Mortgage stats mask potential disaster for country

Back in the cold war era, regular reports from Pravda used to extoll the virtues of Soviet collective agriculture, reciting records of constantly improving wheat production.

There was usually a picture of uniformly dressed scythe wielding kulaks happy in their work. Unfortunately Pravda didn’t report the early morning queues that formed outside sparsely shelved grocery stores in the hope and expectation there would be a bread delivery that day.

The Central Bank reported last week that the number of mortgages in arrears fell further in the first quarter of 2017, highlighting that this was the 15th consecutive quarter of decline giving the impression, Pravda style, of a positive momentum and a system that is working well.