completely up took their eye off the ball on Brexit negotiations too busy deciding who should be the Prime Minister this week and now we're all paying the price with our economy.