money.co.uk Blog

Is sensationalist reporting and apocalyptic political rhetoric helpful?

For over a week now we have watched as the US public endured a barrage of dire warnings from a president fighting for his political legacy, whilst the world's media displays a barely disguised glee when 'breaking news' of a the latest banking catastrophe. It might sell papers and attract viewers. It might even turn out to be Gordon Brown's Falklands (Bush is surely beyond help), but it can't be helping to calm the jittery nerves that are serving to turbo-charge this mess.

Of course, dubious lending and investment practices are the root cause, the underlying malaise, of the jumbo sized pickle we find ourselves in now, but it is undoubtedly being prolonged and deepened by a profound loss of confidence in our financial systems and, of course, the banks.

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The light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a Lehman Brothers shaped train.

Don't shed too many tears for Lehman Brothers and their ilk, but do look at the bigger picture...

With recession seemingly inevitable it's time to reign in the spending. But what is the nation doing to tighten its belt?

Stamp-duty concession won’t make a blind bit of difference to home sales and it won’t help Brown either.

Tax on energy profits would raise much needed money, but complications show that control of a basic necessity is now firmly out of our hands.

The rising price of food and caution at the checkouts has forced the supermarkets to resort to ingenious methods to persuade us to keep spending.

So-called packaged current accounts are all the rage but paying for things twice has never been a good idea.

It now seems we are all going to be even poorer in our dotage than we might have imagined, so that telegram from the queen might turn out to be cold comfort - literally.

Savings rates are at their highest level for seven years, so if you have some extra cash, save it for the rainy days to come.

The banks won't have to pay back 'unfair' charges for at least another six months after the FSA gave into their delaying tactics. Money talks, as ever.

The government and the ABI have struck a deal to ensure that most of us will be able to buy home insurance, even if our homes are at ‘significant risk’ of flooding. All well and good, but what's the catch?

The British government plans to form a database of every call, text message or email sent in the UK but are these new proposals really as controversial as they seem?

Advertisers use a big fat bag of persuasive techniques and messages to make a financial product or service look as attractive as possible. Can you see past their headline message?

When someone says "We should all waste less food" it’s very hard to disagree. Really, there is no excuse for chucking out one third of all the food we buy is there?

There are two ways to deal with a leaking bucket. You can either keep topping it up, or fix the hole…

Energy prices set to rise 40%. Maybe we should make an effort to save the planet after all…

“This two year fixed mortgage seemed like a good idea two years ago…”