rahhhh

One woman had built her own house, but failed to mention it on her cv. Impressive and idiotic in one go

53 million households and businesses £23 = 1.2billion annual saving. 10 year repayment, not great but better than solar or windmills by a long shot

Like a shopaholic buying shoes, Labour were ok with their idea of spending being investment (for our future). Glad we invested in council chiefs wages etc etc - am sure that will have a wonderful return...

Running a small business in Essex I must admit I had never heard about it. Also question whether it was anything other than a cover for santander

this is a crock of shit excuse by merv. Such an error would have a one time effect in the first year it is applied only. Once the sales price is being used the sales price will inflate at the same rate as inflation. ie clothes price should be £10, £7 is used instead by error - big error in this year. The next year the sales price is now £7.20 (giving roughly the correct inflation figure)

from memory of going out with an estate agent (i know!) over 100k earned for the agency was double bubble and over 200k triple bubble, meaning double and triple commission. Can't remember what commission was, but guessing something like 10-12% so he might be on something like 90k plus a few brown envelopes

I had a similar situation - was looking for a loan under the "enterprise finance guarantee system". Under this system 70% of the loan is guaranteed by the government. Barclays offered the money at 7.1% over base rate and asked for a personal guarantee as well as a debenture on the company. Considering that on average we would only use about 20% of this money the rate of return on their risk was immense. Ended up being a posterboy for one of the other banks... ps the taxman might think you lending at 9.9% plus fees was extortionate!

Form of interviews Most interviews take place in the first three weeks of December (though some may be earlier) so please don’t make any unbreakable commitments for this period. The exact form and length of interviews varies from College to College, and between subjects, but typically you’ll have two interviews of 20–30 minutes each. Your College will send you full details, explaining what will be involved. You may be asked to stay overnight, in which case the College will provide accommodation. After the interviews, there are three possible outcomes. 1. You’re made an offer 2. Your application is ‘pooled’ Although impressed by your application, your College may not have a place for you or they may want to look at applicants to other Colleges before confirming their last offers. As such, they may decide to put your application into the winter pool. The ‘winter pool’ is held in January and is designed to ensure that the best applicants are offered places, regardless of the College they originally applied or were allocated to. All Colleges can consider pooled applicants and Directors of Studies in each subject meet during the interview period to discuss the overall standard of applications, so that they can see by January how their own College’s applicants compare. If your application is pooled, you may be: asked to attend a further interview in early January at another College (allowing for AS/A level module assessments held during this time) offered a place at another College without a further interview contacted by the College you applied to/were allocated to, normally by the end of January, if no College is able to offer you a place Around one in five applicants are pooled, and, of these, around one in four receives an offer of a place. 3. Your application is unsuccessful

Neither tesco's nor argos's website were working on the 23rd, when I was trying to lookup prices before venturing out...

they don't get interviews at two or more colleges, unless they fail the first one in which case they may be picked up by one other in clearing

Off the goldbug theme, and back onto the original. Problem with my car and it is in limp home mode, wont go above 62mph, just amazed at how many people are driving at that speed or even lower. however, maybe not noticed them in the past

zero vat on most food, children's clothes, rent. Vat on playstations, chinese tat, meals out. Depends where you spend it....

The local farmer to me has cleared a small section of the local road with a tractor with front loader, but then has spent the rest of the day moving grain around. Why no provision for paying farmers to clear the roads? With large amounts of snow snowploughing rather than gritting/salting would seem the best option to me

From the twinings webpage: twinings website link "one of our values is to develop our own people... if you want to get on twinings will take you where you want to go" as long as where you want to go is poland, china or onto the dole... takes the biscuit

funnily enough - this week, 3 adverts in the local shop (in se england) for cottage rentals in Ireland. Never seen one before

Anywhere includes here - most proper engineering degrees are 4 year and include an MEng; which is generally required to become chartered.

British based manufacturer here - one thing that could easily be done is to reduce business rates (the business version of council tax) to zero for manufacturers. There are currently lots of empty commercial properties and the low commercial property rents mean that rates are often higher than rent.

Only a £340,000 2 bed house? Not much of a trader............

laser cut steel i bought last month 4.2% higher this month. So seems about right

ride the bubble - just need to get off before it pops....

Unite wouldn't be able to climb down the ladder - well not without the 4 hour ladder safety training course...

telegraph After months of negotiations, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has said that the car maker will receive a €300m (£270m) loan guarantee through the Automotive Assistance Programme. The financial support, which is subject to a finalising of details between the Government and General Motors, Vauxhall’s owner, will form part of a package worth up to €3.9bn that GM is putting together with governments to finance the restructuring of its European operations. Vauxhall has 5,000 workers in the UK, primarily at plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton. However, their future has been in doubt since last February, when GM revealed it planned to sell its European business, a proposal it later scrapped. This amounts to £54,000 per job. As a comparison the LDV van deal that was turned down amounted to £35,000 per job.

Good idea, or bad - one simple way to ease the burden would be to reduce/remove rates for manufacturers. Business rates are huge (in my example larger than rent) and kill start up companies. (start-up companies either keep on moving premises or get somewhere that fulfils future needs and take the sting of massive rates)