Gas stations in Britain have began to run out of fuel as a four-day fuel strike by Shell tanker drivers sparked a wave of panic buying. Six hundred drivers working for two companies that distribute fuel to Shell filling stations around Britain are on strike over low pay.

“Is Britain going back to the 1970s?” asks Ben Traynor in Fleet Street Daily.

I was 14 when I first learned about the 1970s oil price shocks, and how they had caused stagflation (unemployment and inflation rising at the same time) in Britain.

A new report by Paris-based economic think tank the OECD warns of a severe house price crash in the UK.

The report predicts that UK house prices will crash by 10% by 2010 and that, with consumer spending slowing, the Bank of England will eventually need to cut interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point to 4.25% next year.

Ben Traynor in The Daily Reckoning explains how a house price crash in the UK will affect the country’s economy…