D.C.

China won't have a great demographic problem because it hasn't made a commitment to look after it's boomers in old age, it can watch them die of age related illnesses instead of ballooning healthcare costs to give them an extra year of life. As far as consumption goes without a whole bunch of new technological breakthroughs we have already gone past Malthusian limits on a whole range of fronts, you can't catch more fish if the fish population is collapsing, you can't grow more cereals if every single drop of water is already getting used, you can't dig more gold out of the ground if... We have been typically solving these issues by throwing more and more energy at problems but energy is about to get a whole lot more expensive.

Injin, 99.99% of the time you come across a complete and utter idiot. But just occasionally I could hug you. That response was 100% hugworthy baby

You seem to think there is a choice. How NuLabour of you, I'm sure that reality revolves around your personal desires and not the cold hard fact that foisting a debt of £250,000 on people with no income, no job and no assets was always going to work out badly as it is mathematically impossible for them to ever repay the capital of that debt let alone the interest accrued on it.

It is worse. When renting you don't take on the risk of negative equity, your landlord does. As a tenant of a repossessed landlord you just walk away and rent another place, you don't get hit with a bill for £50k of NE.

Because the banks you just bailed out have lost billions lending to fuel the boom in that market and might need bailing out again? Just like the collapse of Eastern Europe is trashing Western European banks and the collapse of Iceland had an effect on your council...

Easy big fella... I take it you aren't fond of zerohedge?

http://www.ted.com/t...rie_santos.html Turns out monkeys are just as bad at money management as we are...

The US knows it can't threaten China with a carrier group, the Chinese made that blatantly clear in 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-492804/The-uninvited-guest-Chinese-sub-pops-middle-U-S-Navy-exercise-leaving-military-chiefs-red-faced.html The military exercises are for North Korea's benefit, not China's.

To be fair I think he meant Tyler Durden on zerohedge was a wingnut libertarian. He posts with the name 'Tyler Durden' because of the character in Fight Club that blows up all the credit agencies, usually a good indicator of wingnuttyness...

And the best bit is they don't realise that by slamming the poor down further their own wages will also fall to 'just above poor' as the market adjusts.

Not really, the peasants were happy with their common land and could be self sufficient. The Inclosure Acts drove them from the land and forced them to become dependent on factory owners for the ability to put food in their mouths. You can not become a gas fitter/electrician etc in this country without getting a qualification from college to allow you to work. The government sets a target for each college for how many places are available on courses, the college is not allowed to go over that limit, while we had an epic housing boom the government repeatedly cut all areas of adult education and further education with the sole exception of English as a Second Language course which were massively expanded. Those 'lazy Brits' were queuing up to be allowed to educate themselves and be allowed to work but the government instead decided that instead of allowing the 'lazy Brit' to get that education at a cost of £1800 it would import a labourer and pay £1500 for them to learn English and pay many thousands out to the 'lazy Brit'. We have just spent epic sums (sorry, committed to paying epic sums over the next 30 years) of PFI money building schools and hospitals around the country, do you really want to depopulate those areas where and all associated infrastructure to cram more people into the south and build more infrastructure there to support them? Would it not be more sensible to incentivise businesses to locate themselves up north? By knocking a percentage point off corporation tax for each percent of unemployment say?

Not a bad analogy. The West Midlands was the traditional industrial heartland, over the last decade the private sector has been in a depression haemorrhaging jobs not because of public sector expansion but because of competition from China/India. During the 'boom' years unemployment actually rose and average wages went down despite the Labour government creating incredible numbers of public sector jobs, the problem is they shipped in more immigrants than jobs they created. Despite the devaluation of the pound, the area is still declining, fewer and fewer jobs in manufacturing and with the public sector cuts coming... Ouch.

Did you miss the giant dot.com boom and epic bust? Well, we all missed the epic bust as we blew an even bigger bubble in housing, but there was plenty rotten before 9/11

Debt Saturation. Everybody is already loaded up with the absolute maximum amount of debt that they can service, increasing lending will just tip them over the edge so they pay back non of it.

In part 2 the delusion is strong in that Lucy... Buying into the end of a sucker's rally by paying £32,000 over asking and then the immortal line, 'Winchester is different'...

I think you would be surprised. We still have a reasonable amount of know how and we also have all the designs for the products and all the designs for the machines that make the products. Seems like an easier task then placating a billion pissed off people... I wouldn't be surprised if some CIA funds started going into democracy movements in China to mess up the leadership and prevent the possibility of a war from occurring, divide and conquer tactics.

Gold is probably in a bubble. Merv recommend a 30% devaluation of the pound when the coalition took over. Foreign currency account time?

Not really very interesting, just a load of propaganda by conservatards for conservatards. Worshipping Regan while blaming Obama and Clinton for the mess the US is in is interesting. Perhaps they missed the fact that Clinton was the most fiscally conservative president for generations and turn deficit spending into surplus while Bush caused the worst financial crisis in history after a decade of unfunded spending increases and tax cuts for the superrich? I'm sure that will be in the film...

When my family moved back here in 1991 my father took a job as an unqualified prison tutor on £19,000 and purchased an extended ex council house for £41,000. Almost 20 years later that job pays £17,000-£23,000 and similar houses are on the market for £155,000. The cost of living has also risen sharply, insurance, petrol, taxes, food etc in that time.

Not to mention of course the student loan. Or that the £18k salary for an office would probably make him a team leader in many offices. Or that because the call centre he works in doesn't provide a fridge or free drinks and eating/drinking at your desk is a sacking offence he has to spend £4-£8 per day in the staff canteen. Etc Etc Most of the young people I know on that sort of salary are not pissing their money up the wall going Ibizia every year because after tax/housing costs/food/getting to work costs there is bugger all left at the end of the month.

I love your maths... Council tax for many is much higher than that, even with a single person rebate that is unrealistically low. You forgot to add in the car loan, petrol and astronomically high insurance for young men on ANY car. Why does he need a car? Because he has to commute bleedin miles to have any chance of finding a job. So that is £200-£300 for the car loan, £100-£200 for petrol, £100 for parking and £50-150 for insurance.

Or more likely the 'panic and despair' phase of the leg down is just starting after the 'denial and suckers rally' has ended. Where is that graphic when you need it...

ToW, there is a difference between industrialisation where the benefits go to the people or the country and what is currently happening. Take China as an example, the money made went into development and city building. A good thing. But if you compare it to the last 15 years where China has been in Africa. 15 years ago the African guy lived in a shack and barely had enough to eat. Now after slogging his guts out for 15 hard years for wages calibrated to pay him exactly enough to pay his rent and just barely enough food to eat he is still living in the same shack with barely enough food to eat. Unlike in China where the government captured the worker's output and ploughed it into internal development, all the benefits from the African guy slogging his guts out immediately leaves the country. No new cities, no improved healthcare, no improved education system. This is a bad thing. And that bad thing is done all over the world, Nike, who also manufacture in Bangladesh, pay zero taxes in Bangladesh despite Nike's turnover being 55 times greater than the GDP of Bangladesh. they justify it by saying they leave behind the wages, but the wages only cover rent and food. no money is left for development either by paying taxes or wages high enough for workers to fund development.

The video isn't really that interesting, it's a bit like watching someone masturbate over a picture of Ayn Rand, not my thing and oh so very wrong.

How come this thread got pinned? Mistake or am I missing a grand revelation?