[Dunfermline]

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Brown-...n-to.5092242.jp

Rather worried as my cash is in there, deliberately chosen as "safer" than the banks.

Why does Something Have To Be Done, why cant it just sit on the loss and carry on? There are no shareholders braying for action.

"panic early, panic often"?

[Hpc Knows No (earthly) Bounds.....]

Its OK, its just going through a phase.

[Universities' Plan To Double Student Fees Could Leave Millions In Debt Into Their 50s]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7946675.stm

School-leavers will need to get at least an A* and two A grades in their A-levels from next year if they want to study at Cambridge University.

It always seems to me that there is clearly a 2 tier (perhaps 3 tier) university system. I remember sniggering when all the Polys renamed themselves Universities. It was just a con, people should be able to see straight what they want, what they need and what is available. I went to Oxford in the early 90s, science, but dropped out cos it was too difficult. Went instead to Birmingham for an arts degree, and was astonished by how much less work they expected, and how much slacker all the other students were. And Bham seems to think it is in the prime league for UK Unis. I am thinking there may be perhaps 4 or 5 really top rate unis in the UK, perhaps 10 middle ranking ones and the rest all pretendy.

The problem with these proposals is that the really good Unis will charge higher fees, so will get more of a weighting to rich students, for the snob value. Would be much better to properly fund genuine academic skill to go to Uni, and get people with practical/business skill into different kinds of training or education.

The snob value has always been there, I came out of a local Comp and was the first person in my extended family to go to university, and I founf it very 'upper class'... but it wont make it all equal by making pretendy universities for the chavs to get their degrees at...

[An Amusing Pair Of C0cks....]

earn it - then invest it.

Ahh. You are one of those.

One of whats? Normal sensible responsible types?

[Buy Sovs? Or Buy The Entire Effing Mint?]

Do you think they price based on the peak plus a bit for their incredibly slow update and ignore the falls back...?

I suppose people must be buying at those amazing prices though.

Do they publish sales figures?

[Treasury Worried About Irish Banks]

About 500,000 savers have Post Office accounts operated by the Bank of Ireland..... British savers have no protection under UK rules and must rely wholly on Dublin.

Is this what they mean by joined up government?

[Buy Sovs? Or Buy The Entire Effing Mint?]

The chancellor, Alistair Darling, has appointed Rothschild to prepare the sale of the Royal Mint

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle5908417.ece

If it makes a loss, nationalise it

If it makes a profit, privatise it

I wonder what HMtheQ thinks of this idea? What does the "Royal" bit mean anyway?

Will we see her head removed from sovereigns and replaced with corporate logos or paid advertisements?

[Us Mint Suspends Gold/silver Orders Due To Lack Of Supply]

...

[The Welcome Thread For New Members]

Hello, signed up after lurking for months. All the opinion here is very refreshing. Will try and say some useful things soon.... though as a poverty-stricken renter, don't have much to go on...