Monday, Jan 11, 2010
Sign of the times
Yahoo: Poundland Eyes Growth After Xmas Boost
A number of HPC regulars sneer at Yahoo articles, they probably have a superior attitude to people who use Poundland as well.
Posted by mr g @ 03:49 PM (1296 views) Add Comment
25 Comments
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1. little professor said...
Who sneers at Yahoo articles? They aren't actually written by Yahoo themselves, just syndicated from Reuters or (as in this case) Sky News
2. mr g said...
I don't fall for that one LP, I would get, and deserve, a tirade of abuse if I named someone.
Having said that, some members of the "magic circle" of regulars who are obsessed with "home-ownerism" and / or gold have got their heads so far up their own a*ses that they perceive articles from Yahoo / Sky to be on a lower intellectual plane and only suitable for lesser mortals.
3. gone-to-colombia said...
Sneer at those who use Poundland?
Who would sneer at anyone seeking to make the most of their money?
4. rumble said...
Xmas? Gimme a break! What's this site coming to?
5. Toilet-currency said...
The first Christmas without Woolworths. Any surprises here? Pound shops and woolworths were the only places to buy a lot of the Christmas tat (baubles, tinsel) cheaply
6. Xux42 said...
I use Poundland so I must feel simultaneously superior & inferior!
Has its uses
7. mr g said...
GTC @ 3 "Who would sneer at anyone seeking to make the most of their money?"
I'm not suggesting that anyone sneers at anyone being frugal or prudent.
Rumble @ 4 "What's this site coming to?"
That's exactly what I'm driving at.
There seems to be a minority that have a fixation with "home-ownerism" and have to work that expression into every discussion because of their bitterness.
8. rumble said...
Mr g, are you sneering at "home-ownerism"? Home-ownerism-sneerism?
9. dude said...
Well I find pound shops over priced. The new type of more cost effective store is up my street: http://poolepeople.co.uk/tag/89p-more-for-less-shop
That way I've more to spend on my mortgage. Hmm, with so much spare cash now where is that BTL magazine...?
Stop sneering.
10. alan said...
Yahoo gives me a useful synopsis of my local news - if I choose to, I can follow the days progress of the Essex gritting team (for example). Yahoo don't often post in depth house price analysis or news (except when quoting BBC quoting Haliwide).
As for Poundland, I prefer Aldi and Iceland.
11. rumble said...
"I can follow the days progress of the Essex gritting team"
I'd suggest you could probably do that by post, except that to receive post you'd need clear roads. *sneer*
12. tyrellcorporation said...
A pound gets you ten tubes of Superglue, a big sheet of those useful watch batteries and a massive pack of sandpaper. I know it sounds like the ingredients for a fun weekend away in Amsterdam but actually they were all things I recently purchased from Poundland. It's a great store and I won't have anything derogatory said about it!
13. tyrellcorporation said...
Oh, and the Poundland near me is like walking onto the set of Babylon 5, it truly is Gordon's melting pot of diveristy which goes to prove everyone likes a bargain. ;)
14. mark wadsworth said...
Poundland's OK, I suppose, but I prefer the 99p Stores.
15. fallingbuzzard said...
So do I, Poundland became too own brand and easily replicable and I don't think there are many things thatr you can't easily find cheaper or better value elsewhere. Iceland strategy. 99p is more traditional trading and bargain oriented. one of my favourite sectors, lots of profits in the last year
16. rumble said...
99p store...sneer....98p store.
17. mark wadsworth said...
@ Mr G. Please note that I thoroughly approve of home-ownership (people can spend their money as they wish) with social housing as a fall back (people's actual physical living standards are the overriding issue).
How would we best achieve this?
a) By allowing more houses to built (for those that can afford them),
b) By shifting taxes from incomes/production to land values (to encourage efficient use of land; to level playing field between those on the ladder and those who aren't; & to keep prices low and stable, among a thousand other things), and
c) By scrapping Housing Benefit for private tenants and building more social housing instead (which works out far cheaper for the taxpayer).
Whether this would benefit me personally is a moot point (I'm not sure it would, actually) but I have my children to think of!
The Home-Owner-Ists, on the other hand, pay lip service to the idea that home-ownership is A Good Thing but vehemently oppose any policies (such as those outlined above) which would genuinely encourage it. The Home-Owner-Ists are happy to sell their children into a lifetime of debt-slavery.
18. mr g said...
MW@15 "I thoroughly approve of home-ownership (people can spend their money as they wish) with social housing as a fall back (people's actual physical living standards are the overriding issue)."
I am not patronising you when I say that I am genuinely pleased to read your approval of home-ownership.
We baby boomers are not all grabbing "me, me, me" individuals. I have worked hard and sacrificed foreign holidays etc in order to support my family. When I say that I own my home (you'll notice "home", not house) outright, retired at 60, make no excuse for saying that I will fight tooth and nail to pass my legitimately hard earned assets on to my children and have no qualms about drawing the state pension at 65 as I have paid my full quota of NI contributions, I am not blowing my own trumpet as I consider the old saying "pride comes before a fall" still applies.
I believe that I have contributed to society through my work and paying taxes and should therefore be allowed to either spend my money as I see fit or pass it on to the next generation.
I feel genuinely sorry for people struggling to buy a house / home when property prices are at the current obscene levels.
When my wife and I married in the early 1970's (before Thatcher's Right to Buy, by the way) it was the aspiration of most ordinary people to buy a HOME which I still consider to be an eminently sensible and reasonable objective and, in IMO, is a good measure of the social mobility that politicians want for us.
Unfortunately property has been hijacked by parasites such as BTL, TV property porn, "my house is my pension" nonsense and the media at large, thereby pricing millions of people out of the market. The only way to break this vicious circle is for house prices to fall to reasonable levels and for the public to once again buy a home and not view it as an investment or cash machine.
At the end of the day, my views are not that far removed from your's!
19. mark wadsworth said...
Mr G "I own my home (you'll notice "home", not house) outright, retired at 60, make no excuse for saying that I will fight tooth and nail to pass my legitimately hard earned assets on to my children"
Your other assets are of no concern here (yours to do with as you please) but do you not accept that the Home-Owner-Ist policy of restricting new developments and opposing property taxes (in order to push up the value of their own property) impoverishes your children or grandchildren by a larger amount? Is it not better for them to be able to afford a house NOW rather than waiting to inherit from you at some point in the future?
Whether you are a Home-Owner-Ist or not is up to you to decide, but I would guess that the vast majority of the population is.
20. need-a-crash said...
@17. Mark I think you highlight an interesting dilemna here for baby boomers viz-a-viz while they genuinely accept that their own children are faced with over-priced property, they still want to keep the capital appreciation of their homes (as they worked hard for it) and as they will invariably pass this on to their children anyway, they feel they are quite right to support Home-Owner-ist policies.
The trouble is, as you say, a more meritocratic society would not make children reliant on their parents assets to afford them a home and besides while the baby boomer undoubtedly has worked hard to clear his mortgage and own his home outright, he can't tell me he envisaged 200% capital appreciation in 10yrs (or whatever the stats are) so this element of his wealth has hardly been "worked for" at all.
21. mark wadsworth said...
NAC "while the baby boomer undoubtedly has worked hard to clear his mortgage and own his home outright, he can't tell me he envisaged 200% capital appreciation in 10yrs (or whatever the stats are) so this element of his wealth has hardly been "worked for" at all."
Exactly. My parents worked very hard for about ten years between mid 60s and mid 70s to pay off the mortgage (most of which was inflated away) and that was the end of that, the rest is pure windfall gain. Indeed, I also devoted a lot of my income to paying off a mortgage over ten years between late 90s and late 00s and had a capital appreciation of 400%. None of that was "worked for" either (but welcome nonetheless). I think we can stop patting people on the back for things they did years or decades ago.
22. mr g said...
MW@17 "do you not accept that the Home-Owner-Ist policy of restricting new developments and opposing property taxes (in order to push up the value of their own property) impoverishes your children or grandchildren by a larger amount? Is it not better for them to be able to afford a house NOW rather than waiting to inherit from you at some point in the future?"
Yes, to both questions!
Sorry for the terse answer, I'm late for an appointment (nothing to do with property I hasten to add)
23. mark wadsworth said...
Mr G, in that case, you're probably not a Home-Owner-Ist.
24. mr g said...
MW@23
Cheers! I look forward to further civilized discussion!
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