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

If you take that graph, turn it anticlockwise through 90 degrees, and mark '40' as '2004', does it not resemble closely the graph on the front page? Or is it just me ABB

But for the price of two flats, they could have bought one house ABB

To be brutally honest, I don't see there being great demand for pure physics grads, not specialised enough for those high paying jobs, too scientific for general purpose jobs. But a degree shows that the wiring is in place, and you need to have something to show for your three years, so go for the best grade you can get. Imperial is a respectable institution, so that wil help you. From your extra-curricular activities, it seems that it is not your passion in life, and that stuff will look good on a cv, and give you something to talk about at interview. Try and express what you learned, not the diffculties you had. After your first job or two, experience will count for a lot more than your degree. The best thing you can take away from uni is the ability to teach yourself new and complex ideas. British unis excel at teaching arrogance - leave that behind and you will be a lot happier and more fulfilled. Above all, don't panic. ABB

No it doesn't You don't 'own' the house, you own a large debt (aka a mortgage). If it is interest only, you are merely renting from the bank. ABB

This is the ultimate in doublespeak - basically they are telling us that the huge increase in house prices as a result of loose lending criteria is 'forcing' them to loosen their lending criteria even further. Any decent, responsible governemnt would withdraw its gurantee as lender of last resort to such greedy and irrespnsible organisations. As it is, when the whole lot goes tits up, joe taxpayer will pick up the tab. Shame on all concerned. ABB

The stamp duty thresholds would be just fine, were it not for rampant HPI. Strange how the media never mention that one ABB

So what if your wages don't go up 15% next year and 30% the following? What happens when your brother teneant moves out? Seems your deal is based on future unearned pay, and a compliuant, non-void tenancy. ABB

'Why do people drink?' - Because if they didn't. they might start to think. And the controllers wouldn't want that - oh no! ABB

Indeed! The whole immigration argument conveniently overlooks the fact that HPI has been going strong since 1998, and yet Poland only joined the EU in mid-2003. Since that thime there has in fact been some moderation in the HPI... ABB

Yes, in Chicago, also destroyed by fire, you will find a similar affection for brick builds, it was also the mother of invention for the skyscraper... Anyhow getting slightly back on topic, I saw a documentary a few months ago about an Italian architect in the 60's who erected concrete cupolas in the australian desert. They were made of reinforced concrete, but the reinforcing rods were laid out on a huge tarpaulin, in a kind of radial pattern. Concrete was poured on top, another tarp on top of that, then the whole thing blown up like a giant balloon with a compressor. The basic structure was up and dried inside one day. Cool idea ABB