trompe le monde

.

Happened on this while I was going around the British Museum last week. History of Money A bit light on economic theory, but good on the history of money as a medium of exchange, including cowrie shells used in China - many of the current chinese characters for financial terms such as 'loan', 'buy', etc include the cowrie character to this day. Also some strange forms of currency such as Chinese 'knife' and Indian 'sword' money - essentially partially forged bronze or iron billets, used as a medium for trade. The key thing with most early currencies was that the value of the currency had a

Thought it might be nice to have all the comments as a Word reference, in case the original article gets archived off. Unfortunately, (or not!), this is the later moderated version. Telegraph_30_03_2008___It_s_not_just_the_housing_market_that_s_overheated.doc Telegraph_30_03_2008___It_s_not_just_the_housing_market_that_s_overheated.doc

Just musing here, but supposing it could be proved that there had been fraud in obtaining the mortgage, ie mortgagee had lied about income (whether the mortgagor was ignorant, or complicit with the fraud). Presumably this would give the new mortgagor the right to foreclose the existing mortgage? Of course it may be still in their interest to keep mortgagees that are still making regular deposits on their books. However, might they want to improve their credit rating and winnow out the subprime stuff, maybe from people who'd missed the odd payment or taken a payment holiday - or maybe just as

and in the Times: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle3353569.ece the implications are that this could be a domino that triggers further losses. TLM

more inflationary chickens coming home to roost, at least for the short term... from tomorrows Times: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle3352971.ece and the Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...amp;ito=newsnow

http://www.afxnews.com/about488/index.php?...p;story=2310093 Difficult to ignore this one. Looks like Merv had better begin drafting his letter. TLM

not a bad article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ro...ine_titani.html TLM

Nice to see the golden goose taking wing, but with hindsight, back in '03, I'd have probably gone for some of this too: http://www.kitco.com/charts/rhodium.html TLM edit to add link

no problem. Darling seems to have kept, (or been forced to keep), a very low profile since he took the poisoned chalice. About time he put his head over the parapet. I can't decide whether he's dispensing the unpalatable truth on behalf of GB, or being a thorn in his side. I suspect the former. TLM

Here's the Darling story: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle2442203.ece TLM

do a quick google for 'duplicate bank statement' and it looks like you can get hold of fake bank statements, as well as utility bills, wage slips, P60s, etc, without too many problems. You can even get complete packages of wage slips, statements and utility bills: http://www.outthetopdrawer.co.uk/bank_statements.htm http://www.replicadoc.co.uk/ and I like the disclaimer on this one: http://www.replace-your-documents.com/ TLM

Hi Bazzer, may not the best to give advice here, as being in the public sector, I'm fortunate in having a final salary pension scheme. However, I'm pretty certain that it will end up getting watered down considerably before I end up drawing it, for all the various economic\demographic reasons that have been discussed many times. I'm therefore also taking personal responsibility for my savings by investing elsewhere, whilst taking a worst case view that I may get nothing back from my years of pension contributions. I may be sadly misguided here, but I think that it's unlikely that any gov

Sorry to go off-topic. Serpico, if you're having trouble reading forum text, I wondered if you'd try to play with the default browser text size? In Internet Explorer, under 'View', then 'text size' there's five levels of font size. The better option would be to use the Firefox browser, (link here) where you can actually increase text size to a much greater extent than in IE. Again under menu heading 'View', then 'text size'. Can also use CTRL and + to make bigger, or CTRL and - to reduce size. A larger monitor would probably be a good idea too. In addition, there's a Windows feature cal

Thought this might be relevant to this thread. If you've got a spare 10 minutes treat yourself to a read of this excellent short story http://www.vb-tech.co.za/ebooks/Sheckley%2...7877ded28aa94f5 (easiest to copy the text into Word to read, as the text doesn't wordwrap in a browser). from Robert Sheckley, written in 1954 A twist on the genie in the bottle story, with a beautifully satisfying ending. Don't be put off if you don't do SF, this is a witty and satiric commentary on human nature, and very relevant to the buy now pay later\never culture of today. good film, and the closing

79 finally found this thread again at the bottom of page 5 - pity it will never be pinned. TLM

Bear in mind that there's a three year and a five year issue, so even if there only happens to be one issue of each per year, that's still 30k you can stash. I bought the three year issue at the end of April, and my money wasn't debited until two weeks later, (the date you apply, happily, is the one from which the cert begins). When I phoned to find out what was going on, the reply was simply that massive public demand was slowing down the processing of applications. Term Tax-free rate pa/AER Equivalent gross rates* 3-year 15th Issue Guaranteed compound rate over 3 years Index-

f**k housing, I haven't been so incensed by a political decision in years. As the OP said, the house was empty. Labour MP David Winnick (Walsall North), gave a genuinely impassioned rebuttal about the 'squalid' nature of this, you could see him trembling with anger and emotion. The argument by David Maclean, the former Tory chief whip pushing this legislation through is specious in the extreme; his claim is that private correspondence may enter the public domain - but this is what we have the Data Protection Act 1998 for, it is explicitly designed to counteract the general circulation of

I bought Krugers at their Hatton Garden branch back in mid December, they usually seem to have plenty in stock. They only take cash or cheque, though. I paid by cheque and had to wait a couple of weeks for it to clear. Service is efficient, if taciturn... Lots of good pubs and restaurants around the area if you're going to make a day of it. TLM

and don't forget NS&I index linked certificates, currently paying 1.35% above RPI (ie 6.15% total) tax free on their 3 and 5 year issues with a max of £15,000 investment per individual issue. http://www.nsandi.com/products/ilsc/index.jsp Equivalent to 10.25% to those in the 40% tax bracket. That has to be better than the yield on your average crummy BTL. TLM

I think I'd want to see the small print first. I'd like to see the face of your average red blooded male heterosexual terrorist getting to paradise and being presented with 72 male virgins. TLM

I suspect someone is having a laugh - look at the name of the poster. TLM

Interestingly, even the Radio Times describes this as 'property-porn' in their 'Choice' section. TLM

By cash or cheque - no plastic! Baird & Co. 24 St. Cross St., Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8UH. Tel: 020 7 831 2838. http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...st&p=510842 TLM

~:POP:~ 49 think it's this one: The Zone Funding web site has been pulled, but there's a google cached image here: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:http:/...om/aboutus.html TLM