123Jim

Outrageous Taxpayer picks up the bill on default

Here's hoping your degree wasn't in Economics

Something going down here Zerohedge reporting a possible bank run in Italy and need for a Euro Tarp like tomorrow

There would appear to be a risk that the mortgage gets sold on and the savings account doesn't, then the outfit (a day later) goes bust.

As Ed Balls was saying, all that stimulus was helping the US economy to grow faster than Europe.........

1 CHF is overpriced until we have 15-20pc inflation and they don't, leading to more devaluation here leading to more inflation. Postfinance.ch offers interest, or there is even a Credit Suisse a/c offering 2.5pc until Xmas I think. 2 Why not hold Gold?

I'd buy Krugerrands then take a view in 20 months' time If as is likely they ve printed money kept interest rates low then your Krugers will be worth 50% more than now, but you'd still hold onto them and remortgage at low % Is it really likely rates will be at 7%, and gold fallen in £? You could always put your own stop loss on gold so you sell it at 70% of buy price and pay off most of your mortgage but I really doubt this will be necessary.

Job movement, that's all. No room for marketing managers selling timeshares to financial services salesmen selling employment insurance to estate agents selling BTL to marketing managers. Bring on the real jobs. Bring on making Dennis Sabres again in Guildford.

+1 here Of basically the same POV Consider UK property as our new gold standard Observe its price stability vs Sterling over the past 5 years compared with gold, commodities, currencies (excluding USD) In ounces of gold, silver, CHF, EUR, commodities ETFs, the risk in UK property (with a good deal) is starting to diminish. Sure I will still hold physical gold, silver, CHF, resource equities. Sterling and some ETF s, EUR will shortly be converted into 60-70% UK real estate here, with 30%-40% borrowed on a 3 year fix, which I might pay back with sold gold before 3 years Just have to secure the right property

To be honest, Racial Equality Advisors have a far higher productivity in Slough then ICI could dream of. Good jobs drive out bad.

Precisely, and which business model has the greatest longevity? Which car would you buy? Which Company would you invest in?

This is where Evan Davis came unstuck on his documentary last week. His thesis was that as economies shift upmarket manufacturing goes out of the window to be replaced by design at front end and marketing at back end. The UK was on the right track according to him, because we'd shifted manufacturing out. This is tosh. If you think about BMW, in the UK we are unlikely to get their design work or much in the way of worldwide marketing. You just don't normally design, develop and prototype a car or other complex mechanical item thousands of miles from where it is being made, unless you're talking low-end countries manufacturing i.e. crap or low-tech products. Not talking Dyson here, which is actually pretty straightforward spannering, but high-end aerospace, electonics, autos, F1, rocket science stuff. High-end ones go back and forward from the factory floor to design and devt., and if they re oceans apart life isn t easy. And companies wanting to do their manufacturing on the cheap normally drag design the same way. The ability to make stuff is a direct function of design and development gone into it. We should be making margin on making stuff, like the Germans, not just designing and licensing it.

We are probably talking folk born born pre-1963. Totally random , but 1970 was, I believe, the beginning of young trendy-lefties in teaching, replacing the old Squadron Leaders and Corporals from WW2 and National Service. Anybody without grounding, 7 to 10 years old, before the lefties got hold, has a different outlook on life, work and society. Parental outlook in these years parallels the situation and gives a +/- to the teacher profile.

Too upbeat by far Why not do a comparison ARM Holdings vs Siemens? MG Chinese kits vs Mercedes? Pilkington vs Nippon or St Gobain? whoops Pilkington is Nippon. Chocolate biscuits and running shoes can be made and sold just about anywhere The truth is we have 1% rocket science, a few percent real creative industies, like design, software and architecture holding up a crumbling parasitic and/or unskilled 90%

Where to start, central-ish areas Most "desirable"-Jericho/North Oxford, close to centre but next to no room or parking space and pay £300k+ for a decent flat. Only views of the canal and beardy academics. "Edgy" but up and coming and the place to be - St Clements and Cowley cum Iffley Road. Cheapr, more exciting and the biz. Not quiet, some parking, walk into town. Views of trendy students, trendy trendies and occasional hippy or chav. Botley-boring but a bit cheaper then North Ox and still near the station. Wolvercote - boring and cheaper and further from the station. More views of nature and canal. Iffley- nice ish, medium in everything Headington, noisy ambulances with sirens near main road, cheap to let a 3 bed semi, and decent general environment. Oxford Poly sorry Brookes on hand and JR Hospital so plenty of students and nurses if you need seeing to. 20 mins drive means nothing depends on time of day and where your car park is, but sounds like Uni From your description I d look at Yarnton or Wolvercote to start renting, sensible drive. If you drive in early, Woodstock would be reachable and is delightful.

My pension cash all in CHF since 2007-8 Personal cash 60/15/15/10 CHF/USD/EUR/STG And that's the way it's staying I'd buy precious metals or Swiss real estate as the only viable options to holding that level of CHF right now, though bottom fishing in UK real estate might be an option out of CHF in the next 12-18 months.

6 months? Lower against the CHF 1.33 Higher against the Euro 1.24 Stable against the USD 1.62

Indeed this is a non-article, really. This man was elected as an MP last year on the coat-tails of a kind of frenzied performance by Clegg, where people thought "this man looks like he wants change, sounds good" and voted accordingly. And this is the man who apparently predicted an economic apocolypse, which sort of turned out as he said. Fine. Except nothing changed. And second time around people won't be so trusting, Vincey. Now he himself is looking in the rear view mirror, and his only prediction is that things will be tough and we have to get on with it, in a blinkered fashion. It's really not good enough. Why not explain just what it takes to keep up with our friends in the East, who don't have his problem on his scale? Can't we have the option of canning the aid budget, pulling out of our Euro obligations to Greece et al., halving housing benefit, reducing Corporation tax to 10% and income tax to 20% flat? Can't we go back to the sound money that politicians talked about a decade ago, and back our currency with hard assets? What's the problem with attuning our education susytem and immigration system to needs, instead of having a free-for-all? We really need a Tea Party Party here, because with out it, Vince's "there is no other way" is left as the only way, and it sure as hell isn't.

Nothing there about feather bedding of the management. Shareholders shouldn't Bed and Breakfast with Slilentnight. And the analysts need to work out their matrices a little better (matrices, get it?)

Untrue Championship football is more entertaining than Premiership - I support a yo yo club and have witnessed both

This man's views alone are a good enough reason for money not to have been printed to prop up prices. Just look over the sea to Ireland, friend, for a dose of reality. Who's taking the hit for all those autonomous Irish adults who over borrowed? Not, I guess, people like your good self. A Jellyfish And happy so to be

So you've found you're dream rabbit hutch for 120K, borrowed your 6K on Mastercard, got your 24K from gubbermint, then your 90K mortgage. Surely you finish paying rent, move in, pay a few months mortgage, go on SMI or just stop paying mortgage with a 1 way bet on the price. Your break even vs rent, where you lose your deposit and pop the keys back through is what, 12 months?

Surely if we can borrow from future generations, we can borrow from future civilsations. Perhaps we should take account of the fact that new civilisations are likely to be found from other galaxies, sometime in the future. As non-domiciled subjects of planet earth, they will be subject to an extra-terrestrial supplementary tax relating to their albeit temporary incursion into out galaxy. This tax will be levied by the IMF to repay currency printed. Problem solved. Just leaving the greenhouse. Head feeling all light.

The trend is clearly towards an imposed Communism in all this, a 21st Century open Sovietism. Dreamt by Brown, enacted by Coalition. Read between the lines- Kinnock has shares in the Company which will bid for and win the contract to count AV votes Lloyds goes hand-in-hand with Councils to offer taxpayer-backed debt to feckless Scots house buyers Meantime the Gov ratches up your tax bill, 50% for top earners now, then medium and everybody when inflation hits. NI 10% student loan 9%, so 69%, significant that, eh? Of the 31% left you'll pay perhaps half to banks and Councils to keep a roof over your head, It's all enacted in the name of a democracy that is phony here

More valuable until transactions in them are taxed. So then we need to find a way to prevent transactions becoming taxed in a new local currency medium.....