The latest development in the rapidly deteriorating housing market is the news that many homeowners now have mortgages that are worth more than the value of their homes. These owners, granted 90 to 100% mortgages at a time when bankers were more than happy to give away cheap money, have found themselves in a situation where paying off their mortgage would leave them significantly out of pocket.

The BBC reports today that 3 million people are now living in negative equity.

There are also reports that some homeowners in America are actually abandoning their homes to repossession because, while they can afford to keep up on their mortgage repayments, if they continue to do so it will end up costing them much more than their property is worth.

The Gods that Failed shows how a reckless, largely unaccountable elite, have lulled the world to sleep with their economic fairytale and that now, with the fairytale having being exposed, ordinary people are waking up in a world of financial hardship.

Even though this elite subcontracted the job of reading bedtime stories to their own children to an army of nannies, they were more than happy to tell fairytales to everybody else, tales in which everyone lives happily ever after.

The Times reported yesterday that as a result of these financial fairytales, nanny agencies have been inundated with calls in recent weeks, as stay-at-home parents are forced to return to work just to make ends meet.