Levy process

That's bad for your sister, and I'm sorry for anyone that loses there job like that. However, estimates have existed for a while now as to how many jobs will be outsourced over the next 5 years. Of course estimates vary, but generally the one I read seemed to be approximately half a million jobs over five years to the Far East and India. Now, while that's not exactly great news, surely it's manageable. (Obviously not at a personal level, so no replies along the lines of "you try managing it if your job was outsourced etc.)

This site seems to give off waves of deeply troubled unhappiness at the moment. While most would feel rightly happy about an end of unfair advantages for BTL, the manic drooling and hooping at the site of people losing their jobs, meltdown of currencies, and all forms of economic disaster seems really sad, and a bit creepy. I sometimes think that there is a unwritten assumption underwriting bear philosophy on here that when the great crash arrives in all its many economic manifesations, somehow we will return to a fairer society, where rewards are handed out on the basis of a strict moral code similar to a Victorian nanny maintaining order in a nursery. Have you ever stopped to think that there may be no way back to that golden era of fairness you crave? Have you ever considered that the economic downturn that looks more likely by th day will bring misery to many, but with it no counter balancing increase in fairness. The future might be more like some sort of South American state, where 10% live in closeted luxury, while the majority live in shanty towns. I'd seriously question whether anyone in this country who is struggling now will struggle any less after the downturn.

And top rate tax is a very high income tax on middle classes. As income rises, tax tends towards 40%. For those people such a local income tax at 3% will be a rise. Why is there an assumption that a high tax on low incomes is any worse? It costs a fixed amount to provide the necessities of life, and if you earn only a little, most of your wages will go on that. Councils are providing many of those necessities, so the council tax will and should take a large chunk of the bottom slice of income. Personally I would be for one single tax rate on all earnings. No fiddling around with 'national insurance', no fiddling with tax thresholds, allowances, tax credits, benefits etc. Just one lowish percentage, say 20% from the first pound earned all the way up. People that earn more would pay more, because their 20% would be a bigger amount. And we could get an instant cost cut from sacking all the make work jobs surrounding the huge amount of paper shuffling involved in taking money away in several differen ways and giving it back in several more. No vehicle duty employees to pay for. No tax credit handling. Fewer accountants required to churn through complex tax and reliefs. Then we could cut the public sector to match the cloth. If people wanted extra services, they'd have 80% of their money to buy them with, rather than closer to 45% left after paying for public sector make work projects.

The phrase I hate most is the one along the lines of 'first time buyers will continue to experience affordability difficulties for the forseeable because of <insert reason du jour here>'. What I find annoying about it, apart from the fact that the reason may not be a real reason, is that it paints a picture of 'first time buyers will just have to jolly well take out a ludicrous mortgage on a tiny house just to escape even worse social injustice in the future, bad luck but hrd cheese'. It almost legitimises the dreadful state of affairs by presenting it like an act of nature or a physical law that we all just have to tolerate.

It is infuriating drivel. I wish I hadn't clicked on it now, as doing so has only increased the chance of her getting paid to spew out some similar tripe in a future article.

It's either that, or it is two or three months before we see the tide turn again. ;-)

Calm down. Please don't suggest that I would be in any way smug or pleased about further rises in the value of my property. I have never, ever said I thought HPI was good, I have long agreed that it is a cause of social injustice, and I don't ever claim any skill in having bought when I did as I know how difficult a decision it is, and I had no clue as to whether it was the right thing to do at the time. I also agree that oil reserves and foreign labour will present problems for the western world in the future. But when these negative forces impact, do you think you will find it any easier to buy a house, even if the prices have fallen by then? Will these forces of economic trouble make housing more affordable for you?

Ah yes, the latest 'this is really the trigger this time' namely the 'credit crunch'. Well I think this particular pot of gold at the rainbow's end may actually be the cause of downward pressure on house prices that will be big enough to be seen in statistics in the months to come. But I think it far less likely that it will be the crash fest that many on here predict; predictions that seem to be the last core rationale for most of what is posted on this site.

You mean it is time for some statistically irrelevant anectdotals to help ease the pain of the actual valid statistics published by big lenders?

LOL! Clutching at straws? You mean the straws that are the continuing strong rise in house prices as reported by these big lenders? I think I know who is really clutching at straws. Don't tell me: Just a few more months and we will see the turn, or this will only make the crash worse when it comes, or the statistics are lies, or all three.

I wouldn't advise anyone starting their career to go into IT either, but that' a different matter to the environment for established workers, just as it is for any other job. But I wouldn't advise anyone to go intobany career now on the basis of job security, because I think there will be significant change in all sectors over the next decades. I especially think the public sector is going to implode, as it struggles now that the decade of pump priming is over. On the other hand, people are far too gloomy about jobs at a personal level. The majority of people will still be in work whatever happens. As long as you don't base your life around expecting your salary to grow massively in the future, I can't really see what the fuss is about. I think the only big mistake is to think that there is anything special about IT. All jobs are going to be affected. Just get used to it. You'll still be better off than 90% of the planet.

The day I start seeing top notch CVs flying onto my desk seeking surprisingly low salaries I will believe this. Quite simply, this not currently happening, nor is it happening to anyone in senior IT that I know. Further, IT is a very tricky thing in which to guage the quality of candidates. I've seen many candidates from overseas who look good on paper, but dig a little deeper and you find their knowledge to be very 'cook book' and of no real use except for getting HR departments excited. I think they have different ideas as to what 'experience' means too. The IT jobs market around London seems to be amazingly buoyant at the moment, despite all the current financial turmoil.

what percentage of all buy to let was taken out in the last couple of years? a huge amount is it not?

I'm not a liberal! You know nothing!

Whadeva.

He's doing well IMO, getting a lot of bearish points in at every turn. I'm amazed the BBC have allowed him on! Update: I loved the "financially illiterate" phrase. He's getting a lot of snappy sound bites in there! This is great stuff: Listen if you can!

I wasn't commenting on the validity of the points you were making, but the tone and language you were using. You still sound pretty angry and bitter in your response above too. As to your question about why the top two government posts are held by Scots, any conclusions you might try to draw would be based on small-number-statistics, and so wouldn't in themselves mean anything much. If your point is the much wider one that Scotland now has a hugely disproportionate amount of power in the UK, I'd totally agree with you (and I'm orignally from there). But I got the feeling from your post that wasn't really what you wanted to say. I suggest again, that your bitter and angry language gives you away. No, I still think my point was well made: many bears on here are at least as angry and bitter on average as anyone else. I think it again comes back to the fact that bear, bull or neither isn't for most a reflection of what they think will happen, but what they would like to see happen. Not in my case though. I would like to see house prices falling and social justice revived in many other ways also. For the likes of you and many other bears on here, I think you are bearish in what you'd like to see happen, but because for the past several years, against many expectations, it simply hasn't happened, you're getting more and more angry about it. Your anger spills over into furious and spiteful language, presumably a result of the anger and powerlessness you feel over the situation.

I have to say I find this post to be a stunning example of bitter and vitriolic language, something I was accused of using last week when making far milder comments about my support for deposits in banks. In my opinion, bulls and neithers very rarely resort to this sort of foaming at the mouth, or this snarling language exemplified in the post above, except when they are put upon with personal attacks based on lies. On the other hand that sort of language seems to be standard fare for a lot of bears. I note the way the post almost stumbles into racism at the end too. Classic bear output.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7003866.stm

How poignant. I feel that for a lot on here it is always going to be "just beginning". I don't know what will happen. I hope the general state of the economy doesn't become too bad, because that will be a personal tragedy for many. I hope house prices ease. I hope the social injustice of the young being enslaved by the old through the distribution of property ownership is reduced. I hope if anyone suffers financially it is those speculating on houses for profit, and not those just trying to make a stable life for their families.

Ah, so you're making the mistake of thinking the debates are expressions of what people would LIKE TO HAPPEN, rather than what they think WILL happen? Hence, any argument which suggests that the outcome is not the one you want, you take to be an assertion that it should happen, and hence you find it a provocation? Someone saying "people will eat meat" is not the same as "people should eat meat".

Well, I can tell you for a fact that it doesn't take such a post to provoke the BTL/VI/Troll assault; very often just saying something that isn't what people want to hear is enough. In fact I've actually been told on here that I'm an unwelcome gatecrasher "at a party", which speaks volumes I think. I occasionally but rarely resort to suggesting that another poster is being less than truthful about their proclaimed motives for something they've said, and perhaps described the alternative interpretation that I feel fits more naturally, which I suppose can come close to being mildy insulting. But it would certainly be something I would feel comfortable saying to somebody's face, in the spirit of heated debate. As to personal insults, relating to the notion of infirmity, such as reference to "meds" etc - absolutely never. I have never made a direct personal attack on anyone like that. And yet, I see on another thread, I'm now ranked as an arch bull in disguise. A bull I am most certainly not. But I've explained that all the times I'm going to explain it.

Maybe they have to leave to recover their stamina, after putting up with being incorrectly labelled a BTL landlord, VI, Troll etc. on every second response to their posts.

Well, generally I prefer to debate the reasons people have for making predictions, rather than the predictions themselves. So if you like, I prefer debating the "arguments" people are using, testing them for soundness, picking out the interesting bits and the bits that seem novel. As to making predictions myself, I don't make many, because I don't have the specialized knowledge required to make a heavyweight prediction relating to the topics on this forum. I am an amateur with respect to most of the topics discussed on here. But an enthusiastic and keen amateur. I like to read the predictions of the heavyweights like Bubb and others. But most of my challenges would relate to the reasoning people use, rather than a direct assault on their predictions. At a more specific level, I prefer predictions which are quoted with some sort of guide to the probability. There's no harm in predicting things with a probability, as people can still do a statistical analysis of how good those predictions are, and hence gauge how much store to lay by a particular person's track record on a topic. Numerical probabilities are best, but sometimes the best that can be done is to give a tier, such as very high, high, medium, etc. But I'll offer an amateur prediction on the matter of NR lay-offs: I predict that the chances of 6000+ lay-offs is very low. What do you think of that as a prediction?

No, I'm not predicting that.