That's true but it is the same story for wages as if you remove the London distortion the average wage is a lot lower also.
And I considered that by not suggesting the average fulltime working couple might only have a joint income circa £35k and not £50k.
Percentage wise they compare to what it was like when I got on the housing ladder 25 years ago as I did to my parents who bought their first house (again a 3-bed semi) back in 1959 when my dad was earning a little over £500 a year and said house cost them £2,350.
When was this supposed "golden age?" Back when you'd end up in a world war trench, working for Lord Snooty up at the manor house and pushing kids up chimneys?
I strikes me that people these days seem to think they're entitled to a certain standard of living and comfort upfront and not have to "rough it" for a number of years same as every previous generation had to.
My job involves dealing with people in debt and it never ceases to amaze me how many people seem to think that the full sky package and a gym membership is ok when they are short of money.
I used to do a lot of budgeting work with clients and had that discussion with many of them. In some rural areas, a basic Sky package works out to be the cheapest way of getting internet access, so it's kind of necessary. It was the £35 a month mobile phone contracts that used to get me, with another £10 on top for insurance, usually paid by an under-25 on £56 pw JSA!
I also had a client with dreadful financial problems. She insisted she had to run a car, so her unemployed partner could visit his kids who lived 30 miles away. I could not persuade her that this was unsustainable.
Despite all that, some people were really struggling just to pay the basics. Water charges are high in this area (£40 month is not uncommon) and a lot of villages don't have a gas supply. To heat even a modest house with storage radiators can cost £50 a week in electricity, which is a lot for a family on a low income.
Who outside of London would recognise £250k as being an average price for an average spec house? I certainly don't.
It's not just London, though, it's most of the south-east. I live in rural Sussex and you don't find many houses here for under £250k. A studio flat above a shop is on the market for £160k at the moment.
In some ways, the gap between house prices and wages may even be worse here, as wages are lower.
It's not just London, though, it's most of the south-east. I live in rural Sussex and you don't find many houses here for under £250k. A studio flat above a shop is on the market for £160k at the moment.
In some ways, the gap between house prices and wages may even be worse here, as wages are lower.
I come though Cambridge today and just outside the station are some newly built flats starting price from £250,000 :o:o
I had to clean the train windows to make sure i was seeing the right price.;-)
Wages are on the decrease and house prices continue to rise.
Its only low interest rates and government meddling that keeps this ponzi scheme afloat.
I strikes me that people these days seem to think they're entitled to a certain standard of living and comfort upfront and not have to "rough it" for a number of years same as every previous generation had to.
Oh please! If only they weren't buying those £250 ipads they could afford their £250,000 homes.:D
It was clearly tough for the generation who fought in the war - but for those born in the mid to late 1940s and 50s they have experienced a life of a free NHS, generous welfare payments, almost full employment when they started working so could build a career, final salary pensions, free state education - including at university, relatively cheap housing and huge house price growth (e.g. a house bought in 1970 probably being worth up to 80 times now what was paid for it).
The country is now trillions in debt, free university education has ended, we have 20% youth unemployment, no final salary pensions outside the public sector (and that is ending too), £9k a year tuition fees for college and average house prices 10 times median earnings (not youngsters - but a typical worker).
My parents bought their house in an average outer London suburb in the early 1970s - the people living there were generally average people doing average jobs on average earnings. Now they have a doctor on one side and two chartered accountants on the other probably on multiples of average wages - just showing the change in incomes required to fund the same house purchase in the same area.
No one said life was easy for the boomers - but by god they have done very well compared to any previous or likely future generation. And its the young sadly who have been left to pick up the bill - without getting all the benefits and entitlements they received.
Some boomers recognise this - clearly you just don't get it!
Wages are on the decrease and house prices continue to rise.
Its only low interest rates and government meddling that keeps this ponzi scheme afloat.
Yes, Help To Buy is propping up the market, underwritten by taxpayers' money and interest rates are being kept ridiculously low and reducing retirement incomes in the process.
No government, of any political leaning, seems to be prepared to let house prices fall to an affordable level. It would be electoral suicide if the millions of homeowners saw the value of their biggest asset fall by 20%, or even 10%.
Yes, Help To Buy is propping up the market, underwritten by taxpayers' money and interest rates are being kept ridiculously low and reducing retirement incomes in the process.
No government, of any political leaning, seems to be prepared to let house prices fall to an affordable level. It would be electoral suicide if the millions of homeowners saw the value of their biggest asset fall by 20%, or even 10%.
I live in Harlow Essex and the last major house price fall /correction here was in 1995 under John Major he did not attempt to keep house prices high by manipulation, it allowed me and my ex wife to buy,this kind of correction governments will not allow to happen now and seem frightened.
Could it be that a lot of people have their noses in "The House Price" bowl.
Help to Buy is no answer how much more government money is to be used to inflate house prices, it benefits nobody.:(
No one said life was easy for the boomers - but by god they have done very well compared to any previous or likely future generation. And its the young sadly who have been left to pick up the bill - without getting all the benefits and entitlements they received.
Some boomers recognise this - clearly you just don't get it!
I was born in 1955, and it certainly wasn't as easy as all that.
For much of my early working life, I was paying income tax at 35%, nearly double what it is now, and my first mortgage was at 13.5% interest (rising to over 15% at one point). I borrowed a sum of 4 times my income so I could get a 2-bedroomed place and have a lodger, I never would have been able to afford to pay the mortgage on a one-bed without some additional income. I'd owned a house for nearly 12 years before I could afford not to have a lodger.
We had raging inflation through the 70s and early 80s, it was nearly 25% one year and mostly in the upper teens. You might be comfortably off just after a pay rise, and skint again a few months later because everything had gone up so much. That rate of inflation makes the current pay freezes and 2% inflation look like a stable economy. And there were no tax credits to help out low paid families.
While some of my generation will have final salary pensions, many of us will find that our pension income is a fraction of what was expected because of falling annuity rates. I will have to work for 6 years longer than my slightly older peers, and despite having paid into SERPS/S2P for much of my working life, will now not get any additional pension for it. Basically, the government have done a Maxwell with my money.
The biggest difference between then and now was the free university education and maintenance grants. I think that did more to improve social mobility than anything else, and kids from any background could afford to go to university. I'm very saddened that young people from poor families no longer have that opportunity.
I was born in 1955, and it certainly wasn't as easy as all that.
For much of my early working life, I was paying income tax at 35%, nearly double what it is now, and my first mortgage was at 13.5% interest (rising to over 15% at one point). I borrowed a sum of 4 times my income so I could get a 2-bedroomed place and have a lodger, I never would have been able to afford to pay the mortgage on a one-bed without some additional income. I'd owned a house for nearly 12 years before I could afford not to have a lodger.
We had raging inflation through the 70s and early 80s, it was nearly 25% one year and mostly in the upper teens. You might be comfortably off just after a pay rise, and skint again a few months later because everything had gone up so much. That rate of inflation makes the current pay freezes and 2% inflation look like a stable economy. And there were no tax credits to help out low paid families.
While some of my generation will have final salary pensions, many of us will find that our pension income is a fraction of what was expected because of falling annuity rates. I will have to work for 6 years longer than my slightly older peers, and despite having paid into SERPS/S2P for much of my working life, will now not get any additional pension for it. Basically, the government have done a Maxwell with my money.
The biggest difference between then and now was the free university education and maintenance grants. I think that did more to improve social mobility than anything else, and kids from any background could afford to go to university. I'm very saddened that young people from poor families no longer have that opportunity.
There is also a couple more things to add to your list.
My Dads generation left school and even without qualifications employers would take you on and train you up,my Dad was a printer at the Bank of England,today you cannot even get an interview without "A levels.
There also used to be middle ranking jobs here in Harlow for example we had IDV (a family owned distillery company) Perasons Publishers {who paid a good wage} Raytheon,Pitney Bowes {Franking Machines} all of these places paid a good wage without formal qualifications.
They have now moved out and have been replaced by largely minimum wage jobs,and we have a "Warehouse" economy here.
I live in Harlow Essex and the last major house price fall /correction here was in 1995 under John Major he did not attempt to keep house prices high by manipulation, it allowed me and my ex wife to buy,this kind of correction governments will not allow to happen now and seem frightened.
Could it be that a lot of people have their noses in "The House Price" bowl.
Help to Buy is no answer how much more government money is to be used to inflate house prices, it benefits nobody.:(
One third of MPs have buy to let properties - most have properties in central London - in many cases directly or indirectly paid for by the taxpayer. You can't therefore rely on them to do anything to solve the problem.
As for high prices well its rather a mirage.
For those trading up rising prices might make their £150k flat worth £300k but that £300k house which they need for their kids becomes £600k - so they have to borrow £150k more than they would have done had prices stayed the same. Are they better off - now being priced of a house and stuck locally in a flat not big enough for them and their kids.
For those who have bought their final home - well for most they will stay there until they die or move into the care home. The price is almost therefore academic. But what they will care about is their kids and grandkids being able to afford a house - which matters far more to them than some notional house price they may never realise in cash terms.
House price inflation helps multiple property owners, banks and estate agents - and if they can find a suitable place a small number of pensioners who trade down. For most its academic - or actually bad. But people don't quite get this!
One third of MPs have buy to let properties - most have properties in central London - in many cases directly or indirectly paid for by the taxpayer. You can't therefore rely on them to do anything to solve the problem.
As for high prices well its rather a mirage.
For those trading up rising prices might make their £150k flat worth £300k but that £300k house which they need for their kids becomes £600k - so they have to borrow £150k more than they would have done had prices stayed the same. Are they better off - now being priced of a house and stuck locally in a flat not big enough for them and their kids.
For those who have bought their final home - well for most they will stay there until they die or move into the care home. The price is almost therefore academic. But what they will care about is their kids and grandkids being able to afford a house - which matters far more to them than some notional house price they may never realise in cash terms.
House price inflation helps multiple property owners, banks and estate agents - and if they can find a suitable place a small number of pensioners who trade down. For most its academic - or actually bad. But people don't quite get this!
Yes i agree in full even left wing MPs such as Labours Micheal Meacher own multiple properties and EX MP Chris Huhne ditto.
My parents own their house in Epping Forest its gone from £64,000 in 1984 to £450,000 now its bonkers.For my parents it is academic as everything in the area is top dollar and there is very little to trade down to.
Banks and estate agents are for sure the big winners,as for the moment are Buy to Letters whose mortgage is very often benefit subsidised.>:(>:(
This government have no chance of winning in 2015, the real money-in-your-pocket economy is terrible and going nowhere.
Labour will no doubt make promises over the next 12months, the question is will people believe them?
They are sure to make promises but the real question is what anyone expects them to do about it. The big danger for Labour is that the "cost of living crisis" could get worse under them as interest rates rise and mortgage costs go up.
Yes i agree in full even left wing MPs such as Labours Micheal Meacher own multiple properties and EX MP Chris Huhne ditto.
My parents own their house in Epping Forest its gone from £64,000 in 1984 to £450,000 now its bonkers.For my parents it is academic as everything in the area is top dollar and there is very little to trade down to.
Banks and estate agents are for sure the big winners,as for the moment are Buy to Letters whose mortgage is very often benefit subsidised.>:(>:(
They are sure to make promises but the real question is what anyone expects them to do about it. The big danger for Labour is that the "cost of living crisis" could get worse under them as interest rates rise and mortgage costs go up.
To balance it up you might just see a house price correction.
I come through Cambridge today and just as the train left the station i saw starter flats advertised for £250,000 ££££s.:o:o
If the rebalancing more the equals the negatives then there will be winners.
Yes they might not be able to afford a mortgage of their own but they are paying somebody else's.!
More people may now be renting but at rents that prevent them ever saving up for a deposit,whilst the social renting sector has been decimated by Right To Buy,its ironic that many renting off Buy to Let Landlords will be renting Ex social housing stock.:(
It does often make me wonder if Mrs Thatcher were alive today what her solution would have been,rather then sell off public assets.
To balance it up you might just see a house price correction.
I come through Cambridge today and just as the train left the station i saw starter flats advertised for £250,000 ££££s.:o:o
If the rebalancing more the equals the negatives then there will be winners.
Yes, there are loads of them popping up around the station in what is being branded as a "new city quarter". Tiny little boxes for people who want to get the 7:15 train into London every morning and not get home until 10pm.
The danger with a house price "correction" is that it can lead to thousands having their homes repossessed as they cannot afford a mortgage and millions more in negative equity so they cannot afford to sell. One big difference between this recession and previous ones is that very few people lost their homes as interest rates were at all-time low.
Yes they might not be able to afford a mortgage of their own but they are paying somebody else's.!
.
Yes - but never forget two thirds of your mortgage in the early years is just interest paid to a bank which is also money down the drain in one sense as you never get it back!
A £300,000 mortgage for 25 years at 5% - typical long term rates - will actually cost you over £525,000 (i.e. £1,750 a month). So the bank has almost made as much in interest off you - £225,000 - as the purchase price - which from your side is effectively money down the drain. Even more annoying when they may have borrowed the cash from the government at 0.5%
That's why banks love high house prices and have helped engineer them - it does wonders for the profits and the balance sheet. And because its an asset to them in their balance sheet they never want you to pay it off!
That's the worry for people borrowing huge sums now - if they pay it off fine but there is a risk for many of financial problems if and when rates go up.
A £300,000 mortgage for 25 years at 5% - typical long term rates - will actually cost you over £525,000. So the bank has almost made as much in interest off you - £225,000 - as the purchase price - which in from your side money down the drain. Even more annoying when they may have borrowed the cash from the government at 0.5%
If it's that easy then it's a wonder the banks got into trouble. It sounds like a licence to print money. Oh yes, because they were lending at 100%, or even 125%, to people who couldn't afford it.
People were criticising the banks when they were making losses and now they aren't happy when they are making profits.
This government have no chance of winning in 2015, the real money-in-your-pocket economy is terrible and going nowhere.
I disagree with this and I don't feel it's anywhere near as bad as some make out.
Yes people are in debt and yes people are struggling.. but my local starbucks (of which there are three) are always busy when I go in.. rarely do I not have to queue up. That's a lot of people buying a lot of coffee... a luxury purchase. If people had no disposable income in their pockets coffee chains would be closing.
The shops are always busy on the high street and not just for sales either. My local M&S was rammed yesterday in the food section. Every Thursday and Friday night the bars are busy here and lots of people are out on nights out. There are more bars than ever. New shops are opening up now rather than just closing down.
Yes wages were static and prices were rising for a while but things ARE getting better now and can only get better. I just don't agree that things are rock bottom for millions of people. I think there is money being spent by normal people.
I live in Harlow Essex and the last major house price fall /correction here was in 1995 under John Major he did not attempt to keep house prices high by manipulation, it allowed me and my ex wife to buy,this kind of correction governments will not allow to happen now and seem frightened.
Could it be that a lot of people have their noses in "The House Price" bowl.
Help to Buy is no answer how much more government money is to be used to inflate house prices, it benefits nobody.:(
What will the fallout be when the bubble does eventually burst?Our political class are useless and surely the bubble burst will be all the more severe the longer you prolong it?
Comments
No we don't.
Why not?
That's true but it is the same story for wages as if you remove the London distortion the average wage is a lot lower also.
And I considered that by not suggesting the average fulltime working couple might only have a joint income circa £35k and not £50k.
Percentage wise they compare to what it was like when I got on the housing ladder 25 years ago as I did to my parents who bought their first house (again a 3-bed semi) back in 1959 when my dad was earning a little over £500 a year and said house cost them £2,350.
When was this supposed "golden age?" Back when you'd end up in a world war trench, working for Lord Snooty up at the manor house and pushing kids up chimneys?
I strikes me that people these days seem to think they're entitled to a certain standard of living and comfort upfront and not have to "rough it" for a number of years same as every previous generation had to.
I used to do a lot of budgeting work with clients and had that discussion with many of them. In some rural areas, a basic Sky package works out to be the cheapest way of getting internet access, so it's kind of necessary. It was the £35 a month mobile phone contracts that used to get me, with another £10 on top for insurance, usually paid by an under-25 on £56 pw JSA!
I also had a client with dreadful financial problems. She insisted she had to run a car, so her unemployed partner could visit his kids who lived 30 miles away. I could not persuade her that this was unsustainable.
Despite all that, some people were really struggling just to pay the basics. Water charges are high in this area (£40 month is not uncommon) and a lot of villages don't have a gas supply. To heat even a modest house with storage radiators can cost £50 a week in electricity, which is a lot for a family on a low income.
Yes we do only yesterday one paper proudly proclaimed on the front page "House prices to rise until 2020"
We seem in the UK to be fascinated by house price increases in fact its almost a UK fetish.!:o
It's not just London, though, it's most of the south-east. I live in rural Sussex and you don't find many houses here for under £250k. A studio flat above a shop is on the market for £160k at the moment.
In some ways, the gap between house prices and wages may even be worse here, as wages are lower.
I come though Cambridge today and just outside the station are some newly built flats starting price from £250,000
I had to clean the train windows to make sure i was seeing the right price.;-)
Wages are on the decrease and house prices continue to rise.
Its only low interest rates and government meddling that keeps this ponzi scheme afloat.
Oh please! If only they weren't buying those £250 ipads they could afford their £250,000 homes.:D
It was clearly tough for the generation who fought in the war - but for those born in the mid to late 1940s and 50s they have experienced a life of a free NHS, generous welfare payments, almost full employment when they started working so could build a career, final salary pensions, free state education - including at university, relatively cheap housing and huge house price growth (e.g. a house bought in 1970 probably being worth up to 80 times now what was paid for it).
The country is now trillions in debt, free university education has ended, we have 20% youth unemployment, no final salary pensions outside the public sector (and that is ending too), £9k a year tuition fees for college and average house prices 10 times median earnings (not youngsters - but a typical worker).
My parents bought their house in an average outer London suburb in the early 1970s - the people living there were generally average people doing average jobs on average earnings. Now they have a doctor on one side and two chartered accountants on the other probably on multiples of average wages - just showing the change in incomes required to fund the same house purchase in the same area.
No one said life was easy for the boomers - but by god they have done very well compared to any previous or likely future generation. And its the young sadly who have been left to pick up the bill - without getting all the benefits and entitlements they received.
Some boomers recognise this - clearly you just don't get it!
Yes, Help To Buy is propping up the market, underwritten by taxpayers' money and interest rates are being kept ridiculously low and reducing retirement incomes in the process.
No government, of any political leaning, seems to be prepared to let house prices fall to an affordable level. It would be electoral suicide if the millions of homeowners saw the value of their biggest asset fall by 20%, or even 10%.
I live in Harlow Essex and the last major house price fall /correction here was in 1995 under John Major he did not attempt to keep house prices high by manipulation, it allowed me and my ex wife to buy,this kind of correction governments will not allow to happen now and seem frightened.
Could it be that a lot of people have their noses in "The House Price" bowl.
Help to Buy is no answer how much more government money is to be used to inflate house prices, it benefits nobody.:(
I was born in 1955, and it certainly wasn't as easy as all that.
For much of my early working life, I was paying income tax at 35%, nearly double what it is now, and my first mortgage was at 13.5% interest (rising to over 15% at one point). I borrowed a sum of 4 times my income so I could get a 2-bedroomed place and have a lodger, I never would have been able to afford to pay the mortgage on a one-bed without some additional income. I'd owned a house for nearly 12 years before I could afford not to have a lodger.
We had raging inflation through the 70s and early 80s, it was nearly 25% one year and mostly in the upper teens. You might be comfortably off just after a pay rise, and skint again a few months later because everything had gone up so much. That rate of inflation makes the current pay freezes and 2% inflation look like a stable economy. And there were no tax credits to help out low paid families.
While some of my generation will have final salary pensions, many of us will find that our pension income is a fraction of what was expected because of falling annuity rates. I will have to work for 6 years longer than my slightly older peers, and despite having paid into SERPS/S2P for much of my working life, will now not get any additional pension for it. Basically, the government have done a Maxwell with my money.
The biggest difference between then and now was the free university education and maintenance grants. I think that did more to improve social mobility than anything else, and kids from any background could afford to go to university. I'm very saddened that young people from poor families no longer have that opportunity.
There is also a couple more things to add to your list.
My Dads generation left school and even without qualifications employers would take you on and train you up,my Dad was a printer at the Bank of England,today you cannot even get an interview without "A levels.
There also used to be middle ranking jobs here in Harlow for example we had IDV (a family owned distillery company) Perasons Publishers {who paid a good wage} Raytheon,Pitney Bowes {Franking Machines} all of these places paid a good wage without formal qualifications.
They have now moved out and have been replaced by largely minimum wage jobs,and we have a "Warehouse" economy here.
One third of MPs have buy to let properties - most have properties in central London - in many cases directly or indirectly paid for by the taxpayer. You can't therefore rely on them to do anything to solve the problem.
As for high prices well its rather a mirage.
For those trading up rising prices might make their £150k flat worth £300k but that £300k house which they need for their kids becomes £600k - so they have to borrow £150k more than they would have done had prices stayed the same. Are they better off - now being priced of a house and stuck locally in a flat not big enough for them and their kids.
For those who have bought their final home - well for most they will stay there until they die or move into the care home. The price is almost therefore academic. But what they will care about is their kids and grandkids being able to afford a house - which matters far more to them than some notional house price they may never realise in cash terms.
House price inflation helps multiple property owners, banks and estate agents - and if they can find a suitable place a small number of pensioners who trade down. For most its academic - or actually bad. But people don't quite get this!
Yes i agree in full even left wing MPs such as Labours Micheal Meacher own multiple properties and EX MP Chris Huhne ditto.
My parents own their house in Epping Forest its gone from £64,000 in 1984 to £450,000 now its bonkers.For my parents it is academic as everything in the area is top dollar and there is very little to trade down to.
Banks and estate agents are for sure the big winners,as for the moment are Buy to Letters whose mortgage is very often benefit subsidised.>:(>:(
Labour will no doubt make promises over the next 12months, the question is will people believe them?
They are sure to make promises but the real question is what anyone expects them to do about it. The big danger for Labour is that the "cost of living crisis" could get worse under them as interest rates rise and mortgage costs go up.
Fewer people are buying and more are renting now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2602978/Are-seeing-slow-death-home-owning-dream-After-boom-Thatchers-right-buy-era-property-ownersh
To balance it up you might just see a house price correction.
I come through Cambridge today and just as the train left the station i saw starter flats advertised for £250,000 ££££s.:o:o
If the rebalancing more the equals the negatives then there will be winners.
Yes they might not be able to afford a mortgage of their own but they are paying somebody else's.!
More people may now be renting but at rents that prevent them ever saving up for a deposit,whilst the social renting sector has been decimated by Right To Buy,its ironic that many renting off Buy to Let Landlords will be renting Ex social housing stock.:(
It does often make me wonder if Mrs Thatcher were alive today what her solution would have been,rather then sell off public assets.
Yes, there are loads of them popping up around the station in what is being branded as a "new city quarter". Tiny little boxes for people who want to get the 7:15 train into London every morning and not get home until 10pm.
The danger with a house price "correction" is that it can lead to thousands having their homes repossessed as they cannot afford a mortgage and millions more in negative equity so they cannot afford to sell. One big difference between this recession and previous ones is that very few people lost their homes as interest rates were at all-time low.
Yes - but never forget two thirds of your mortgage in the early years is just interest paid to a bank which is also money down the drain in one sense as you never get it back!
A £300,000 mortgage for 25 years at 5% - typical long term rates - will actually cost you over £525,000 (i.e. £1,750 a month). So the bank has almost made as much in interest off you - £225,000 - as the purchase price - which from your side is effectively money down the drain. Even more annoying when they may have borrowed the cash from the government at 0.5%
That's why banks love high house prices and have helped engineer them - it does wonders for the profits and the balance sheet. And because its an asset to them in their balance sheet they never want you to pay it off!
That's the worry for people borrowing huge sums now - if they pay it off fine but there is a risk for many of financial problems if and when rates go up.
If it's that easy then it's a wonder the banks got into trouble. It sounds like a licence to print money. Oh yes, because they were lending at 100%, or even 125%, to people who couldn't afford it.
People were criticising the banks when they were making losses and now they aren't happy when they are making profits.
I disagree with this and I don't feel it's anywhere near as bad as some make out.
Yes people are in debt and yes people are struggling.. but my local starbucks (of which there are three) are always busy when I go in.. rarely do I not have to queue up. That's a lot of people buying a lot of coffee... a luxury purchase. If people had no disposable income in their pockets coffee chains would be closing.
The shops are always busy on the high street and not just for sales either. My local M&S was rammed yesterday in the food section. Every Thursday and Friday night the bars are busy here and lots of people are out on nights out. There are more bars than ever. New shops are opening up now rather than just closing down.
Yes wages were static and prices were rising for a while but things ARE getting better now and can only get better. I just don't agree that things are rock bottom for millions of people. I think there is money being spent by normal people.
What will the fallout be when the bubble does eventually burst?Our political class are useless and surely the bubble burst will be all the more severe the longer you prolong it?