AgeingBabyBoomer

They seem to expect the same privileges as the banking elite - privatise the profit, socialise the loss. Unfortunately, they probably can't afford to bribe the requisite politicians, ABB

Reset Middle classes asking for middle class benefits, hope they get paid out before 'Call Me' Dave gets elected... ABB

I think someone already has... ABB

About halfway down ABB

What exactly is rational about queueing up to fill your car with the most expensive petrol ever? ABB (unless you happen to run Shell).

Why would they come? - their earnings won't count for much in their local currencies, and there will be better prospects for them at home. Labour costs will be reduced by coercing the unemployed into a reincarnation of YOPS (as recently proposed by Cameron). ABB

Mirrored from a more catholic site: The idea is that if you use up less than your quota, then you get some kind of reward. However, they would need to know each time you took a flight abroad, or turned on the light in order to calculate how much carbon credit had been used. Etc,etc ad nauseam until each and every purchase you make is logged into a central database. Of course this would be impossible to administer any other way than having 'a single plastic card like a Nectar card' (sic). Could this even be the carrot by which we accept the ID card stick ? The quota idea seems fine until you remember that quotas can be cut, so what happens when the quota is smaller than the amount of CO2 we exhale in a lifetime? Presumably it becomes economically rational to terminate the citizen at age thirty and render the carcass down to two and sixpence worth of raw chemicals. :angry: O Brave New World! ABB

Roaming wifi access via a UK supplier, perhaps? ABB

..you mean by having a voice over that sounds more like Broon than Broon? ABB

iirc 15bn - enough to buy 100,000 £150k homes - and at least the nation would have a few piles of bricks to show for it. :angry: ABB

Err, hello! What about the Macmillan boom/bust, the Heath boom/bust and the Thatcher/Lawson boom bust. Safe bet my **** (bottom) - neither party has had a clue or will ever have a clue how to abstain from the electoral free ride of a boom, and they ultimately lose power because of the bust that inevitably follows. ABB

I agree that our worth is related to productive capacity, and reserves are the store of previous years productive activity. Nothing you have said above makes me believe paper is worth more or less than inert precious metals (not even the 'quaint' jibe). The difference I see is that paper can be printed at will, permitting unlimited supply, and thereby infinite potential for devaluation of existing paper. Precious metals have to be extracted from rocks, and therefore the supply is constrained by nature, helping to preserve its value. ABB

...so we rely on the perrcieved value of pieces of paper instead. Hasn't the credit crunch shown us what can happen when reality trumps perception? ABB

Not anymore, not now she's got a job with the Conservative Party, advising Spliffy Cameron on the housing market. Next bubble coming to a town near you, in a few years time. ABB

Phew, is that all - for a minute there I thought you'd split up with WAL ABB