Elizabeth

The only problem you have got here is that, established british people of all backgrounds generally won't work in the crappy jobs that have a nasty smell to them. It seems to be above them now since benefits pay more. So there is a really up and down swing to this statement. Particularly in london but also in other parts of the union, cleaners, carers, and general assistants on low wages are often exclusively drawn from those who can't claim benefits ie. immigrants. I do take your point that a country needs people who are prepared to become part of the same community. Although it is probably fair that people's best friends will probably come from a similiar background as a whole, a country needs integration and a common purpose and some common values, not a raggle taggle of different cultures who are not even prepared to talk to people of a different culture. Problem is, values have all now become relative and negotiable. Problem is, the ruling values now involve a lack of any core British values as Britian's rulers prostrate themselves to international commercial concerns that are mediated by accepting the unacceptable and denying the undeniable (and sending troops to train in Burma - just for good measure).

Yes I remember apprenticeships. That was where young people signed up for a 3 year training period where they worked 4 days a week with an experienced tradesperson, developed practical skills and studied one day a week with a properly structured course so that they could experiment with their ideas for better ways of doing it in future. that was before the short course and the 'traineeship' and the NVQ qualification in collecting bat droppings level 1,2,3 or 4 (which can be translated into: 1. Can't really identify bat droppings but I know they exist, 2. Can identify bat droppings but they are yuckky, 3. Can identify bat droppings and have found the gloves to pick them up but not sure what to do with them and 4. a decently structured piece of knowledge gaining in bat droppings their uses and disposal 5. a degree in bat droppings. My experience of traddies in the UK is that 3/4 aren't tradies at all, and the other 1/4 are over 45 and pretty board with the whole game. Such a shame the Polish left!

Oh I don't know. With so many local government managers to come up with 'innovative' (read 20 year old) schemes to get them all back to work, it should be over in a doddle, and the noveau riche of the boom should be back in their McMansions by Christmas.

Having worked in a burgeoning 'strategy' environment, I can't see the point of most of it. Of course I would go back to it if I could, but I have to ask, how many 'great minds' does it take to consult on how to change a light bulb? This should have been a poll, but the poll is not working so the choices are: Governments should freeze all strategic and senior management posts Government should freeze all posts including front line service posts There is no need for a freeze Governments should increase their staff to tackle unemployment You decide. I am for freezing strategic and senior management, and it is meaningless unless it extends to local government

The government didn't know what would happen. They are too busy 'consulting' with god knows whom to have any conception at all of what is really happening. The people who knew it would be a problem were local government front line workers, who were, as usual, ignored becasue they are after all the serf class. Local government managers just bowed to their out of town overlords and muttered between themselves what a great idea it was because they are 'empowering' people. They also have no idea of the lumpen proletariate because, having been corrupted by 1960s utopian socialist university theory, they had confused the proletariate with the working class and eulogised the proletarian lack of manners and care for their reciprocal responsibilities in recieving benefits as the response of a victim. Its about time schools started to teach manners.

Well I don't know where you were shopping but I got my cheapest shampoo for $1.23 from Bi-Lo. I'm loving it! it is really expensive. That is because they introduced a goods and services tax (like VAT). Before that it was cheap as chips. Jobs are harder to get. Thats a downer and the reason I left in the first place. But I only need one! So, with 5 applications a week at least (that is what the unemployment service insist on if I want to collect benefits - how would that go in Britain?) I should have one real soon (even if the state government has frozen the public sector, and there are only about 3 jobs left this week (down from hundreds, I guess its going to be the private sector for meeee - now if only the British governments could take a lead)). Yes its tougher here, and we expect people to get off their butts and look for a job if they haven't got one, and there is not a lot of sympathy for a poor attitude, and there is a lot less public housing, so we get to live in shacks (now I really am slumming it, but I bogged up the cracks in the weather board so that the sun doesn't shine through the single lined boards and with a backyard and a tree out the front and a bike to get around its fine!). Anyway, the sun is great. Even in winter! PS: A Mars Bar at $1.50 is about 75p. You need to do the comparison before you get all het up. What do they cost in England?

No how does that work out? They take out 11% of your own income (it used to be 10% so lets use that) and another 10% from your employer. Figuring on the average wage (well they do for everything else) about 26K, if you are 44 now and had an average entry age of about 23 (reasonable?), with a lousy 3% interest rate, by 65 I am getting a tidy little sum of £245,374. thats a lot of money to be collected - its also a rather rich cost for 3 years of the basic pension (68 years and you pop off?)... oh that's right, they don't ringfence it, either individually or collectively... so we would never know how much there is, or how much it simply offsets government. Freeze all central government appointments. Thats what I say.

1. Never get into these tricky dicky situations with a relative. With the best of intentions, someone can go mad and decide they don't like their mum anymore... and you always think that the people you love would never do that, most wouldn't, but its impossible to pick. Take it from the wise, horrified and broken hearted. 2. The housing benefit rules are such that you would likely come a cropper. 3. You would need to watch other tax and inheritance laws to make sure that the 'nominal sum' was considered an appropriate sum to avoid gift and inheritance tax.

This sounds to me like a typical British New Corporate Not Labour (BNCNL party) finance scheme with all the complexity and smoke and mirrors as well as the long term sting in the tail that typified the sub-prime insurance debacle that brought down America only just recently. So what actual purpose does national insurance achieve? Oh, you mean its just another tax?

Oh dear me, the serfs are getting antzy now? You need a revolution, because you don't have a constitution of any relevance.

Who said it was socialism? numptie! This is just typical British corporatism, with the government putting its hand in the pocket of big business again, only to dump a wad of cash that way... unless of course you mean that form of socialism that subsidises the rich by taxing the poor. How much do the companies gain and how much do you loose? This is tied to 'carbon credits' and the companies get buckets on the nebulous chance that all those light bulbs are actually used. They refused to engage this suggestion in australia. You actually have to install something that genuinely is garanteed to cut carbon to get the credits. In the UK there are also schemes where older people get a discount to have their houses insulated, but the local governments have tied it up in exclusive contracts with particular providers who then charge a premium - if its a flat conversion they can then backcharge any other flats that happen not to be owned by the eligible types. No choice. God I hate the way that the governments both local and central have turned britons into serfs. Here in sunny Oz its solar panels all the way and the consumer chooses, not the kindly government giving it all away (and then a bit more out of the consumer pocket) on their behalf to their business buddies. Mate, anyone who thinks this is socialism has no idea. But even worse, it is not even capitalism, its just the Sherriff of Nottingham in bed beholden to the new kings of the demo-facist state but without a Robin to peck his ear.

Here lyeth the green shoots. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle6461286.ece Is summer going to be a barbeque bumper as per met office predictions (no really, I want to know - is it relatively dry over there?) Is the slowndown in the tumble a genuine plateau before the inevitable mad rush to join the rocket into the stratosphere of unimaginable house prices that will finally turn those who no longer even dream of a house into a population of wandering minstrels and serfs ... or is it all just more boyant bumf... opinions please

Sounds like they are getting fiesty. Its like 'I do want your product' 'you do, you do, why don't you admit that you want it, I know you want it, your gagging for it, why are you resisting?...' If your a woman you learn to shrug and feel sorry for the loser with the line.

Maybe he has just not been dying it? As far as 'they' are concerned depending on wheither you beleive Icke or the Scientologists 'they' are either people with lizard DNA or evil spirits from another planet. I am going with the former, but I do believe that the later is just as possible.

Doors would be nice.

I don't know about this screaming in terror thing. The only time I have ever thought there was a good chance the plane would go down (probably a bit of an over-reaction - easyjet flight again - a bit of lightning hit the wing and there was rocket fuel pouring past my window but they assured me that it was water when I pointed it out - funny sort of texture and movement and adhesion to the window surface for water but there you go) anyway I clung to the seat with silent tears pouring down my face. I felt that screaming would probably be counter productive (although I wanted to). The other passengers were also noteably restrained.

Hey, I'm buying. I could do with £1.38bn but how much is it in 25 years (I want to retire then, not in 100 by which time I will be 144, and am hoping to be resting quite nicely in a box and not need a lot of "stuff" anymore). I mean, it would be nice to leave something to the cats but in general I am most concerned about myself.

I just returned my last blockbuster videos. I reckon migrants were holding up the chain and now we are all heading home. Poor blockbuster.

Interesting. I think that people are discovering the recession quietly - one by one. its been made into a personal thing that one only discusses quietly (a bit like warts in a private place). This seems to be the British authorities technique for dealing with disent. If it is 'good' we ramp it. If it is bad then people have to suffer it privately. The depression has not been ramped by an advertising campaign so britains haven't been early adopters just discoverers of lost jobs and tightened belts. I can't believe the number of people who have said to me 'xxx (normally a partner) just lost his job' in a very matter of fact way without fanfare and then just moving on to the next thing.

And whose left to pay taxes. Its a bit spirally really - good bye council... yeaha

Well cutting them to almost noting hasn't worked, so put em up to 10% and see what that does (that would be the obvious place they should be anyway).

Oh welcome devils advocate. Only your sixth post and already you are predicting the dire situation us poor bears will be in in 10 years time. Really you assume to much. Most of us are bears because we are postive thoughtful people who realise that we live in an economic cycle (or maybe an economic tidal estuary??? Cogs?) The fact is that people hopefully learn from history. I will be buy buy buy when the time is right. Its just not right until I see the indicators moving a bit up. Until then it is a downward market. I feel like this is a 'false green shoots to sop up the losses, to the previously clever but now dying, and those who lost through not having access to the boom should continue to lose and die the death of the stupid' post. For everything there is a season. The meek shall inherit the earth. The fat, rich and selfish shall get stuck in the needle hole as they try to slip through to a gold paved heavenly mirage. The first ones now will later be last... turn turn turn... you get me and Jesus and Bobbie Dylan?

Well you missed 'All in Good Taste' with Jim Carrey. Soft 70s porn (lots of tits and slimy texans included no penetration and ... no sign of Jim Carrey either (I was so peed that I ran through it with 16x fast forward just to try and find some explanation for the picture of Jim Carrey on the cover). They gave me 2 vouchers for that one. They tried to get me to talk on the phone, clearly hoping for a bit of extra mileage at my puritanical rant, but I told them to send me vouchers and we could forget my traumatic experience .

What Marx did when he wasn't spectoralising his new invention 'communism' was to describe capitalism as a cycle of boom and bust. He was the first one to do it. Of course he was right. Capitalism works, captialism doesn't work, capitalism works. Fact is, that consumer capitalism is a mutation that relies on 3rd world labour but keeps the first world quite by providing cheap chinese electric toothbrushes for the masses. Consumer is the new opiate and it feels fine man. Fact is, if you live in the parasitical 1st World, then it works about 2/3rds of the time and about 1/3 of the time it is a completely rubbish system. It doesn't work for everyone, and some people in 'advanced captialist socieiteis' (read carrion societies eating off the dying carcas of children in the 3rd world) go hungry (trash so who cares) and it certainly doesn't offer a level playing field of dreams and hopes and aspiration and the cultivation of know how. But it sort of works for a lot of people and I would rather that than a junta or an extreme expression of ideologies around race or an orwellian nightmare around class (which is pretty much what we have at the moment - dressed in the transparent garb of 'meritocracy')

So are single women not suppose to live anywhere? I think that the general assumption of double incomes has significantly contributed but I don't think it is fair to blame women for that - the whole of the capitalist world relies on ever increasing growth in prices which in terms relies on a source of growth - basically women are encourage to work to feed the value bubble and when we run out of women to feed the value bubble then... plop... Its not the fault of women that all the values that are out there now are about women apiring to work and then work more (when if fact they could have just as much is they and their hubbies both only worked 1/2 the amount )