acidarrow

I used to work above one and whilst I hate their coffee I used to frequent there regularly simply to skive off work. Their coffee tastes like mud, but then I suppose it was only 'ground' that morning, ho ho ho. There was one good thing that came of it though, me and my mate 'found' a roll of Starbucks stickers on the counter with the logo on. So we took them and carefully coloured in parts of the 'B' with green felt tip so it read 'Starf*cks'. We stuck a few on the window outside and would stick one somewhere in the shop every so often. One stayed on their 'gift' display for 2 weeks!

"Likewise, I hope that I give sound advice rather than inveigling viewers into "get rich quick" schemes." The fact that she uses the word 'hope' speaks volumes surely.

"one-bedroom ground floor flat in Bromley for £177,000..." Ooo that's gotta hurt! Well you pay your money and take your choice as it were. They've made several key decisions that have led them to this unenviable situation and now indirectly blame the government for not being able to afford the ultimate symbol of disposable income: the Playstation. They only have themselves to blame I'm afraid, I'm sure if HPC wasn't happening they'd be going on to all their renting-friends about how great owning is.

I love the fact they have a "Vitamin A" column when in fact only one of the varieties provides just 2% of your RDA. I wonder if that 2% is capable of dissolving the 10g of saturated fat you scoff along with it. I find these pretty sickly I have to say, I can feel the fat and sugar oozing down my throat like the tube the alien face-huggers stick down you to plant their eggs. But a bit different.

I specifically crawled round the back of my desk at lunchtime to plug the earphones in to my pc to hear what this guy had to say. I was preparing to gloat but as some said above I felt a bit sorry for him. Still in my mind all I was thinking was "thank God I didn't cave in to the pressure during the last couple of years or that could have been me... but not as good looking". At the end of the day though whilst I have some sympathy for him I also despair at the lack of thought that goes in to so many peoples financial decisions. I was apprehensive about blowing most of my monthly salary on a London shoebox in around 2005 and started researching house prices then, one look at the hump-back graph on the opening page of this site told me an awful lot. Admittedly the credit cruch has expediated things but I'm sure prices would have fallen even without this. FTB's may to an extent, have been suckered in during the last couple of years but ultimately those in trouble now and in the next few years should have thought more seriously about the levels of debt they would be getting in to and what might happen if their economic situation changed.

"One of two things at the moment, the market is either at the bottom or it will drop a little bit more." This is priceless, I wonder if the guy was physically cringing when he wrote this!

Indeed, it very much depends on the area your skills are in, though even in my supposed 'safer' area of regulatory reporting (Basel 2 etc.) there is much fiercer competition for roles than there was 6 months ago. I've no doubt times are going to be tough in the next couple of years but as someone said earlier that's a contractors lot. Whilst I'm really glad house prices are coming down I knew such an economic situation would hit the finance and IT sector pretty hard so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, hoping I can stay in contracts and not have to go perme any time soon.

It's definitely tough in the contract market at the moment, just like post-Y2K. There is still work out there if you have the right skill-set though, I certainly don't think this spells doom for the market as a whole.

"But the opinion of homeowners differed. The majority - 81% - said they want prices to keep rising, in order to keep earning them money." Sigh... to quote the guy outside the bank in Falling Down "...not economically viable..."

It won't happen here, our cars aren't big enough.

He has his finger on the pulse! The government of this fine country are offering £1500 to certain elements of society in order to help them board the buoyant raft of housing that is floating upon the calm waters of Great Britain! Don't you see, GB says that a 2.5% fall is 'sustainable' after 180% growth in 10 years... nothing wrong with that headline-leading statement at all!!! He's completely in touch with what's going on.