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Trump administration to start seizing pay of defaulted student loan borrowers in JanuaryPublished Tue, Dec 23 2025The Trump administration will start garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers in default in early January, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education confirmed to CNBC on Tuesday.It will be the first time a portion of borrowers’ paychecks has been at risk since the start of the Covid pandemic, when collection activity was halted.Starting the week of Jan. 7, the Education Department expects around 1,000 defaulted student loan borrowers to receive notices of administrative wage garnishment, the spokesperson said. After that, the number of notified borrowers will continue to increase.The U.S. government has extraordinary collection powers on federal debts, and it can seize borrowers’ federal tax refunds, wages, and Social Security retirement and disability benefits.The Education Department can seize up to 15% of a student loan holder’s after-tax income to put toward their debt.Student loan holders have been under pressure from a weakening labor market, a barrage of changes to the lending system and recent trouble accessing relief programs. More than 5 million student loan borrowers are currently in default, and that total could swell to roughly 10 million borrowers soon, the Education Department said earlier this year.More than 42 million Americans hold student loans, and the outstanding debt exceeds $1.6 trillion.
House prices fall in half of London boroughsCheaper areas show more resilience in capital’s ‘two-speed market’Official house price figures for October showed that property prices contracted year on year in 18 of the 33 London boroughs © FT montage/Getty ImagesHouse prices are falling in about half of London’s boroughs, revealing a “two-speed” market with the most expensive areas hit by stretched affordability, higher taxes and political risks, while cheaper areas show greater resilience.The latest official house price figures for October showed that property prices declined year on year in 18 of the 33 boroughs of the capital, in contrast with a 1.7 per cent house price increase across the UK.London property prices fell 2.4 per cent, the third consecutive month that house prices rose across the country but contracted in its capital.Many of the most expensive London boroughs registered a contraction, including an 18 per cent fall for the City of London, a 16.5 per cent contraction in Kensington and Chelsea and similar drops in the City of Westminster.In more affordable London boroughs, such as Barking and Dagenham, Bromley and Lewisham, house prices continued to expand at a solid pace. In Havering, prices rose 5.3 per cent.Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at estate agency Knight Frank, said London was a “two-speed market”, with the prime areas hit by taxes, with stamp duty being higher for more expensive properties, and “more susceptible and sensitive to political risk”.London’s prime market has been underperforming the rest of the country since 2016, with recent policy changes adding to the list of factors dragging down property values, according to experts. At the Budget in November, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a new surcharge on properties worth more than £2mn. The UK’s non-domicile tax regime was abolished in April and replaced by a new residence-based system, after being gradually tightened since 2017.But prices in prime areas of London have stopped growing since the mid-2010s as they became increasingly expensive, while mortgage regulation changed, increasing costs. Brexit also played a role, analysts say.“In the international stage, London’s perhaps lost some of its appeal,” said Bill. The “political psychodrama” that followed the Brexit vote for several years also had an impact on the prime London market and its international demand. Stamp duty rates are the same in London as elsewhere, with properties valued up to £125,000 paying no duty and properties valued up to £250,000 paying 2 per cent. But higher property prices in the capital mean more people end up paying it. In the areas of London that are more affordable, “demand tends to be strongest”, said Bill. “There’s been a bit of a two-speed market, and that really plays across most of the boroughs.”In the more affordable boroughs of Havering, Waltham Forest and Lewisham, the average house price reached an all-time high this autumn.Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of estate agent Garrington Property Finders, said a “‘drag at the top’ has weighed down the London average” and the “wider London market has performed better”.In Westminster, the average nominal house price dropped to £890,000 in October, a similar value to 2013. In the UK’s most expensive London borough, Kensington and Chelsea, the average price dropped to £1.19mn, the lowest in more than a decade, down from a peak of £1.6mn.This is in contrast with the surge in London house prices just after the financial crisis, driven by central London.At the time, “everyone wanted to be in London, investing in London”, said Richard Donnell, executive director at property portal Zoopla.But after the post-financial crisis boom and since the Brexit vote, London house prices have “gone nowhere”, said Donnell. “The Brexit vote just had a boom-bust sea change moment for London as a place to do business, as a global city.”With low yield from London properties, “the case for investing in London is the most challenging”, he said, adding that property prices for typical British buyers in the capital, such as three-bed suburban houses, “have been holding up a bit better”.Many experts expect these trends to continue in the next few years.“We’re forecasting no growth at all in London in 2026,” said Frances McDonald, head of residential research at Savills, adding that this was mainly due to high housing costs.“It’s much harder for first time buyers to save up for a deposit in London because rents are high,” she said.
Recordando los 'clásicos básicos', tan presentes en este foro, en este caso los equilibrios de precios relativos. La gráfica es de Reino Unido y es aplicable a cualquier país del 'capitalismo popular inmobiliario'.Como puede verse en la gráfica, que abarca desde los 1840s hasta los 2020s, la Segunda Revolución Industrial consiguió abaratar la vivienda en relación a los salarios. En 1845 el precio de una vivienda media era igual al salario medio anual multiplicado por 12, mientras que en 1915 bastaban dos salarios anuales para comprar una vivienda. Hacia 1920 se estabilizó el precio en torno a los 5 años de salario (horquilla de 4 años a 6 años), lo cual es un nivel de precios razonable y compatible con nuestras economías y nuestras sociedades. Este equilibrio duró 7 décadas y con él hemos construído nuestras sociedades, que ahora DESAPARECEN. Hay que remontarse hasta 1880 para ver un precio de la vivienda que sea igual de caro en relación a los salarios. Y lo que mucha gente parece no entender es que aquella sociedad de 1880 era OTRA SOCIEDAD: sin sanidad ni educación pública apenas, sin pensiones, sin subsidio de desempleo, sin los niveles de consumo actuales, etc, etcEl elevado precio actual de la vivienda no puede dar lugar a un tipo de sociedad como la que aun (en parte) disfrutamos. Va a dar lugar a un tipo de economía y de organización social que no le va a gustar a nadie si no se resuelve pronto este desequilibrio.
China’s open-source AI models rival US giants, making engagement urgent: StanfordThe report calls on US actors to engage with Chinese firms as the AI landscape continues to evolveChina’s open-source artificial intelligence models may have caught up or “even pulled ahead” of their US counterparts in capabilities and adoption, a Stanford University report has found.The country’s status as a leading AI power meant that US firms should not avoid “selective engagement” with Chinese AI labs, academics and policymakers, given the wide range of AI governance and safety challenges Chinese players faced, according to the report published on Tuesday.The report was prepared by Stanford University’s DigiChina Project, housed under the university’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and its Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, which compiles the influential annual AI Index report.“Today, Chinese-made open-weight models are unavoidable in the global competitive AI landscape,” the report said. “There is space for academic collaboration with Chinese counterparts to increase our understanding of the risks of open-weight AI models and the efficacy of various guardrails.”While Chinese AI developers are largely pursuing an open-source approach, releasing the weights of their models for end-users to freely deploy and modify, US tech giants such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind have kept their leading models as proprietary software.Citing leading industry benchmarks, the report noted that Chinese open models now performed at “near state-of-the-art levels”, leading the world in the open-source landscape and barely trailing leading closed US models.