Using Wolfram Alpha for your finance needs

In case you haven’t heard of it, Wolfram Alpha is a new calculation engine that puts the power of a supercomputer in every bedroom – a step towards the semantic web that is the future of the web.

However, before such lofty aims, WA can be used to help with your financial decisions – like so:

• Need a rough figure on how much a mortgage will cost you over 25 years at 5% fixed rate interest?
• How much will you need to invest now at 6% to get £20,000 in 5 years time?
• How much pension will you get if you earn £20,000 now, expect pay rises of 4% a year, am 32 and expect to retire at 70?
• How long will it take to pay off £3000 on your credit card at 25%
• The GDP of the UK?

..and so on.

The tool has its limitations (for instance couldn’t understand £ to $) but its very powerful when applied to what it knows, mainly mathematics related.

My first taste of the credit crunch

And so it if that I start to see the credit crunch squeeze on my nearest and dearest.

My girlfriends sister has two kids and a now estranged husband, a divorce pending if they can bear to stay in the same room as each other to sign the papers. 

An emotional time for everyone involved exasperated by the fact their shared house in a pleasant up and coming seaside town is now rolling towards negative equity.  The mother and two children are left in the house whilst the husband who was the main breadwinner has moved into another house with his new girlfriend. 

Only a few months have past, but due to the many memories leading up to the breakup, and sheer un-affordability, mother and children aged 2 & 4 are wanting to move out.  Already a few months behind on mortgage payments, with a secured loan on the house to fix up the house a few years ago, house prices have gone down 10% leaving zero or less equity in the house.  Even moving costs, but faced with the prospect of moving and still owing money to the bank puts pressure on a situation that is grim in the first place.

Bankruptcy is being discussed, and there seems little way out aside from that.  Problem being there, if a voluntary repossession takes place, the council class it as voluntary homelessness and no help will be coming to help rehouse.  Hopefully a visit to the CAB will help find some other options.

A lot of critics in the paper at the moment are saying the credit crunch is welcomed, payback for all those people who over extended themselves looking for easy money.  But that ignores so many real life situations where all that was wanted was a stable and safe home to bring up children. 

The criminals in this venture to my mind are the banks, greedy in their profit margins, gambling even with more information than the average citizen that house prices will carry on upwards forever.

Lets not forget that if all their mortgagee’s can’t pay, the banks don’t lose their money – they get the property. Thats why its called a secured loan.

All the belly aching in by the banks are about their immediate profits – eventually they will make their money back by selling on all their repossessions, ready to capitalise (literally) on the next boom when confidence is high.

Food, fuel and energy prices are spiraling in contrast, decreasing disposable income.  Getting nagged by the girlfriend we haven’t gone out to dinner recently is the consequence for me so far, pitiful little compared to her sister and many others in the real economy.

And so people turn for the scapegoats – the current one in the UK seems to be Gordon Brown and his 10p tax bracket.  Its a little misguided – I’d say its the bubble bursting over house prices which no government could sustain.  Running the country is simple – just keep everyone’s standards of living rising and you’ll coast along.  With all the rhetoric soring about spin, sleaze and making an impact on the world stage, just the money in people’s back pockets being full or empty is what it all comes down to in the end in this country. 

Will this time be the last?  Will a recession turn into a depression turn into revolution?  Maybe not this time, but until then mothers face the threat of repossession whilst banks get guaranteed loans. 

Tags: creditcrunch, mortgage, citizens advice, politics, economy