h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Heh... Maybe they're just tired of cleaning all the plastic cups off the floorboards in their back seats?

To be fair, they look at everybody as though they were a martian, regardless of what they're doing or how they're paying. "King's Cross? You want to go to KING'S CROSS?!?".

Oh I see... So they're all related to NYC cab drivers, eh?

I can't comment on what's "desirable", because it depends who's doing the desiring.
But as a matter of fact, according the Economist, writing in the late 80s, when British house prices last went up, the average price of a house has always been between 3 and 5 times average income. It hit 5 just before the price crash of 10 years ago.
Maybe its easier to borrow too much nowadays? If so, the 5x ceiling may be less hard. But, all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if £250k was 3-5 average earnings in Leatherhead.

TTBOMK, Real Estate and Diamonds are about the only things here almost guaranteed to go up. When those drop, we're in trouble.

I used to work for Oxford University, and one day was sitting at lunch with a collection of top social scientists. A sociologist asked an economist there for advice, she was going to America in a few months and wondered if she would be better to buy her currency now or later.
The economist (who by now is, I suspect, largely running the country) proceeded to sucessfully demonstrate, in perfectly clear and sensible fashion, one after another:
a) That she should buy now
b) That she should buy just before leaving
c) That it made no difference which she did.

As some-one with a background of somewhat "harder" science, I found this strangely satisfying.

The late 1980s saw a huge frop in real-estate prices in many areas of the UK but, strangely, the world kept on rotating on its axis, the sky did not fall in and - horror of horrors - there was no plague of frogs / locusts / whatever.

I just wish that house prices kept pace with either wage or (better) price inflation, because otherwise there will continue to be places where nobody under 50 can afford to live. Like Henley-on-Thames.

Sort of. Not so likely to be homicidal, but posessed of a unique arrogance born of their having to pass "the Knowledge".

When a New York taxi driver takes you to completely the wrong place, you assume it's because (a) they didn't understand, the ddress being outside the English they actually mastered and on the way over, or (b) the fcat that they only arrived yesterday anyway, so can't possibly be expected to know their way around yet.

I heard that most NY taxi drivers learn English on the way over from their original home country, leading to the suspicion that they are all rich - else how could they afford to travel Concorde?

Taxi Drivers:

From what I understand, most NYC taxi drivers learn English from the cussing-out they get from disgruntled customers... which would explain their vocabulary.

Real Estate:

It's a pretty big indicator here of the general state of the economy. The last time I know of that RE prices actually dropped (at least by much) was during the Great Depression of the thirties.

PS: Oh.. the rents usually go up and down with supply, demand, and wages... I'm refering only to the buying and selling of the actual property... just to avoid confusion.

Okay then, am I to understand that New York City cab drivers are responsible for the rise in value of real estate due to their constant flying about with Condors? But then if we accept that as a truth, then we must also assume that those same cab drivers are in fact the economists that are plotting a take-over of government, the universe, and everything, and therefore must be stopped. It is imperative that each and every able-bodied person should catch a ride with a cabbie, leaving as much beer as possible in little plastic cups on the floor of the cab and inciting them to get pulled over by a police officer, whom we must convince that the cab driver (who presumably knows only 2 words of English) is completely smashed, thereby causing the loss of his license and an end to his or her economic subterfuge.
Right?

Sounds like a plan. When do we start? Are you providing air fare?

I took an economics course at the University of Waterloo a few terms back in which all of the tests were multiple choice. It was an early morning course so I probably missed a good third of the classes, but managed an A as the final mark. I'm sure this is because for every question, three out of the four choices could be interpreted as correct.

Or your papers were just very good.

Social Science, like Military Intelligence, is an oxymoron.

Q: Why do social science students leave their curtains closed in the morning?

A: To give them something to do in the afternoon!

Oh there were no papers... It was *all* multiple choice

To give the economists something to think about.

Food prices have gone up 20% or more over the past few months, and as for petrol its like liquid gold in price.