SillyBilly
-
Posts
694 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by SillyBilly
-
-
11 minutes ago, Dorkins said:
So when working age people are poor and pensioners are poor who exactly is going to be voting Tory?
The robots?
-
On 08/05/2018 at 02:25, Viceroy said:
Thank you DB!
It would be interesting to know if your charts can predict a time frame, altho you say cycles can get stretched etc? Armstrong's private blog calls for the major high for the US dollar as 2020/2021 timeframe. I think you forsee DXY 120 and TLT 150 - could it be then? Perhaps that is when the monetary system breaks, inflation takes off and people start to run towards commodities to put their wealth in, before it gets inflated away. You've written that you see mid 2020's as a shining time for precious metals.
I read Armstrong for years (still do occasionally, mostly as a an interest to see how bad grammar and spelling can get before text becomes illegible). Not a single prediction is provided for without a conditional verb. Precious metals you'd be better flipping a coin to buy or not to buy based on Armstrong's work. How anyone takes it seriously I do wonder!
-
9 hours ago, hotblack42 said:
I'm sorry but some of those E European teams do a really good job. Is it OK to use a good hand wash where they look happy enough to be there, or are we saying blanket boycott?
Its a great start to the weekend to have a car that's been carefully cleaned, polished and vacuumed while at work on Friday.
Can we get a bunch of Brits to do this for £25? £35?..For a time a few years back I spent hours every fortnight washing and polishing a black SLK, jacking it up to get inside the alloys, removing the plates etc. Not doing that again, time is just too precious. End result looked amazing though.
Agreed. I used to avoid car washes as I didn't want to support that sort of low paid (and I suspect in many cases illegal) work. But then I had to call in one and had my car blitzed in 10-15 minutes (inside and out) and looked great = converted. The days of spending half a weekend morning cleaning the car are over...simple case of valuing the time gained back more than the cost. Do feel somewhat guilty at times but feeling soon passes!
-
Nobody who does a full time job is being subsidised in my view, poor taste to look at it any other way. Just because many are paid a pittance doesn't make their work any less important. I suspect I'd be sacked from picking cabbages within the hour yet I'm probably paid 6+times what these people earn pro-rata. Those that are being subsidised are those who work a fraction of the time others do and yet get the state to top them up to the same level or higher than those who work full time. No real issue with those who don't wish to work full time, if you can afford to (and not have to rely on the state) then that is a lifestyle choice (one I wouldn't mind being able to do myself!). If you're gaming a broken system then I cant blame you either but at the same time you must accept the label of being carried by the rest of us.
-
At the moment I am both a renter and a owner, I bought a house in the Midlands recently but still retained the flat I was renting in the South East - I stay there a few nights a week when working in Reading. After some advice about how I knock back an inspection as being unjustifed (or perhaps I'm wrong and it is).
I have had an e-mail from the LA today that I am getting another inspection next Tuesday after a failure to respond to the issues from the last inspection (a few weeks ago). I must admit I am very uncomfortable with inspections anyway as I don't like people having access to my property while I am out - I have valuables in there and no idea who is coming in.
The issue is that for several inspections in a row I have refused to engage a "handyman" to repair a wardrobe where the doors have fallen off. Out of principle I've taken to ignoring the last couple of attempts to get me to sort it, not even an acknowledgement as I've said my peice before. The thing is not fit for firewood. Decades old cheap plywood thing. 3 out of 4 doors have fallen off from just opening the thing! It isn't worth a pound so why should I pay £50-100 to repair it? Doesn't there come a point when the owner considers the useful life of something is up and it is time to replace?
The other issue is the oven - I need to clean it...I've never used the thing in 3,5 years because it was in a disgusting state when I arrived. I bought a halogen oven when I moved in and never opened the thing since!
The final issue is that I have been recommended to get a carpet cleaned due to it being "dirty". Anybody who knows me will attest to how I am very particular about being tidy, clean and neat and I feel really insulted by this as if its a reflection on me. Again the carpet looks "original", I hoover it but you can't polish a turd, the thing needs replacing. I tolerate the flat as its cheap (for the area) and generally just about acceptable to crash at night, I'd not even mind paying quite abit more if the owner was to put their hand in their pocket. The place has not had a penny spent on it since I've been in and doesn't look like it has been touched way before that.
Anyone got similar experiences?
-
On 21/04/2018 at 10:06 AM, TJHooker said:
I'm working a large new pipeline project in the UK, it has 2 welders (1 team), but 200 workers on site passing pieces of paper to each other to back them up, never seen anything like it but it just shows the extent on non jobs in the UK and why the economy is ****'d!
Astonishing isn't it. I'm one of these overpaid pen pushers but happy to admit (privately at least) it is a load of BS. I used to care about making a difference, now just cash the pay cheques and play the game. Milk it for what you can before the ship goes down!
-
Just now, Mancunian284 said:
Same here. I use my debit card mostly. Credit card for food shopping and petrol in places where I get cash back for spending, balance paid off in full every month though. So most of my spending is on a card but I’m not racking up debt.
Exactly. Tesco is my local petrol station, whack it on my Tesco C/C and pay it off and get a "free" RAC membership each year and some bread and milk vouchers every now and again. I mostly travel to Scandanavian countries which seem to be increasingly cashless, haven't bothered with any foreign currency on last few trips, all on the post office C/C.
-
I never carry cash these days and out of laziness tend to avoid places that would be cash only or broken card readers etc. The change from notes usually ends up under the car seat or somewhere else. Although sceptical at first Contactless is pretty much all of my non-DD spending now, so much so I have to think to remember the pin! And that is a debit card too. I think a lot of others are the same now.
-
Jacking up interest rates to 5%+ overnight would be worth far more than £10k to young people. 10k is a lot of money when you have to earn it (most of us will know this on here I suspect) but its sweet FA in the fairly land of Britain's equity gazillionaires. Would be a pacifying gesture which means nothing, the house they'd be buying would just go up by 10k as a result and then Theresa May will give her annual soundbite of how the Tories are tackling the crisis, with some recent debt slave propping up the performance showing off the keys to their new prison cell.
-
6 hours ago, Option5 said:
Poverty can lead to violence, I was raised in a very poor area and violence was commonplace, some out of desperation and some out of frustration. I was taught to never get involved in a fight with someone who had nothing to lose and that the most likely winner wasn't the toughest but the one prepared to go the furthest.
Such a vital lesson to teach and to learn. Someone with nothing to lose is far more dangerous than a big strapping bloke who can handle himself. Sometimes pride suffers but best to walk away, never know if the scrotes are armed or not.
-
When I consider quality of a house it includes the overall size, general proportions of rooms, height of ceilings, plot of land, garden privacy, parking provision, housing density and local amenities. When all of that is inferior to say a 1960s builds the integrity of a building itself is almost secondary, I simply wouldn't want to live in a new build. I do think new builds of the last 10 years or so are going to be very poor investments long term.
-
5 hours ago, awkwardturtle said:
All of those links relate to global population pressures, they have nothing to do with immigration.
I can agree with this in a broad sense. However, the article talks a lot about babies born to foreign mothers. The GDP contribution of 2nd generation immigrants is entirely within our control (through education) The author should be less concerned about who their parents are and more focused on the potential of these 'forgien babies'.
If the housing supply is so short and were are overrun by 'forgieners', where are they all living? To pose the question differently, if the 1.7 million intake over two decades were to leave tonight, would there be a lot of empty homes left over?
I don't back the state to make second generation Somalians our GDP saviour. Call me a pessimist but the cultural upbringing they get within the confines of their own home accounts for a lot too. So it comes back to not just being a numbers thing but the quality of those arriving, their skills and the values they'll pass to their children.
-
20 hours ago, happyguy said:
"The government in no way serve the people that is for sure. It is now every man for himself in this country."
Of course it is every man for himself. We are all responsible for ourselves. I know I am. I do not expect Jeremy Hunt or anyone else to look after me, I look after myself. What do you expect the government, to do for you?
Nothing would be a very good start.
-
In the East Midlands I am seeing higher and higher list prices (albeit no actual data to back this up) but not much shifting (same crap on the market still). I think the EM was the most buoyant region last year so sellers/estate agents a little giddy still. A few reductions filtering through but it is only £10-15k off what was ludicrously priced beforehand (and largely still not shifting). We need some actual black swan event.
-
Inflation implies higher rates and higher rates would imply lower prices? Assuming you acknowledge that today's prices are a function of low rates and historically lower inflation.
-
Don't think I ever had the stomach to get through a whole Venger post! Sometimes skimmed the whole post! Certainly a character though and somebody who makes a forum (typically a handful of posters with the rest of us as background noise :P).
-
5 hours ago, SurreyVisitor said:
Funnily enough my parents had an extension built a year ago and they have just noticed a leak around one of the Velux windows. They called the builder in question to ask them to fix it only to find they have gone bankrupt.
I think the economy is in a much worse situation than the government lets on, they have printed too much money yet wages have remained stagnant. People are in debt up to their eyeballs and now the bank has to increase interest rates to try and stop inflation which will lead to people having even less money to spend.
Wages being stagnant is a by-product of the problem, namely productivity growth being a 1/4 of its strength of decades gone by. The issue now, so far as I'm hearing this from the central bankers, is labour market tightness actually creating wage inflation and that causing interest rates to have to respond. I'm yet to quite grasp the fundamentals here myself as bad news seems to be good these days (government shutdown, who cares, buy stocks!) and good news seems to be bad (wage increases coming, sell the market!). They've been lamenting the weak wage growth for years and now all of a sudden the first pay rise many might be getting in 10 years is a disaster! Go figure.
-
11 hours ago, Fence said:
PS. I think I'm a true conservative - libertarian, caring, egalitarian, and a believer in sound money not the "Conservative" (and Liberal and New Labour) farce we have now and yes, have had for a while. Neo-liberalism has not just hollowed out the economy but also our political system (and culture). I say that only because I believe many (not all) feel like that and the current situation (void) is forcing us all to seek clarity as to what we each really are.
I only take a passing interest in the demise of the Tory party these days. Justified I feel as my last look in was Anna Soubry brazenly stripping Jacob Rees-Mogg of the right to call himself a "Conservative" while at the same time instructing the leadership to take the party to the "centre-ground" and adopt more centrist views. Go figure. I loaned my vote to May despite her shambles of an election campaign and how foolish I feel. Make no mistake, Corbyn and his Labour government would put a thousand special interests groups before the likes of me and the rest of the "squeezed middle" - I'd just be called upon to do my bit to house the better part of the population in superior accommodation to that I can afford for myself. But its an unholy alliance where the end might just justify the means. If an election was called tomorrow I'd vote Labour; we have a common enemy, that is to say anyone who represents any continuation of the status quo. Bring it on!
-
Went for 2 years, though I thought Aug 2015 was the start so what do I know? 5 years is a long time to wait for a lot of people. I want to believe interest rates will reversely sharply (and am beginning to invest with that mindset) but Japan's decades on low rates always make me question that positon.
-
Isn't is the case here that 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims in a lot of cases have stronger anti western beliefs than their parents and grandparents. Perhaps might be the case for millennial Saudi's children.
-
7 hours ago, Fence said:
I think you've made an extremely important point and one I have been wrestling with over the last few weeks.
Won't quote your entire post but a fantastic post. I was extremely fortunate in my early "investing" career and subsequently believed my own hype and my Buffett like stock-picking powers...and then swiftly took a series of catastrophic losses which set me back to ground zero as it were. A lot more humble now, that is for sure. This thread is brilliant as it challenges thinking, the timescale isn't so much important for me as I've learned to be patient and not get too emotionally invested in an outcome (one lesson that you pay dearly for). This thread is a fantastic source for people to exchange macro outlooks on, some individual sector analysis and stock picks - helped me become aware of a few things I'd certainly completely missed. When I get time I will share some of my own (limited) stock research as feel it important to keep the exchange of ideas flowing!
-
11 hours ago, Funn3r said:
Unfortunately have to agree. A young relative has a very fast brand new car and is constantly complaining of other drivers who are not as good as him
The fast reactions of youth and a 4wheel-drive car that accerlerates from 0 to lightspeed in 1 second of course he feels it's safe to zip into a small gap in traffic. His biggest gripe is a stretch of derestricted country road which we both know well and on which people tend to keep it down to 40-50mph or so because of bends and local farmers making it muddy. "The speed limit is 60 why am I always stuck behind the dozy buggers?" Doubt that there's anything you can do except wait for experience to catch up.
Yes, I can almost drive certain roads with my eyes closed due to experience. I think there is a lack of patience, obviously. I was on an unfamiliar country lane the other day at dawn with bends and narrow in places (frosty as well) doing 40 with a tool right up my backside. It is just not on.
-
8 minutes ago, Toast said:
I don't think this exists: all the "photo's" look like CGI (with the exception of the photo showing the top of a stove, and nothing else (are they trying to sell me a cooker, or a flat?)). My prediction is that it's meant to be sold, unseen, to foreign buyers, and if you actually turned up, it would look just like Carcassonne's picture, but with the W and the two n's missing. If anyone complains, they will say that this is an example of how it could be decorated, like with the pictures on the front of food packets.
I think the point is that as there isn;t much flat to sell so try to take your eye of that by showing you the plug socket, the light bulb, the basin, the oven etc. Anything to distract basically.
-
This is almost comical. Sitting in the dark would be preferable to opening the blinds and being a goldfish in the bowl. This one is a new low, some tool will probably be swayed by the £60 taps and the £450 trendy sofa though.
Unemployment: Fact or Fiction?
in House prices and the economy
Posted · Edited by SillyBilly
The job over spec isn't unique to IT in my experience, I have posted in off-topic about increasingly ridiculous job descriptions. Even reading job specs for a 1/3 to 1/2 my salary asking for seemingly prime ministerial qualities and commitment. A definite trend in the last 5 years as well to having a very specialist degree within the discipline with many now doing this as post-grads with an existing degree already. Having 10+ years experience doing the job every day and a strong degree in maths, science etc. no longer guaranteed to cut it. This need for more "paper" qualifications at great personal expenditure while wages trend down is a worrying sign. First it was one degree, perhaps multiple will become the norm. Drown in student debt your whole life to do a job somebody did from 1960-1990 with no need for one...And lets face it, so much of work these days is absolute BS, I suppose you need a qualification to get your head around deciphering it.