Realistbear
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Posts posted by Realistbear
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Were the 'free solar panel' cowboys ever a good deal? Seriously - you're giving them your roof rent-free and may get back some small amount in return. What happens if the installation is bodged? Who pays for maintenance? What happens if they go bust over the next 20 years (v.likely I would imagine if you consider them a variation of double glazing installers like I do)? How will prospective buyers react when you tell them the solar panels on the house don't belong to you?
At least the reduced FITs will hopefully mean fewer of these bandwagon jumpers.
That was my reaction. But I am uncertain because I have yet to see any articles slamming them. On the face of it--they rent your roof space and you get some free leccy. If the panel goes kaput---oops, bad word given today's statement by Frau Merkel, you could presumably just dump it as the company that set it up would have an implied contract to maintain etc.
The reduction in the government subsidy may be the deal breaker. The complexities of the power scam are so great it is impossible to work out what is or is not a deal. We signed up with Co-op energy for the sole reason that they have only one tariff. Trying to compare the 40 odd tariffs each othe other power bandits have is like trying to compare house prics to the level of chlorine in a swimming pool.
It would be interesting if anyone has had a good experience with the panels.
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Anyone know if the free solar panel offers are a good deal? Government apparently shutting down the subs in December.
I have 2 friends who have had them installed very recently so its too soon to tell.
With fuel set to rise 40% every year due to lack of will to regulate* it may be time to take desparate measures and go solar?
*NPower boss, Wilhelm Krappenschitz was aksed why his company keeps putting prices up by 20% when the wholesale market has been falling for the last 7 months. He replied to the effect "because we can."
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We looked at a place in March this year. Up for £235,000. Seller was old couple, just got in the door when they were telling us how it was 'priced to sell'. Fast forward to now after a summer where it was stuck as SSTC and now they have listed it with a new EA at £240,000. Just cannot understand that kind of mentality.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31267990.html
It is still cheaper than March if you factor in inflation at around 5%.
I have ntoiced that bungalows under £250k sell quickly around my way (East Sussex) as they are ideal move-down bets for people retiring or selling up a familly house and wanting to go minimilist like myself and the desire for minimalism.
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Farage slams 'German-dominated' EU(UKPA) – 2 hours agoFailure to tackle the eurozone crisis has produced a "German-dominated Europe", UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said.He claimed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had taken charge because of the lack of leadership by a group of men - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister who is chairman of the eurozone group of EU countries."Who is in charge?" Mr Farage demanded during a European Parliament debate on the crisis."None of you have any democratic legitimacy for the roles you hold. Into this vacuum steps Angela Merkel, and we are now living in a German-dominated Europe, something this European Union was supposed to stop."He said Europe's leaders had had the Greek Prime Minister "removed and replaced by a puppet government", and then "you decided that Silvio Berlusconi has to go and replaced him with Mario Monti, a former commissioner and fellow architect of this disaster, who is not even a member of parliament"..../
A lone voice that has rumbled the master plan.
Join here: http://www.ukip.org/helpukip
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[quote name=Oh Well
' timestamp='1321193677' post='3176641]I have a "with profits" pension with Avviva. I stopped paying into it 20 years ago on the advice of my accountant. Looking at it, the value has not gone up in the last `10 years.
Pensions are a complete con, I would not advise anyone paying into to them. If you do not control your investments yourself some other banker will steal them.
I have an old Norwich Union (Aviva) with profits and have £11k in it--hasn't moved in years. Fing is, it pays something like £91 a month if it was drawn today. IIRC I only paid about £4k into it a couple of decades ago.
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Labour dragged into border fiasco over dropped passport checksMillions of people are feared to have been allowed into Britain without full passport checks in a major new borders scandal.
118,306
2nd place within a week?
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117,440
Sign here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658
And join here: http://www.ukip.org/helpukip (polls show they are about to overtake Lib-Dems as No. 3)
It will need to go to number 1 slot to get noticed and the momentum is slowing a bit.
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it looks like my powder will have to stay dry then
Euro soaring vs the pound--did Spain just default or something?
1.16882
Apparently the ECB are bailing Italy out by buying their bonds.
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Best to sign here: https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658
Dramtically cut immigration and there will be plenty of empty houses to buy. We don't need more houses just 10 million or so less asylum seekers, criminals on the run from Bulgaria and Romania, and refugees from Somalia. DDG Swedish ladies may stay.
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1.17200
£ has hardly moved against the Euro which is facing as much uncertainty imaginable. Something is keeping it at these lofty heights--maybe the CBs to prevent a run?
Its been THE best contrarian bet in history and has defied every fundamental out there. If Spain starts to wobble the Euro might go even higher if the contrarian wind keeps blowing in its favour.
Is that a buy signal or a sell signal? Flip a coin and take your chances.
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Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits. View251,23809/02/2012Full disclosure of all government documents relating to 1989 Hillsborough disaster View141,24909/08/2012No to 70 million View114,96320/10/2012
3rd most signed--but the fastest rate ever. About a week to take 2nd place but it will be heavy going to catch the number 1 runner this side of Crimbo.
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There will be no growth next year. The EU wont be buying and the US are more interested in exporting and the Chinese can beat us on price.
The reality is that the economy is cclical. It grows and it contracts. We have had a lot of years on growth mode and its time for the contraction cycle to begin.
Nothing like a bit of contraction--it will do us the world of good.
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I thought I did my bit last month when I bought an Allan & Heath sound mixing desk. Supposed to be made in the West Country. Turns out it is made in China and only "engineered" in the UK. My Laney amplifies are all made in the UK though although most of the iconic names like Marshall, Vox etc are being made in China or somewhere in the Far East.
Went on a quest to buy some "Not made in China" slippers recently and all I could find were some German ones at £36--so went for some Clarks made in China. All slippers in M&S are Chinese.
Bottom line: hard to buy anything made in the UK these days.
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114,058
3rd place by midnite as the other one fades quietly away--not sure if that fellow had already been given a free house and benefits yet?
Not good for Theresa as it shows that the goverment are acting in direct contradiction to the will of the people. Nothing new there.
Wit the EU goig down it may be the case that the automatic right to come here and draw benefits will be gone soon? Not good news for the Lib-Con-Lab block and their plan to divide and conquer the will of the people (a.k.a. "diversity") or house prices.
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And what's wrong with having a proper HPC, exactly?
Agree. The entire west is underwater with the EZ said to have debt in excess of 16 tr euros. All riding on the housing boom of the last decade. The US at least have got on with the deflationary cycle in prices and are allowinig it to bottom out. We are still trying to prop our market up with low IR and mass immigration that was given a special boost over the last 6 month's with the dropping of border checks. I suspect Cameron was in on it which is why Theresa still has her job.
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Does anyone remember the list of headlines from the great depressions....if was along the lines of:
Markets collapse
Dont worry it will all be okay
Markets collapse
Dont worry it will all be okay
Markets collapse
Dont worry it will all be okay
Markets collapse
Dont worry it will all be okay
Markets collapse
We are f**ked
Then it got better. Sounds similar to what has been happening over the last 4 years now.
Fing is, it was okay--in the end. Despite Brown's (who?) claim that the business cycle could be overcome its still out there doing its thing. Just ride it out and don't get tempted to buy on the dips this early in the down cycle!
That said, we might be at the end of the road with Iran gearing up to Nuke Israel to fulfill the Prophet's will to blow them off the map.
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The Euro is very strong this morning vs. the £ and the $. Miraculous resilience, especially in the light of the French and German meeting to discuss a plan B which has zero chnace of success as the EZ is doomed.
Without poltical intergration it was never going to happen. Poltical integration was underway though and we were being sucked into it with the consent of the Lab-Con-Lib block. The new appointee to our Supreme Court said, in effect, he will override the powers of the European Court on human rights so it looks like the judiciary are seeing a de facto end of the EU and its powers over this country. Nick and Dave must be livid and Grommit thimply beside himself with rage.
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With such news about lately we seem to have lost focus on HPI and whether they will drop anymore?
Contagion is underway and the dominoes will fall very quickly from here on in. The bond market will lay waste to Spain in hours and then its time for bit opf chaos. Might be a good idea to dump what vere shares one might have left in their portfolio and stock up on $. I can't do much because I now have a roof over my head. If the EU breaks up there will be less immigration into the UK and lower prices unless Dave can somehow give the ousted EU countries special British staus to alow free access?
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Does this mean that Turkey will not be joining and Romania and Bulgaria will be demoted. That might mean these people may not have such easy access to our country--then what are we going to do? I know............................................
IMO the poltical integration of Europe was never going to happen. Without that the money side can't work. Imbalances and inherent nationalism was always saying no. Just need to hope it winds down peacefully.
Amazing that the Euro remains viable. Too big to fail I suppose---like the banks.
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I notice that Teresa May is taking a lot of flak over the relaxation of immigration controls (e.g. Pressure on Theresa May as border force head steps down).
I wouldn't be surprised if the chances of her being ousted for reasons of expediency aren't higher because of stuff like this e-petition rocketing up the charts. It would be a viable alternative to actually having to do something concrete.
SIGN HERE:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658
This E-peitition is having some good side effects. I see it as a galvanizing tool. The numbers will start to ratlle the Con-Lab-Lib block as it is clear they are all in it together as far as wanting mass unfettered immigration. Don't forget Cameron is in the pocket of the CBI who stated quite plainly they were pro immigration because it kep wages down.
112,182 16:45
112,617 at 18:15
JOIN HERE: http://www.ukip.org/helpukip
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8%???
CBC.ca Italy borrowing costs hit record 8%BBC News - 5 minutes agoItaly's cost of borrowing has touched a new record, a day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would resign once budget reforms are passed.I wonder if my Crimbocast of a 50:50 chnace of the Euro surviving was a bit optimistic? Spain next by all accounts and that one is too big for a bail out as is Italy. It acn't last through the winter. R4 mentioned that the EU debt was 62Trillion. IMO, Germany will revert back to the DM soon and that will be the end of the EU no one ever wanted in the first place. Perhaps then we can do what we all now makes sense--a NAFTA type trade agreement and not a backdoor tackover of soveriegnty by the banks and their stooge polticians (Lib-Lab-Con int he UK).
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Could it be that...no, not possible, no such thing....................but it may be that the economy is cyclical and Brown got it all wrong. Could it be that inflation is folowed by de.... Nah--its not cyclical--like house prices--a one-way bet.
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torygraph article on immigration referring to the epetition by Frank Fields and Nicholas Soames
rockhopper
Nice link--thanks. Still signing at quite a fast rate and soon to go into 4th place (before midnite?)--
QUOTE:
"Within a week, it had 100,000 signatures. This is a remarkable success. The public have at last been given an opportunity to express their opinion, and have done so in unmistakable terms."109,131
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Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits. View250,99509/02/2012Full disclosure of all government documents relating to 1989 Hillsborough disaster View141,21409/08/2012Put Babar Ahmad on trial in the UK View126,88810/11/2011CHEAPER PETROL AND DIESEL, BY ROBERT HALFON MP AND FAIRFUEL UK View109,56005/08/2012No to 70 million View108,55020/10/2012
5th place and likely to move into fourth before the midnight hour. The imprison Ali Baba one goes away on 10th November which lifts it to third place. Will it take top place before Crimbo arrives? I must say that I am not too gung ho on signing the top one though. Rather the opposite, what?
Spanish Bonds Hit New Record
in House prices and the economy
Posted
Spain on Thursday paid an average yield of 6.975 per cent to issue €3.6bn of 10-year bonds, nearing the 7 per cent level widely regarded as unsustainable and underlining the extreme strain in eurozone sovereign bond markets. FT today
Good things its contained. TBH, its all over bar the counting. There is no way the German people are going to pay for the PIIGS even if they dit have the spare 20TR or so lying around.
We are all in for a very hard decade or so ahead and if you think its bad now.....