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fluffy666

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Posts posted by fluffy666

  1. Sadly they don't say how much is the rent ;)

    The very highest rent advertised on RightMove for 1 bed flats in the area is circa £600pcm, with £400-450pcm being the average. Assuming a £500pcm rent and a 6% yield, you might stretch to £100k for this, but £70-80k would be more realistic.

    Let's hope that the seller has over 60% equity, otherwise they could be a bit stuffed..

  2. Got this email off a mate and am trying to think of a good reposte. Anyone help?

    Girl at work has 7 buy-to-let properties. She believes that the North East of England is the only place that you can still get a rental income from buy-to-let and that the rental income will continue to be higher if not the same as the mortgage payments. She also believes that she can't go wrong if she continues to buy in places that are scheduled for regeneration i.e. Gateshead. She kindly informed me today that the North East was the only place in the UK where prices went up over the last couple of months. Her final point was that even if prices go down the properties are long term therefor she can not lose.

    Discuss..............................................................

    The only reason why the cities of the North East ever grew to the size they are is because of things like Shipbuilding, the Coal and Steel trade (Newcastle was once the capital of the world coal industry...) and the chemical industry. Shipbuilding and coial are largely gone now, and the decline of the north sea gas fields is quite possibly going to make the chemicals industry uncompetitive.

    No amount of regeneration cash is going to easily replace these things.

    Anyway. Average price in Newcastle is £175k

    Average household income is circa £25-30k.

    Average prices shoule be £120k *maximum* assuming low interest rates and stretched borrowers.

  3. On the plus side you could go back to 1997 and take a massive bet on New Labour winning the general election, then put your winnings into tech stocks until March 2000 then sell and buy a BTL empire which you would of course have sold by now. ;)

    Do you think that 500 successive National Lottery wins would start to look suspicious?

  4. Here's a good few IT jokes but true:

    -Ever heard of the IT Graduate that admitted to not knowing what a 'variable' was? Answer: I have.

    -Ever heard of the IT Graduate that nicked code off the Internet for their course work? Answer: I have.

    -Ever heard of the IT Graduates that got one of the few top IT talents in the year to do their C programming for them re: coursework assignment? Answer: I have.

    -Ever heard of the IT Graduate that couldn't understand Difference in Set Theory and wanted to work on Databases? Answer: I have.

    -Ever heard of any IT Graduates actually doing their own work? Answer: I have, about 10 from a group of Graduates.

    These were all from the same university and yes many thought they were good enough to get jobs and do well.

    I am not surprised by some of the comments I have read, especially about those that can write code well and make it work properly in a real environment. because from what I saw at university I feel sorry for the employers having to sort the very, very few good from the bad.

    I actually taught in a Master's course for a while.. you do get a range. Usually 1-3 people out of 15 a year who would 'get it' straight away, 10 or so who could generaly write a program given sufficient time and the odd hint, and a couple who were terrifingly bad - or to be fair, just not suited to the task of writing software, probably perfectly proficient at something else. I dread to think what these people would be like in industry.

    Thing is, what with tuition fees etc, these people are going from students, to whom passing a course is an earned privilidge, to customers, who have more of an attitude of 'I Paid therefore I should get the Qualification'. Failing people can cause all sorts of problems, especially if they are company-sponsored.

    This was before the internet took off completely, it was very early days, so there was less scope for cheating. On the other hand, I would not have a problem with people taking an example off of the internet and reworking it to match a set problem, that's something you do in the real world.

    Of course, it brings outsourcing into question, because the difference in productivity between average and good programmers will generally swamp any cost savings..

  5. I think a lot of people don't even realise that Interest Only means they are not "paying off" their mortgage, they are just servicing the interest element. They say "paying the mortgage" not realising that there is a difference between that and "paying off".

    Simple calculation..

    After 25 years, a person with a 200k IO mortgage would have to find..

    - Equivilent of £123k if inflation is 2%

    - Equivilent of £96k if inflation is 3%

    - Equivilent of £75k if inflation is 4%

    - Equivilent of £45k if inflation is 6%

    - Equivilent of £27k if inflation is 8%

    - Equivilent of £16k if inflation is 10%

  6. New Labour doesn't have any support. You can't imagine canvassing and people saying, "Oh yes, I'm New Labour, I'd like to privatise the Post Office, I'd like to have more loans for students and, oh yes, let's have another war."

    Yes.. although the labour party did need updating from the 1970s, this lot seem to have gone more and more into 'Let's do the opposite of what old labour would do just for the sake of it'.

  7. However there has been a massive increase in people missing a mortgague payment in the last six months now at 463,000. Perhaps seasonally adjusted figure (post christmas etc) I only started following it last July.

    I suspect that this may be true.. although you have to be a bit aghast at the idea of people spending mortgage money on christmas. Ask the kids if they want the latest presents or a roof to sleep under.. they might give a more realistic answer. Even 3 year olds can usually grasp the concept of 'one thing or the other' with a bit of persuasion.

  8. You can only "inflate debt away" by wage inflation. I've yet to hear a credible way in which we can have the level of wage inflation needed to do this in a globalised economy; all that will happen is that the balance of payments deficit will go through the floor, our exporting industries will cease to exist, and we'll be collectively bankrupt. Or is there a magical third way?!

    I'd guess that the Pound would be seriously devalued - Parity with the Euro, $1.40, etc - which would allow significant wage inflation whilst still making UK wages/expenses cheaper with regard to the rest of the world. The price of petrol would go stratospheric, of course, as would the price of tat from China.

  9. I like to see intelligent work rewarded, especially when it gives long term value to investors.

    Yet reading of one fund manager on a basic $100,000 salary having increased his funds performance in one year with a profit of $500 million.... and for that achievement being awarded a $206 million bonus (Guardian article link).... is wrong imo.

    Surely the bulk of that extra performance belongs to the investors, to be added to the pot as a good year, with a chunk held as a cushion if future years are not as good.

    And then for the guy to have the audacity to bring in some independant assessor because he feels he should get $250 million bonus as that would conform to industry norms !!!

    Some of the greed out there is destroying the system. I'd be ok with a mega bonus if he'd put in stellar returns over 10 years or something... but not just over a short period of time, where luck could play a part.

    Actually, it was the next sentance, where if he lost money next year, he wouldn't need to give the bonus back - THAT is the problem. Every incentive to forget the future in the rush for this year's bonus..

  10. I sort of get what monolines are and what they do. I understand that large capital projects would find it hard to raise finace without them. But I think there is another part to the equation that I am missing. There seems to be an implication that the effects of downgrades would be far more sudden than that caused by Texas not getting a new freeway for a while.

    Can someone fill this void in my knowledge? ie. The downgrade of the monolines would be catastrophic. But why would it be instantly casastropic?

    IIRC, a lot of big investors - pensions, mutual funds and the like - have rules about what they can invest in, to stop the fund managers running amok and losing the lot. So they might be allowed to buy AAA-rated bonds, but not AA. So if a ratings agency downgrades the bond insurer, and therefore all the insured bonds get downgraded, all the big institutions have to sell them. Instantly, more or less. Plus, I think there may be an effect where the downgrade of the bond means it has to yield more, which given the same dividend means it has to sell for less.

    I.e. an AAA- rated bond of £1 gives 5p/year income. An AA rated bond of £1 gives 10p/year. So if the AAA one suddenly becomes AA, it is only the equivilent of 50% of an AA-rated bond, i.e. it's instantly lost half it's value.

    Feel free to correct..

  11. I don't believe in bringing children up in that kind of environment where everything needs to be kept so pristine because it is all white; I had it as a child and I think it can make young people nervous and scared to be boisterous.

    That's why we keep our house a tip. It's for the sake of the children. :rolleyes:

  12. Ok rather the sun went round the earth. right date wrong idea.

    and the russian scientist thing? NO ... you answered it yourself. I shall elaborate as much as you have.

    pillock.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold worked with

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kudryavtsev

    on abiotic oil theory.

    Gold was american so hopefully your "freedom of speech" imbecilic question is now answered.

    Gold was also unaware of basic geology. He seemed to think that the earth had only just accreted, and forgot that outgassing was complete several billion years ago, and unlike (for instance) the moons of Jupiter, the earth has changed a LOT since it formed. The deep hot biosphere stuff is quite interesting - but trying to connect it to oil is a typical piece of 'Scientist-trying-to-make-research-sound-really-important' garbage.

    Kudryavtsev's claims about mud volcanoes are just bizzare. Mud volcanoes are a typical result of highly overpressured rocks in areas of rapid subsidence (foreland basins usually); you get some associated gas from buried sediments but not generally great commercial amounts.

    As I've said before, were this [deep oil] true then the oil majors could put OPEC out of business, and believe me they would enjoy doing that.

    And, of course, anyone can write whatever they like on Wikipedia.. any references from the literature?

  13. This link has the kind of write up about the US financial system/mortgages that 'they' don't want us to think about.

    Here's a snippet:

    '..The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process.

    And, to be sure, fraud is everywhere. It's in the loan application documents, and it's in the appraisals. There are e-mails and memos floating around showing that many people in banks, investment banks and appraisal companies — all the way up to senior management — knew about it...'

    http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?o...&Itemid=104

    Just thinking.. if thousands of loans were being pooled and just one involved fraud, would that mean that an entire CDO issue would be subject to recall?

    Oops

  14. Classic politicians answering here. When asked a difficult question, instead of answering it, they just trot out a vaguely-related factoid.

    New Labour in charge of the Titanic quotes:

    'Reports of icebergs lie in the past. New Labour's excellent track record on ship steering has abolished icebergs and the need to sail around them. Indeed, we are increasing speed.'

    'Although some reporters have suggested that there is an Iceberg dead ahead, rest assured that under the captainship of New Labour icebergs have been abolished'

    [CRASSSHHHHHH]

    'Suggestions of a full-blown ship sinking event are clearly wide of the mark, although we await a full report from the lower decks dampness investigation sub-comittee. Please note that this ship has never yet suffered a shortage of lifeboat space, so there is no reason to panic. Any passengers on lower decks reporting wet feet may apply for a complementary ship's towel.'

    'Following on from the reccomendations of the lower decks dampness inverstigation sub-comittee, the ship's crew and first class passengers have decided to form an external hull damage in-depth investigation working group to formulate further reccomendations for the currently decreasing number of passengers on the lower decks reporting wet legs. This will require temporary usage of 90 percent of the ship's lifeboats.'

    'In a totally unexpected event, it appears that a run has occured on ship's lifeboat spaces based on the rumor that the ship has run into temporary flotation viability issues. Rest assured that under New labour Captaincy, lifeboat spaces will be fully available to all, and measures to combat any percieved shortage in spaces, should they be required, a Shared Lifeboat Space Ownership Scheme will be introduced. Meanwhile, we await the report of the external hull damage in-depth investigation working group.'

    'Some commentators have suggested that the fact that the bows of the ship are underwater indicates that there may be more significant flotation viability issues than have so far been discussed. However, these commentators fail to note that the stern of the ship is now higher, clearly balancing out over the course of the cycle. Meanwhile, our Shared Lifeboat Space Ownership Scheme has been a complete success, to judge by the degree to which it is oversubscribed.'

    'Although it appears that the ship has indeed vanished beneath the waves taking most of the passengers with it, this was clearly an event completely out of our control, and cannot reflect out excellent record of captaincy up until that point. The unfortunate oversubscription problem on the lifeboats did indeed result in all of them sinking as well, but this was a result of market forces over which we have no control. '

  15. 1) - He didn't state highly skilled, he stated "decent"; I'd interpret that as junior/standard at most; by no means senior or highly experienced.

    2) - http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/JobSearch/Results....=0&LIds2=ZV ; where are all these £80k jobs that the "highly skilled" DBAs are working in?

    3) - Being a DBA is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the most difficult job in Computing. Yes, it can be VERY high pressure, but in reality, once you're familiar with what you're doing and the RDBMS that you're managing, it's mostly routine. Compare that with Analysis or Architecture, or writing real time parallel debuggers and £80k seems like an awful lot.

    4) - When the HPC comes - won't this salary demand drop?

    I think the problem is more the house price bubble.. I suspect there are whole class of jobs in london now that simply can't pay enough to cover the costs of living in London. Hence the skills shortage; it's also a function of the finance sector pushing out other businesses.

  16. Sometimes you need to ignore the hype and look behind it, its why Global Warming has been rebranded as Climate Change because it won't have much brand recognition this weekend up north, following the money, usually points you in the right direction as to whats really happening.

    Well, yes - the world's largest corporations are discreetly funding skeptics to come out with ways of casting doubt on global warming. Follow the money indeed.. Believe me - if there was a credible alternative theory to AGW for current observations, funding would not be hard to come by.

    I'm quite happy to rant on about the response to AGW as well - todays announcement of the EU trying to ban patio heaters being a classic of the 'Get people worked up for no significant reason' genre. But if people refuse to follow the science, this is what is going to happen.

  17. To shed some light - just go to jobserve.com and search for "c#" in location "London" - and see how many ads there are from the last 7 days ;)

    If you think any education system can fill that - good luck :))

    London really has an insatiable apetite for talent!

    Other counties don't follow the lead though, and that's a big long term problem for them and workers.

    Of course, if those companies moved out of london, they might find lower wages and office costs...

    How much would I need to earn in London to have a 4 bed house with a garden and a 20 minute commute?

  18. Sorry but I PMSL When global warming / climate change comes up, another con trick to rival the Ponzi Property scam perpetrated on most of the world.

    In the seventies it was drummed into me that the big freeze was coming, in the eighties I was going to die of Aids, the nineties the millennium bug was going to have me living in the Stone Age, now its Green House gases and carbon footprints, crap like this comes and goes.

    Boom n' Busts are constant though and the coming humdinger of a Bust will be a one in a lifetime event, but it will be real unlike all the above scare stories.

    There was no scientific backing for an immediate ice age in the 1970s.. indeed, the whole idea has been deliberately blown up by the global warming skeptic crowd to try and distract attention. A couple of scientific papers and a newsweek article do not a theory make. I can dig up some papers from around then claiming that the earth is expanding (yes, really) - does this invalidate plate tectonics?

    AIDS has, I believe, now reached the status of being the third worst pandemic of all history at ~25 million dead, or 0.4% of the world's population. Lucky escape there, then.

    The Milennium bug was overplayed, but on the other hand it did give lots of money to computer programmers, which is always good.

    Global warming is an ongoing, observed process which is expected from basic physics - it would be a huge surprise if it were not happening. Given that the chances of China, India and the US giving up coal any time soon are pretty remote, the only question is exactly what is going to happen and how quickly. Could be fixed fairly simply with a combionation of large scale nuclear power combined with synthetic fuels, but that seems to be opposed by just about everyone..

    Oh, and hobo sapiens - if ClimateAudit are so clever, why don't they actually publish papers in the literature for examination instead of posting on a website and then censoring the comments..?

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