Ben from Dover
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Posts posted by Ben from Dover
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, and being able to afford to buy a house in a grammar school catchment area is also getting increasingly more expensive.
The whole point of Grammar schools is that wherever you live you fall into the catchment of at least one grammar school. If not they will give you a free bus ticket to get there if you get in. Nothing to do with where you live. It does have a lot to do with how committed your parents are to getting you into one though.
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Even if they do end up only serving coffee in Starbucks I think university could be a great place to be when you're 18-21, if it could be funded sensibly it would be a hallmark of a modern, pleasant, wealthy and fully grown up society.
100% agree with that. Imagine a world where for the first 3 years of everyone's lives we get to just study the things we love. Now that would be progress
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Bull.
I graduated last year, the people with firsts who moved to London and are now working in Tesco because they couldn't find work are NOT lazy, they're some of the hardest working people I know and they've worked like nuts trying to get jobs. I figured that it might be a futile effort from the start, so I stayed in my home city, pay cheap rent and started up my own 1-man (occasionally pay a contractor) business. It's not paying much, but it'll do.
A massive well done to you. People like you still give me hope for this country!
I'm doing a similar thing although not IT and I'm not a brand new grad. I've just made my first sale £3,000 (started mid Jan) - I just hope they keep rolling.
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I'm not sure anymore. I think that definately was true in the past, there was always work for someone who could put in a hard days work.
We've seen virtually all the replacement jobs over the last decade are non-jobs.
There is always something useful you could do for others and get paid for it. The trouble is finding somebody who is willing to pay you for it. what we need to do is find a way to encourage entrepreneurs right across the economy.
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fair play. who would be next leader then? Hague again? doubt it.. an unknown perhaps.
i think people have come to quite like Hague
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Evans-Pricthard in the Torygraph
Hope there's a crisis before the election so everybody knows where the fault lies.
Personally i don't see how the crisis can come in the next 2 months, it might start but we won't feel the full effects until after the election, probably long after. Even Greece haven't actually cut any ones salary yet.
that is why I have my figures crossed for a labour victory, the think the fallout of that will be enough to turn this nation from stupidly unjust socialism for a long time and hopefully any labour government won't last very long.
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BTW, Robinson highlights something. Is it just me or is Brown completely incapable of dealing with criticism - i.e. reacting in a way that doesn't seem inept and resentful. He either looks deeply unsettled and cross or changes the subject (and looks cross).
Or brings up Lord Ashcroft
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The Judean People's Front?
Splitter!
People's Front of Judea all the way
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im not sure. yesterday i went to manchester to look at car auctions. on my way back i noticed how much litter was piling up on the streets. all the way to the motorway. and then the motorway verges were covered in it to. take a look next time your out and about how much litter is now around. i noticed it and i have driven that way for years without ever seeing it so litter filled. for miles and miles. all the verges and road sides were caked in trash. could be a regional thing too. but it was never this bad im sure.
you were probably following five mins behind the council litter dropping van.
The litter council litter picking up again te4am would have been 5 mins behind you.
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Inflation goes up, interest rate on government (and household!) debt skyrockets, back to square one. There is no inflationary escape from where we are now, that's why it's a depression.
(most) of the current debt is not indexed. Short - sharp burst of inflation would do the trick. The real question is how do incomes keep up. The answer is that they wont and we will see a decline in living standard. that is how we will pay the cost of the debt.
Don't believe me? - we have above target inflation, ZIRP, QE massive extra support for the banking system to encourage spending, new public sector jobs being created in an attempted Keynesian stimulus. that is a cauldron of inflation
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it is almost certain to dissolve what little attachment remains between individual citizens and the mother country.
I think that has already happened for my generation. People under 30 don't have an attachment to 'the mother country' (apart from those whose attachment is a life of benefits). We just happen to have been born here but would leave quite happily for a decent job. The only English identity most of us feel is the football and you can question how 'English' that really is these day.
I think if the under 30's really thought about it they would realize that they see themselves as 'international citizens' who happen to have English passports and live here. there is no community, no loyalty and no desire to support an the old or infirm based upon their englishness (I'm not saying there is no desire to support them - just that it doesn't come out of nationalistic feeling).
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I wouldn't worry too much, one way or another those debts are going to be written off.
We are currently paying £27.2bn a year (about £1300 per household) to service the interest on £799bn of debt, an interest rate of about 3.4%. Say the average interest rate on government debt rises to 6%, that takes our interest payments to £48bn, or £2400 per household per year. How do you think the country would react to a £1000 per household per year tax hike? But wait, it gets better. We are currently running deficits of £178bn anyway, so at 6% we are guaranteeing ourselves a tax hike of £500 per household per year, every year, just to pay interest until the government gets the deficit under control. Then imagine we take on another £300bn in debts from the financial sector, that's another £900 per household per year to service. In 5 years the government could find itself asking each household in the UK to stump up over £6k/year just to service the national debt, taking the wild assumption that the government carries on with current spending, no tax rises, and there is a 2.4 percentage point rise in the cost of servicing UK government debt. That is more than most people pay to put a roof over their heads. Think that's ever going to happen? There are some absolutely massive cuts on the way, and not taking on the losses of the financial sector will almost certainly be one of them.
or some absolutely massive inflation
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Remember the Special Liquidity Scheme and all the other wheezes the BoE used to replace the sudden drying up of wholesale funding. They are due to end in 2012, and people such as Merv have been saying that he doesn't expect to renew them. But that obviously begs the question of where the banks are going to get the money to repay what they owe. Well, it looks like the boffins have had another look:
So, the banks can't pay it back (despite record profits and fat bionuses all round), so I guess that, unexpectedly, muggins the tax-payer will have to put his hand in his pocket again. Marvellous,
Peter.
If the government 'roll-over' this debt (and lets face it that is what is going to happen) the HPC will take 20 years rather than 10
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I know this might sound silly but is anyone else feeling at a loss over house prices and what to do at the current time?
I personally feel as if I am in limbo not sure what will happen in the coming months but knowing that nothing fundamental will change until the election has come and gone - and even then it may be several more months until the Tories have an emergency budget, or the Markets respond badly to a hung Parliament, Brown getting back in or, possibly, things picking up under Brown and all this QE beginning to work?
Anyone else have mixed feelings about where we are currently and what is the best option going forward? Just waiting seems a very passive thing to do... but sometimes you can only wait...
I would suggest finding a way to enjoy the waiting as it is going to take 10 years.
Make sure you are enjoying your life in the mean time and not just waiting for house prices to fall. And get out of £ somehow.
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People do not use the trains because the pricing is so complicated, the parking around the stations poor and costly, cheaper for a family to travel by car, cheaper for a single person to travel by car if journey not planned in advance (a chance therefore that you could lose your money)....overcrowding on many journeys, lack of confidence on reliability of service...take yesterday I was told my train was to go to a certain station, half way there we were all told it was terminating at a another station so had to make other arrangements...on the journey home, waiting at the platform, was told no service until further notice, make alternative arrangements again...not good...people will only use the train services more when they are confident they will get what it says on the ticket.
I think it is mostly the cost.
As you rightly say it is cheaper to travel somewhere by car. that is crazy and I think caused by unionization of rail workers - one of the last powerful unions left. that is what has to change for rail travel to be economical and therefore popular.
Oh and better food on board.
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LU to axe a few hundred jobs.
Toyota doing the same.
and Vodafone.
Onwards and upwards.
It's fine they can all become Web Optimization Consultants
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I was surprised they had something like 360 staff at PFC. Why do they need so many?
This is Karma coming into play for the way they stitched up the Saints a few years back.
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Many of the people I talk to require a fast speed rail link to escape London.
Seriously, fast and reliable rail services will be a good investment for all our futures, to transport people as well as goods, affordable mobility can only create productivity and growth...otherwise we all stand still and fester.
Yer I do agree.
Imagine if we had taken the money we have spent on war's,banking bail-outs, high house prices in the first place, over-generous benefits ect and spent it on infrastructure. We could have spread the tube out throught the whole of the UK.
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I think the Chinese will struggle to find signs of intelligence in the West. Most people lead their lives doing humdrum jobs to pay back massive loans to pay for an assembly of bricks and timber that can be knocked up by a few men in about 12 weeks.
Perhaps they are looking for the secret behind ever increasing house prices.
I hope the Wilson's have Kaspersky
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Regime change in China will mean civil war, though, won't it?
If 2 billion vulnerable people lose their jobs, get hungry and decide to do something about it then yes. That is why the Chinese state's primary concern is keeping full employment, why their currency is kept artificially low and why they are happy with a system where they give us the money to buy the stuff they work in sweat shops to make.
The Chinese government has more to fear from the west's economic demise than we do from Chinese growth. In fact the China has more to fear from the west's economic demise than the west probably has.
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Couple of billion of them, few hundred million of us.
It probably isn't going to end well for us.
It was a reference to the 1984 phoney war that is 'fought' for political purposes at home rather than to achieve anything where the battle takes place. Basically to create patriotism and distract the people from the reality of their lives.
That is essentially what I think is behind the article. Be afraid of the chinese, the Muslims, the Russians - lets fight them in an internet war rather than focus on improving our own society. Oh and don't be afraid to be scared of your neighbors and call the police if you think they might be up to something.
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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article7057424.ece
So £4bn a year minimum then, but at least we can afford it.
But think of the effect on house prices!
We had the high speed between Dover and Paddington open a few months ago. A massive deal was made about it and how it would re-generate the area with new wealthy people who work in the City. Some of the house price growth and particularly BTL 'investment' was caused by this goldrush.
However there has been very little effect. The few who do commute into London have slightly quicker journeys - thats about it. House prices have fallen since it opened - although you could say there are lots of other causes behind that.
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not so, because the chinese have been using western demand for tech goods as a means to an end. They sent us cheap goods and we sent them jobs and technological know-how.
If the flow of jobs and tech from the west dries up which it is now doing, the only other use china will have for the west is as a source of savings they can draw on to finish lifting themselves to fully developed status.
I think you make the false assumption that the Chinese have a plan and that their system of government means that the people at the top are trying to manipulate world events for the betterment of the Chinese people.
I can't imagine that is true. It is more likely that the Chinese government's goal is simply to try and stay in power and that the best way to achieve it is through full employment. While the chinese people have jobs they will stay docile. If they lose there jobs there will be regime change.
They do not have a grand plan - they simply want to keep things ticking over and stay in power.
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Sounds just like the book, Neuromancer. An odd Science Fiction, so much of what was in it has come true. The ideas in it have been used in numerous films and many philosophical ideas are shaped by it, quite a book.
Dont they make all the chips in China now? That would make hacking easy if you put in a hardwired backdoor.
Not sure why they want to defeat the west electronically, they have managed to do it economically. Still, they will defeat themselves in the end, they always do.
I would assume that defeating the west electronically would mean less of a market for chinese goods making it hard for the state to keep achieving its policy of full employment. Personally I think as soon as China experiences high unemployment the state would fall and they know it.
It is not in the interests of the people who run china to see the west decline. That is why they perpetually re-finance our governments and lifestyles. The West has nothing to fear from the current Chinese government.
'public Pensions Cost Us £516 A Year Each'
in House prices and the economy
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This is the kind of thing that really would kick off a revolution in my opinion. I would personally be out on the streets hitting police over the head with my zimmer-frame if they were to do this.
Public Sector - the new uppert class. Time us Prole sector workers start kicking off me thinks