CaptainScarlet

I am no fan of New Labour, but you write such divisive drivel that it just illustrates why many of us got rid of the Conservatives in the first place. Most of us have moved on from this sort of posturing - we would rather have pragmatic politicians who are capable of sensible decision-making than deluded ideologues such as you. It makes me wonder whether you are actually a New Labour stooge paid to write such nonsense!

You might want to consider buying and selling costs. The key to determining whether to buy or rent is often the length of time you expect to be in a place. For example, you should include stamp duty when you buy, and estate agent fees when you sell since these are costs that a renter won't have. You are more likely to favour buying if you know you aren't going to move for several years.

I would have thought the Economist would be very careful about making any sort of predictions about Oil. It is only a few years (1999?) since they had a front cover forecasting Oil could get even cheaper than $10 per barrel. That cover alone pretty much signalled the end of the lows. Still, the Economist is always good for a laugh.

I think you are right - the value of money has been debased. My father recently mentioned to me that some of his friends are millionaires as if that meant they were very wealthy. Of course, it would take me ages to reach millionaire status even if I saved every penny of my income, but I still thought that that a million doesn't sound like much money at all. After all, my parents are sat in a house estimated to be worth a significant fraction of that million.

This answer seems to assume that GP's will be completely removed from any diagnosis when this is not the case. For most tasks, computers have not replaced humans at all. Instead, they have either allowed us to handle more complex cases or an increasing number of tasks. For example, a combination of computers and lower skilled staff could weed out routine cases thereby allowing the GP's to focus more on people with emotional/psychological problems/unexplained symptoms/etc..

Cons: 1. The landlord/lady may decide to sell up giving you no choice but to leave 2. There may be less choice of rental properties. This is not true for flats, but seems to be true for houses. For example, there are only a few 4-bed detached houses advertised for rent in my local area, but there are many 4-bed detached houses for sale.

While nominally headquartered in the UK, Glaxo is actually run from Philadelphia in the US. Most of Glaxo's revenue comes from the US, and most of their research is also done in the US. The firm is run by a Frenchman (J.P. Garnier) who lives just outside Philadelphia, and their research effort is headed up by a Japanese guy who also lives outside Philadelphia. I certainly don't consider Glaxo to be British in anything other than name.

I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia for 6 years and the roads were awful there too. They were particularly bad downtown. Anyway, we had our first child in the US 4 years ago and moved back shortly afterwards - the choice was very easy to make. I could not believe it when I saw the hospital bill for our daughter's birth was $10,000. Fortunately, that bill passed straight through to our insurers. However, the prospect of not having health insurance was one of the reasons we moved back to the UK. Since coming back, I have noticed that certain people in the UK romanticise America - great lifestyle, etc.. I think a lot of these people have watched too much TV, and don't realise that only the good stuff makes it back here.

Short answer is no. US inflation has been terrible over the past few years but this has never showed up in the official statistics. For example, see this article from 2002: Jim Rogers - lies

We bought our first house in the US, and this was the best bit about buying and selling a house in the US. I am not sure why any seller in the UK thinks they need to be present for a viewing. Frankly, it's embarrassing as the owners try and steer you towards the "best" features. This has several effects: it makes you immediately suspicious about what the sellers are trying to cover up, it makes you question the personal taste of the owner, and it makes it more awkward to ask about certain questionable features of the property. For example, when I was buying in the UK, I went through one viewing where the owner omitted to mention that the big stream a few metres away from his house had flooded at some point during the recent past. I knew it was a problem, but didn't challenge him on it. I wondered if the seller ever got away with it, so that a buyer would not know about the flooding.

I think the government would already know. Most of this list appears in the Guardian - their unofficial house organ.