Why the UK's bad debt boom is just beginning

According to the OECD, most countries are well-placed to cope with a housing downturn. But, judging by the state of Britons' household balance sheets, the UK is unlikely to be one of them.

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"We're not worried about the housing slowdown. Really, we're not. In fact, our big concern is still inflation. No, seriously, it really is." Paraphrasing only slightly, that's what Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told the world yesterday.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.