Ben from Dover

I find this hard to believe when this guy is considered to have managed 'the biggest military computer hack of all time'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon Just one autistic chap living with his parents and looking for aliens. Just posturing to make us afraid and therefore controllable. I wonder when the war between Oceania, Eurasua and Eastasia is going to end?

I thin lack of mobility would certainly effect the economy. If you go to 'third world' countries one of the major problems is just getting around. We went from Arusha (tanzania) to Jinja (Uganda) via Nairobi on public transport just for fun - it was good fun but really made you see how hard it is for people in such countries to get anywhere and do anything. there would be some benefits as you have listed but life generally would become a lot harder. I got the hybrid mostly because of the Green Image thing and because i thought it was cool. Honda Civic - http://www.honda.co.uk/cars/civichybrid/?s3campaign=Cars_09_Brand_Model&s3advertiser=Google_PPC&s3banner=honda_civic_hybrid Cost me a little under 10K second hand. Other benefits is that road tax is £15, I don't have to pay the congestion charge and you can get special cheap 'green' car insurance. Was a bit of a luxury but since i wasn't buying a house I wanted something nice. when I'm at the in-law's and my bro in law is talking about there large mortgaged to the hilt house and we feel like losers at least I know that at the end of the meal and we get into our cars mine is cool, his is about to fall apart.

It will happen but will take years. Where I am (south East Kent) almost every property on rightmove has been reduced a couple of times. The reductions are very small though, just a couple of %. almost everything just sits on rightmove for at least a year before it is taken off and then comes on again a couple of weeks later. As the guy further up the thread said, before we see a real crash sentiment will need to change so that people do not want to touch property. For that we need significant interest rates, high profile and numerous property related bankruptcies (we are starting to see them) and a reversal of property porn. Perhaps also a the boomers to collectively decide that the time is right to downsize. These things are inevitable but will take years, possibly decades.

I think we can assume high immigration for a long time to come. i know the argument goes that as the economy declines / fails to recover people will no longer want to come here. However I don't think it is purely the money that makes people want to come to the UK (and more so the US). It is an image thing, backed up by the media, Hollywood films ect and also because we are seen as a fair and just society. the fact that there are already large immigrant populations is also a reason for more immigration to the UK as people feel more comfortable coming to a country where there is already a community from a similar culture. As an example while I was working in the Gulf most Indians / Pakistanis / Filipinos / evan people from Iran and poorer Arab countries (to a lesser extent) saw Dubai as merely a stepping stone to a move to the UK or US. It was there chance to live in a mostly English speaking country and work for a western multinational that might one day help them move here. this is despite the UAE offering higher salaries, lower taxes and a higher standard of living than the UK. It will take a long time of economic sh!ttyness before the UK and the US loose their appeal as the best places to emigrate to in the eyes of the population of the poorer countries.

Islamic Law permits it but culturally it is very taboo for Persians. It is seen as a Arabic thing and Persians see themselves as above such 'grasshopper' (as they call it) behavior.

i think Injin might have a point here. The creation of modern controlled states with structured boarders and static populations is quite recent. couple of hundred years ago you didn't need a passport, visa ect to go somewhere else for work. I wonder if such systems can survive what look like they are going to be quite messy consequences to these population problems. I hope they don't.

or encourage people to take up smoking, base jumping ect... I never understand why the government spend money getting people to stop smoking, surely it saves loads of money in the long run

They are going to have to start calling these graphs something else, most of them look nothing like pyramid's. Madoff wouldn't be very impressed

I knew the white farmers out there were having a pretty rough time but I didn't realize what effect it was having on the white markets

The problem I always find with these things is that it never helps the people in the middle who actually the ones struggling in our society. I had a look at the web-site behind the article and it was all based upon the cost of social housing. The very highest per week rent on their scale was £100 - that is crazy I live in one of the cheapest towns in the south and it is still impossible to rent a one bedroom flat here for £100 per week privately. Their web-site also talks about tax credits. Again a policy focused at irresponsible people who have children that they can't afford to provide for which has at its aim to increase a culture of state dependency. WHEN WILL A BRITISH GOVERNMENT DO SOMETHING TO BENEFIT NORMAL, YOUNG, WORKING, CHILDLESS COUPLES WHO SCRAPE A LIVING TOGETHER AND TRY TO SAVE MONEY. It seems like if you don't own property or have a family you are nothing more than a source of government revenue . Every new social policy I hear, pretty much from any source seems to me to sound like it is going to cost me money and give benefits to somebody else.

Surely greyskull is against the recent age discrimination laws

a serious reply, and more realistic than your one, would be to restrict bubbles that drive up the costs of the things that are a basic necessary if you want to raise a family. I'm 27 and have been married for 6 years. My wife is a school teacher and loves kids. We don't want to start a family just yet but people are always asking us when we will / why we haven't yet. The truth is that I would really struggle to pay the rent on anything other than a 1 bed flat if my wife wasn't earning. HPI = Population decline - immigration

I don't think people in the UK really care much either, Labour are trying to turn it into an election issue but it's not. The guy doesn't pay tax on money earned abroad - so what - why should he - the money is earned in another country. If anything they are drawing our attention to the fact that they tax us in lots of ways that don't really seem legitimate to the thinking man.

i was thinking more along the lines of send me out to inpregnate all those hot Scandinavian blondies

Probably a very sensible post. what do you suggest as a response? Massive immigration the most obvious but it comes with social problems

"We must clearly understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over." Richard Foster 1978

If a fraction of the monies squandered on the public sector had actually been invested into wars we would be ruling the world again

I think we can blame him personally for the bank bail-outs, low interest rates, QE and a whole host of other policies that support high house prices. He has claimed the credit for them (and saving the world) and as a consequence should take the blame for them in my book.

sorted - I can't attach my picture for some reason - oh well i give up

I agree

this bit scares me the most. The recovery will never come

Just to play devil's advocate - think of the overall cost to the economy in terms of lack of mobility leading to lack of activity leading to less demand leading to you being made redundant. PS I get 63 from my hybrid

Going off subject a bit but doesn''t it make you cross how we have high unemployment here yet we don't get the same level of service. You would think, with such high unemployment, a petrol station would think of employing a window cleaner. I would definitely choose to buy petrol from a station where they give my car a quick clean while i wait. Instead it is going the other way and we get self service stations where you pay with a card at the machine. We will all be on the dull in a decade at this rate.

Norway has similar amount of North Sea oil as us and only 4.8 million people. Admittedly they have managed the resources and the profits from them in a much smarter way. On a per-capita basis they have a massive natural advantage, they should be thought of in the same block as Qatar, UAE, Brunei ect I'm half swiss I quite often consider relocating there, my wife doesn't speak German though. The thing that puts me off is all their stupid laws. They have an excellent system of democracy and get to have a referendum on almost everything. However it has resulted in loads of stupid and enforced laws. e.g you are not allowed to have a bath after 10:00 in Zurich and if your neighbors complain to the police they will come round and give you a fine (as my step-dad found out last time they went). the Swiss are probably a good measuring rod for the UK. heavily banking focused economy that houses the head offices of many MNC's. Obviously we come out lacking in that comparison.