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Tories seem to have missed a bit of a trick here. Can't believe that in this new Knowledge Economy ... laugh ... of ours George Osborne and Advisors couldn't see this coming. Vince Cable seems to have been pretty clued up all along. If they had taken a bit of a gamble and given a warning about this a few months ago it would have won them a lot of respect. But no ... all Campbell can do is come up with a supermarket car parking tax !!!!

Think those are Fridays numbers RB. Dow future currently down 60 odd. One way or the other tomorrow could be the big one.

Who would vote for a new HONEST JOHN Political Party. Manifesto - To explain to the Voter in a simple and easily understood way their current economic and social plight (no finger pointing but you can draw your own conclusions). To explain to the Voter that there are short term fixes but these ultimately will end in failure. To explain to the Voter that a moderate amount of pain now .... Whoops silly me, forgot I was being HONEST and should have said lots of pain .... will be far better than the inevitable consequences. For the Party Leader to be held ultimately accountable for their actions .... by means of a new flogging rack to be installed in Parliament square .... and most importantly TO BE HONEST. Anyone out there know an honest sado masochist who happens to be called John ?????

The pressure is on. Do you think Ben might be starting to "cack" himself just a tinsy little bit this weekend.

I guess that most people on this forum will attribute the current financial situation with the creation of "funny money". That obviously hasn't been regulated and in a lot of cases has probably been encouraged. The powers that be (Governments\Central Banks\Investment Banks) must know that it will all end in tears and eventually the consumer will have to go into rehab, but for the time being will stoop to any level to try and sell their next fix. Tell me - how much do you trust George Bush and his cronies because they are the dealers.

I'm not sure about that - a bit like the current credit crisis they can only cook the books for so long. At some point Joe Public will have to ask why their pound doesn't buy what it used to.

Where do you think CPI will be in 6 months time - I reckon 3% however much they fiddle the basket of goods and at todays still historically low base rate. CPI might aswell be renamed House Price Index because that is the only thing that will be coming down in price.

Many thanks Confounded - that is an eye opening read and I believe every word of it. There are forces at play here that I don't even want to comprehend. In terms of equities I have done a fair bit of spread trading in my time and appreciate that the FTSE and other indicies (bar at times Japan and China) up until now are no more than DOW trackers. Without going into the Inflation/Deflation debate, with pivotal IR decisions in US and other economies reaction to them due next week, there must be some big forex movements coming up and maybe over time a decouplement from the DOW ??? (most likely for the worse because i think the UK is in far worse shape than the US) To my mind its a question of who can keep spinning the lies for longest - Bernanke who might have a gun to his head for most of his working day - Merv who doesn't want to go the way of that poor bloke Kelly - Tichet, well he is just a Frenchman (I think) - and Mr Zing Zang Zun from somewhere in Asia whoever he is. This might not make much senese to most but I'm well p.....d off with the rugby and have necked about 9 cans of Carlsberg. I

Not sure what a standard gap fill is but I have a conspiracy theory on this. The amount of times I see the dow future drift lower and lower until trading opens in New York and then bang - it reverses. Call me a nutter but I reckon that those machiavellian FED/PPT/Goldman Sachs types are playing a big hand in this. Or is just bad news is good news (IR cuts) mania ???

7. Taxed us till the pips squeek - wait until tax implications of PFI and public sector pension commitments become common knowledge (though I doubt many in this "Knowledge Economy" will understand)