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tricksters

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Everything posted by tricksters

  1. David Starkey, Any Questions....."I hope the whole thing is BUGGERED" to rapturous applause. Apparently, according to Dimblebum, 80% of that applause was for the entertainment value provided by Starkey rather than the audience agreeing. But Dimblebum would say that wouldn't he.
  2. OK, but the 50% drops related to this country, didn't they?
  3. Well I take that point. But when you say house prices have dropped 50%, what houses are you referring to? Ones that you would consider desirable, or ones in less than salubrious areas or with not enough space to swing a cat? Are you saying there are desirable houses out there in decent locations that have dropped 50%. That's the test. Nice, desirable houses becoming buyable that the average Joe actually wants. I too have access to national data and I just don't see that scenario. Perhaps you could post a link and I shall gladly concede.
  4. Denial on both sides then. I can't accept that house prices aren't crashing - simply because they're not crashing. Why would I be in denial? I would like house prices to drop so that I can damn well get one. But I don't do wishful thinking. The last five years on this site have been awash with people seeing what they want to see instead of what actually is. But here we are and nothing much has changed. Would that it were not so.
  5. 1. At some point, yes. Who knows when that is though. But there's no shortage of cash rich in the unlikely event of it happening. 2. Prices are high here and buyers are not having to be beaten off with a stick. So our relationship with property does seem to be out of kilter with most other countries. "Homeowners" have their 2007 mindset and they will not be denied. Many (most?) can afford that luxury if they got in at the right time.
  6. Not at all. What has happened has happened. But this is England, the most property-obsessed country in the world bar none as far as one can tell. Property is the yardstick by which the bulk of the population measure how well they are doing. If they bought more than 6 or 7 years ago, they are probably ok with a reasonably comfortable, or better, mortgage repayment. Where I live, a fairly well to do Nottinghamshire village, there seems to be zero property angst. I don't know anybody who gives twopence for it all. Certainly there seems little interest in selling and no problems keeping up with comparatively small repayments. My job involves going to lots of different places and liaising with lots of different people. It's not even a topic of conversation. I just don't see any sign of downward pressure here. It's just the way it is. You can quote other countries, but you can't quote this one. (Not yet - admittedly. But we have been saying not yet for years now and unless interest rates climb, which the VIs won't let happen, we can carry on saying it till we are blue in the face). I want to buy a damned house so I hope I'm wrong, by the way.
  7. Quite so. Same old same old isn't it. Clutching at straws. Wishful thinking, sadly. Wheel out all the arguments you like, but most people's mortgages are peanuts (that's according to them, not me) and you can believe it. It trumps everything else, doesn't it??
  8. Too good to be true for many people. When something "would be too good to be true", it rarely happens. How often has something too good to be true happened in your lifetime? Seems to be one of life's rules. In any case, long before property dropped 30-40%, something else would happen to spoil the party. Government intervention, or mad scramble by the cash rich to load up with houses. Or something that hasn't even occurred to anybody yet, maybe. Not expecting it to happen is my defence mechanism.
  9. OK, I do care really. But in the overall scheme of things, it's not exactly high on any list of injustices and unfairnesses to be sorted, is it? There's infinitely bigger fish to fry. You can get bogged down in minutiae and miss the big picture.
  10. Quite right too. Which is why the collective energy of anger (or whatever you want to call it) should be directed at the bigger picture, the crux of the issue. Directing one's fire at the little people is all good divide and conquer stuff for the government and diverts attention from the real issue of the massive heist which has been taking place for years/ decades.
  11. Don't care. You'll get the same benefits when you are of a certain age. Your turn will come. (Or possibly it won't but still don't care). How will you feel when you reach that arbitary age? Instead of agonising over this piffling little side issue, we should be more concerned with where the real money has gone, and still goes. You think pensioners get exorbitant privileges? They, and most everybody else, are just the foot soldiers enjoying a meagre pittance whilst the real privileged elite systematically suck the life out of everything with wealth ordinary people can scarcely comprehend.
  12. I worked in the profession for (many) years and detested much of it a lot of the time, in part because of the insular and frankly uninteresting and not particularly intelligent people I was amongst. "Total arrogance and sense of entitlement beyond belief" is something of an exaggeration, though, but I can't be arsed to take issue with that. What I will take issue with is the "products they turn out not being fit for purpose" bit. Much as I have little time for many of the people in the profession, I have to recognise that many of them have the child's welfare and education very much at heart and work hard under difficult circumstances to turn difficult, dysfunctional children who know their rights much better than their responsibilities, with ignorant parents who believe their child can do no wrong and who instill a sense of entitlement in them rather than one of respect and reasonable endeavour. Trust me - there are some horrible kids out there, with horrible parents. There are fabulous kids with great, supportive parents. Sounds like you want to trash everybody without really knowing what really goes on. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. When kids start school at 5, much or at least some of how they are going to turn out to be is already hard wired into them through the culture (or lack of culture) at home. It is actually quite knackering trying to teach a youngster who doesn't want to know, doesn't care, parents don't care, kicks off regularly, disrupts constantly - there's plenty of "strategies" for dealing with them. Every school has a raft of different fu@kkking strategies which I guess proves that nothing works with some kids. You can't blame most teachers for that. Most of them are pretty hard working and dilligent and I can tell you it gets tedious trying to change the nature of the sort of child that you suspect may turn out to be unemployable. When you meet some of the parents of these dysfunctional youngsters, you feel sorry for the kids because it makes you realise why they are the way they are. But in the profession, you must never, ever, criticise the parenting. It isn't done. Parent kicks off. You get grief. Teachers can only teach what is put in front of them. Much as I have not that much time for the profession, I can at least see that, and it is something that needs to be recognised. Blame teachers for bad teaching - there is a some. But don't blame them that their charges are sometimes basically dim because of their background and not only are they unemployable, they are nigh on unteachable. You wouldn't believe the resources poured into one on one teaching to try and deal with this problem. It helps, but those children who receive individual tuition can still struggle throughout their school years. "Show me the boy, I'll show you the man" has the ring of truth about it. No good blaming teachers and their fantastically high salaries and endless holidays just because you don't like 'em.
  13. Sounds a grim scenario. Think I would prefer to escape.
  14. Yes. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a remarkably brave, petite lady who towers head and shoulders above the great statesmen of our time. (Well they think they're great, anyway - when it comes down to it, they just seem like big, stupid bullies in comparison). Not turning out to be a very long list so far is it? Can't say I'm surprised.
  15. There has probably never been a time when the political "elite" in this country were held in such low esteem. Assuming three qualities you look for in a political leader, wisdom, honesty and courage of conviction are probably up there somewhere. If you ask yourself, who is wise, honest and courageous and a vital part of the governing process, who do you come up with? Hmm. Need a bit of help with that one. Shouldn't the people who run a country be the finest brains, the wise heads with maybe the wisdom of age or experience, or the wisdom of untrammelled youth able to cut to the chase and get to the heart of an issue? Why do we continue to give imbeciles permission to do things to us we really don't want? It's a cliche, I know, but the current lot are a little clique of rich posh boys and the other lot are so dim they go from heavyweight buffoon Gordon to very lightweight buffoon Ed Milliband who looks more and more unconvincing by the day. A question, then. Is there authentic wisdom out there? Genuine intellect with good intent? Who? I'm not expecting a long list of suggestions.
  16. Can honestly say I don't know a single person who is "seriously shafted" by interest rates. (Maybe I should get out more). It is probably happening "out there", I guess, but it isn't the norm, and until it is the norm, it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to house prices. Mortgage repayments are peanuts and my modest rent payment would still repay the small 30% (ish) LTV mortgage I probably need to get an acceptable house. Bit of a sore point.
  17. Oh good. I'm so glad it's only "families" who are being hit by the tax. Singletons are on to a winner here. Hurrah!
  18. Oh they're smart all right. But it's all channelled into self interest. (Having said that, one Gordon Brown came across as being very stupid indeed)
  19. Yes, they probably could. However, if something seems to good to be true, it generally is.
  20. Good points. And the terminally unemployable - will ANY government EVER really get to grips with a non contributory section of society swanning through life courtesy of other peoples' efforts?
  21. He and his ilk are currently playing the "rich toffs" card with Cameron and his ilk. Fair enough. Problem is, Ed and his little band of brothers and sisters aren't exactly short of a bob or two themselves. You can smell the hypocrisy.
  22. No way. Up is ugly. Less people is the answer to many of the world's problems. We breed like bloody rabbits. Human beings are sex addicts. Global population growth is relentless. Surely it is unsustainable but it seems none of the big hitters want to address it.
  23. Get a grip, man. You're still a young man. A sprog. A whippersnapper. A callow youth. Late forties? Pah! You've probably got half your life still left to do. Get on with it.
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