JonoP

1) Consider that the UK has had (net) one or two million inward immigration in the timeframe we are discussing, and that SOME of them will be competing for low wage jobs (whilst many others will be working in the city etc) 2) Consider that WesternGermany assimilated an ENTIRE COUNTRY when the reunified with Eastern Germany. Population of circa 16 million. 3) Realise you made a foolish statement on the internet. 4) Get back to rading the Daily Mail and frothing about those bloody immigrants.

Balls, I remember all through the nineties when Germany was 'the sick man of Europe'. The reason they were 'sick' is because they were integrating Eastern Germany. Post integration, they have essentially had a massive influx of low cost labour. Which is one of the main reasons they are doing well today. It is all cyclical. The cost of UK labour is declining. And our economy will improve. And the cycle will go around again. As it always has….

I could reply that you need to be propelled straight in to a straight jacket, but I won't......

Right, and the million employees at foxcon are doing what exactly in this world of automated nirvana?

The whole premise of this thread is pretty dumb really. The OP seems to think that we are missing out on a tremendous manufacturing opportunity here. The reality is that we are 'missing out' on a few very low paid, low end jobs soldering basic components to a circuit board. The OP may want to compete with China in this space, but in reality this would mean UK workers settling for the same living standards as Chinese assembly line workers. I doubt the OP would like that. There are a few people on this forum who seem to have this silly fixation about 'making things'. The reality is that a person earning 5 quid an hour soldering stuff together is in no way more beneficial to the UK position than a person in Tesco earning 5 quid per hour to stack shelves. High end manufacturing is a different story. But we are already extremely good at that...... Training/generating more engineers is a good thing. But we will not generate more engineers by a proliferation of low paid electronic assembly lines...

This is correct. Facebook is a platform that other companies can run applications on top of. An 'operating system for the web' if you like. And the REALLY interesting thing is that Facebook knows who you are, so they can authenticate you. This is what makes their business interesting. All this talk of them being a pure advertising play is missing the mark. I will be buying FB stock. I think that if (and it is a big if) they execute properly they could be huge. BTW – for those of you talking about how they release stuff – if you are somewhat geeky (like I am) this is quite interesting.

I would argue that Linux is the least popular OS in the world on the basis of customers actively choosing it. Linux gets adopted because it is cheap OS that manufacturers can use in embedded devices and the like. Most customers are not aware, and really do not care, about the origins of the software that runs their set top box. The same with Adroid. Most consumers neither know or care that Adroid has some Linux heritage. As for ‘it still isn't that popular on the desktop yet’ – oh god, where do I start with that? Linux has a sub 2% share of the desktop. Sub 1% if you believe some figures. And declining. Customers hate it. It will never, ever, replace Windows on PCs. It is an utter, dismal, abject failure. Its biggest chance in the UK was when Carphone Whorehouse started shipping Linux netbooks a few years back. But the return rate was something like 70 or 80 percent because customers hated the software. So they stuck Windows on them. And then they were (briefly) a sales phenomenon. If anything will kill Microsoft it is the move to other device form factors. Not the ‘success’ of Linux on the desktop. Now, Linux is OK as a server OS. That is fine. But not on the desktop. You freetards need get out more and learn where to pick your battles….* *spoken by someone who is interviewing as we speak for a company that is one of the ‘pillars’ of the OSS community.

Hah hah? Really? You think that most people even understand the concept let alone give a flying ferk? Trust me, you are one of about 5 people in the world that give a stuff that it is 'proprietary'. The other 4 work for some tin pot failure of an 'open source alternative' to Facebook. There used to be 5 of them but one of them died in mysterious circumstances recently.

Guy obviously does not go to Spain very often. Or Ireland. Or Greece. Or Bulgaria. Or Cyprus. Or Portugal, Or Latia, Solvenia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania. I could go on... What a plonker.

Your proposed response comes across as being a bit arsey. It kind of says, ‘you are an idiot if you try to put my rent up because I will leave and then you will not be able to rent it out to anyone else’. The Letting Agent will probably take offence at this approach and make it a point of principle to stiff you. I would keep the stuff about being a good tenant, stress that you like the place and would love to stay there, promise to keep being a good tenant, state that you cannot afford the proposed rental increase and then propose a lower amount (plus a new contract). Just give them the impression that you really want to stay but you will be forced to move out if they increase it by the full 25%. I would also hold off sending the letter for as long as possible. To be fair, you are probably due a rental increase if you have not had one since 2008. That said, I rented a place between 2004 and 2010 and never had an increase.

Hmmm. You cannot take me seriously. And there was me thinking that your opinion mattered. Although. To be fair. You did say that you had used Win Phone and that it was ‘juddery’. Which is the one thing it is not. So, I guess that proves that you are an irrelevant liar as opposed to just being irrelevant?

Conversly, I love my Windows Phone but hated my Android Phone. I would never buy anything ever again that runs Android. Just goes to show eh? iPhones are also good. Blackberries seem OK all though I have never actually owned one.

And I am pretty certain that Halifax are comparing the cost of a 3 bed house costing £199K purchased on an INTEREST ONLY mortgage with the cost of the average rental at £716 per month. Otherwise, they are trying to tell us that an average 3 bed (purchased on a repayment mortgage) only costs £118K but rents for £716 per month. I think not...... ‘owning’ is cheaper than renting. Pah. They really are devious bar stewards. Scum in fact.

Yeah, it is interesting to watch. There was a bunch of stuff on the news this morning about how the economy is now losing jobs and we constantly hear about how retail is, in local parlance, ‘doing it tough’ I suspect this is all a fall out from the fact that the housing market is crashing. Trades people are not getting work, home furnishing stores are not getting new homes to furnish, banks are not selling mortgages and DIY stores like Bunnings are suffering from people losing interest in ‘adding value’ to their homes. Most importantly, the supply of easy money generated by Mortgage Equity Withdrawal has dried up. I suspect when you take MEW money out of the equation, the Aussie economic miracle of the last few years is a bit of a charade. The problem is, many businesses got fat and complacent on the back of this stream of MEW money. They are now left with their high costs, uncompetitive business models, arduous government regulation and complacent staff. Better hope China keeps ticking over…..

Given that they have about 50,000 people that works out to about $250K per employee.

An excellent post and I agree with what you say. The challenges within the banking system are systemic. People have learnt how to play the system to their own advantage and their greed means that they are exploiting it. The system needs to change to prevent this from happening. What I do NOT believe is that there is an organised conspiracy by a cartel of senior people within the financial services industry who planned out in advance how they would defraud the system. I think the system became chaotic, was not regulated tightly, and people took advantage. Systems can and do become chaotic without planned intent by ‘evil conspirators’. I also think that fractional reserve banking is not the root of all evil – the system appears to work well when regulated well. What I am referring to when I speak of ‘nutters’ is people who think that the financial crash was planned and organised by some group of Bilderberg grey men as part of some devious plan to enslave humanity via exploitation of financial resources. I am also referring to Injin when I talk about nutters as well. But that goes without saying. I do intensely dislike the fact that many people have walked away from the financial crash retaining so many frankly unearned gains though. I think gross misconduct laws need to change so that the likes of Fred Goodwin could be bankrupted. I also think that consumers/speculators who borrowed recklessly should face some form of redress as well. And I think that the whole private equity model is a disgrace as well.

Really? I could have sworn that I wrote something along the lines of 'So, I am very much of the view that this is not an issue that means that the core banking proposition has failed. It just means that certain activities should be discouraged and stopped.' I think that makes my position reasonably clear. Just for the record, I do not like bankers getting huge bonuses and I would like house prices to be lower. But I do not think that there is an organised cartel of bankers undertaking deliberate criminal abuse of the banking system. Anyhow. I am intrigued. There are lots of people on this forum that seem convinced that banking is just one big orgnaised scam (we are two steps away from David Icke lizards here but I digress). Going forwards - what do you actually want? Do you want revenge (bankers prosecuted)? Do you want changes to the financial system? Do you want the end of fractional reserve banking? And if so, what would you replace it with?

Yeah, the reason people have not responded is cause you spout a lot of tosh........? I will humour you (and the nutter camp) though. 1) 'Criminal conspiracies, as understood in a court of law, have taken place within the banking industry.' Great. Well, go and prove it in a court of law then. And if you cannot, or are not prepared to, then shut up. 2) Wow! You don't say! This may be recent news to you but most of us grown ups have known this for many many years. The issue is not that they can do it but rather how they are regulated in doing it....

Oh god. The nutters are out again.... A quick question to you all. Looking back across history, have all bankers, in your view, alawys been fraudsters?

Um yeah. Whatever. I have a visa, and I am sitting here in Melbourne 'using' it. That does not distract me from the fact that these whinning idiots looking for a bailout are: A. Upset because their gamble on property prices did not pay off, and, B. Australian

Yeah, good post EDM. I do agree that the lunatics appear to be taking over the Asylum on HPC. I get pretty sick of the same old suspects banging on about their weird little cult theories. I cannot work out if they are particularly young and naive or whether they smoke a lot of dope and are paranoid. Anyhow, with regards to banking. There lots of different activities that get covered under the term ‘banking’ nowadays. Banks take deposits, lend money, create structured products, trade currencies/equities/bonds, provide financial advice, help with M&A activities etc etc etc. As I see it, there is little that is broken with the basic ‘take deposits and lend them out model’. That model works and has worked for hundreds of years. Indeed, banks that have stuck to that simple model seem to be fairly secure (Nationwide Building Society). It is where they have started blending this basic service with the creation and trading of structured products where there seems to be a problem. Firstly, they are risking their depositors money and secondly their blind faith in the structured products lead to a situation where they were not correctly evaluating risk when deciding whether to lend against assets. The lack of risk management lead to a surplus of easy credit which lead to a rise in asset prices and the cycle span out of control. So, I am very much of the view that this is not an issue that means that the core banking proposition has failed. It just means that certain activities should be discouraged and stopped. It amuses me that the there are two basic positions in the arguments we hear. The left wing crowd say ‘banks are evil and caused all the problems’. The right wing crowd say ‘Government is too big and spending too much’ . People tend to polarize towards one of these views. I personally thing that there is a problem with banks AND a problem with government spending. Finally, the ‘one percent’ crowd…… I reckon that pretty much anyone in the ‘99%’ bucket would give their eye teeth to join the people in the ‘1%’ bucket. And that is the real cause of all this angst when you think about it…humans, by their very nature, are greedy.

Classic Aussie behaviour though. Whinning and expecting 'compo' when their speculative gamble did not pay off and make them rich without them getting off their lazy asses :-)

I call bull$hit. I would like it to be true, but I bet it is not.

The thing that is not clear from the article is what her ‘volunteering’ at the museum actually entailed. It is quite likely that she dropped by their café for a couple of hours every other week, spent an hour or so chatting to her mates and then ‘volunteered’ to line up the cafeteria chairs neatly which would take 10 minutes or so. Call me cynical, but when I read that article it sounds like she is trying to use the Museum as an excuse to avoid having to get off her ass and do something that the job centre wants her to do.

I have been lending via Zopa for the last year or so. I am only playing around - I have lent about 600 quid and only to A* credit ratings. I have not had any defaults/late payments yet though. I think this is a pretty innovative new system - it cuts the banks out nicely.......