pl1

That really is it in a nutshell. All free movement of labour means between countries with different wealth levels is the labour gravitates to the wealthiest country. Great for business and the immimgrant not so great for the indigineous forced to live with all the downsides: depressed wages, high rents, clogged infrastructure etc.

During the leaders debates Nicola Sturgeon point blank refused to accept a correlation between numbers of people comming into the UK and the acute housing shortage. That's the thing with mass immigration, unless you're at the burning coalface of it (i.e. NOT Scotland) you're not going to be that bothered by it. However more & more people are now being exposed to it every year. So those people on fixed incomes who weren't bothered about the numbers before (single mums on benefits for example, they still get their benefits and house) are now exposed to the coalface (they can't get their kid into the local primary or they have an extra long wait at the clinic). You see it all around. 4 or 5 cars crammed into driveways and all the kerbs, dormers in every other house, traffic reports on the radio now sound like War & Peace and go on for ages whereas before they would be a 20 second segment. More and more people getting exposed. Even parents who enjoyed the property price boom on the back of the supply problem. It would be nice if they could downsize but their 30 something kids are (still) living with them. As I see it, it really is just more ammo for the brexit & out campaign, that's the only silver lining I see.

China has just cut its core interest rate by 0.25% What are the implications of this move?

1am. Might stay up too.

Looks like PPT has done a Richard Whitney, 800 point reversal on Dow. Mr Whitney would have been proud.

OPEC powerless to stop oil price slide: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11820830/Opec-powerless-to-halt-oil-price-slide-warns-former-group-president.html

Anybody else agree with this that qe4 will be announced imminently??

Any guess on what the big resistance price for oil could be?

Main forum in full popcorn mode, surely a buy signal?

Is this a full on rout or final blowout? Bp.l price lower now then after Deepwater Horizon.

The small size of houses becomes so apparent when driving around, they are so "thin". All just a reflection of whats going on of course.

Old topic but MSN money is free and it certainly does this with equities under the watchlist tab.

http://news.sky.com/story/1514982/budget-to-slow-pace-of-welfare-cuts-sky-sources Oh here we go. As a previous poster said, if he was ever going to get away with massive cuts it would be during a budget as far away from the next election as possible. How good is Faisal Islam for "sources"?

I worked this out last year and can concur this is correct. The amount in child tax credits (on top of child benefit, income support oh and free rent in a land with a housing crisis) is truly shocking. What do they think these kids need to eat? Caviar? You have to be on more then the average wage to even be in the same ballpark. That's without taking into account the amount of free time. How do you even quantify that?

CBS is running with a NO vote win from just ten minutes ago, but this story is from Interior Ministry. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/greece-votes-no-on-euro-bailout-conditions-polls-indicate/

If you don't mind DB, could you post your findings/most salient points up on Weds/Thu, if poss. Devil's always in the detail.

I asked before but nobody replied or knew. Which group are drugheads and alcoholics in? I'm guessing this one? They seem to be left to rot on the system with no compulsory requirement to attend treatment afaik

Unless I read it wrong Frugal, the ESA cuts will go to those that don't have to attend job interviews (as mentioned t'other day I found out ESA is split into two camps, those who are fit for jobseeking and those who aren't i.e. the ones left to rot on the system) and not those that do. But as usual, we'll see in a couple of days. Unless this is one of those items to be delay-revealed in the Autumn statement.

Seems there are two types of ESA and it is group 2 up for scrapping? Am I right in this assumption? 1. Support Group - don't need to attend job-based interviews 2. Work related activity group - need to attend some sort of job interview Does anyone know which group professional alcoholics are put into?

Yes I thought you might enjoy them. Some though are surprisingly well reasoned and balanced and as aggrieved as anybody else. Anybody want to start a crossover episode? I'm not a member of Netmums.

Interesting isn't it at the start of this thread (5 weeks ago) we said it boils down to cuts from tax credits/hb and that many in receipt will be blisfully unaware of this change until it's upon them, well it's now upon them & yes they are commenting. They need to realise it doesn't come from a money tree; oh and welcome to the coalface. This from yesterday: http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/house-garden-194/money-finance-entitlements-267/1321569-tax-credits-child-tax-credits-i-ll-end-welfare-merrygoround-camron-today.html

Serious question, have you noticed an increase in motability scooters and disability parking spaces in the area? I fancy she is currently blissfully unaware she will probably be losing at least a third of her ctc. One other thing I've noticed, is the age gaps in kids is massive now in ctc families. Whereas before you might have three siblings all born within four years of each other now you have one who is 5 as one turns 19 and leaves education. In many cases, they are incentivised to make these choices to maximise the credits and housing benefit (in a land, remember, with a massive housing crisis).

Was wondering if any HPC'er had/was thinking of being a property guardian? I'm thinking of trying it as an interim solution as one has come up that fits most of my filters. The deposit is fairly hefty but I'm hoping this & the vetting, acts as a filter to keep any other guardians of good calibre. As far as I can tell you just get an empty room, that you pay a cheaper weekly fee then rent/hotel room would be. Worth a go? Or not?

It sounds like a over a third of the savings will be comming from tax credits ctc & wtc. Now we need to complement it with getting companies to pay a living wage. I always find it amusing that a different definition of poverty had to be invented because there are no children in the UK in absolute poverty anymore, so they came up with the term relative poverty which helped feed the tax credit monster. This is a start. It sounds like jobless mums will be £16.50 a week per child worse off, I'm not sure how the "family element" of ctc works as the first child effectively gets an extra tenner a week bumped onto the £52 a week figure.

Absolutely no granularity on this from anywhere but hot off the Press: Cameron has categorically refused to cut child benefit in any form, so that's that out, having already ruled out cuts to State Pensions (42% of the Welfare budget). Sorry folks, but it's looking more & more likely that DLA & in particuarl ESA will be slashed to the bone. Unless I hear different that's where my money's on as the "big ticket" item.