Pindar

I'm not sure what will happen. Given that many eastern european migrants send money home, they may well end up going back as their own economies are already suffering through lack of low-skilled workers. I would sincerely hope that they don't end up being dole victims - that would be the ultimate injustice. I do think that in order to be entitled to benefits, you should at least have paid tax and NI for a good few years. The chances are that Polish migrants and others will have paid taxes and are therefore entitled to benefits. I also think they may not see the point in staying when they are only getting £60 a week to live on.

There's absolutely no difference between credit and cash. Cash is issued by the central bank which charges interest on it. All money in circulation is debt. When the government prints more cash with nothing to back it, there is effectively more money in circulation, thereby reducing its overall value. That is inflation.

The trouble is with this country is that the government usually acts against the interests of the ordinary person and bends over backwards to placate the wealthy. I wouldn't be suprised at all if the privatisations that took place were really a huge opportunity for wealthy cheats to buy the government's support. The government says it will privatise this service or that service in return for ministers receiving large "incentives" to ask the right questions in the house of commons etc. This rich mans gravy train went out of control in the late 1980's as everything was privatised. It also left our utilities ripe for takeover by foreign predators with no real interest in improving quality of service (Thames water is a good example of that and we still have chronically low water pressure where I live). I am in favour of privatisation if it improves quality of service and it it can be ensured that no wealthy stockbrokers, businessmen or government departments get payoffs as a result. A utility is a utility and a hospital is a hospital. The biggest scam of all is the PFI funded hospitals in which the health authority gets a new hospital funded by private money. The firm that lends the money then "refinances" at a lower interest rate but doesn't pass the saving on to the NHS trust. This has happened in multiple locations with the newly built hospitals and if it was widely publicised (which it hasn't been - I heard it on a radio 4 programme) would cause a public outcry. This kind of sleaze is ultimately what brought the last government down. The current bunch of crooks are too clever with the spin machine to let the same happen to them.

Socialism is about tax and spend. The government borrows money from the central bank. We pay the interest through taxation. Socialism has never been about rewarding the workers. It has always been about preserving a tolerable state of affairs for the employer and employees and ensuring that the workers are never really able to get "above their station" or prosper on their own. This is why we see the constant stream of regulations and anti-free enterprise regulations coming out of this socialist NuLabor and the EU. It's designed to cripple the independent and entrepreneurial spirit in favour of corporate socialism and collectives for this and collectives for that. The trend will lead us down the road towards a system which more closely resembles communist russia than a so called "free market" economy. What's the difference between the total means of production and distribution being in the hands of a few mega-corporations and it being in the hands of a few unelected party officials? Absolutely zilch. I find myself sympathising more and more with thatcher and her policies which encouraged free enterprise and individual responsibility. I disagreed with many of her policies but I valued the way she let small businesses prosper, so unlike this bunch of thieves and crooks we currently have in power who seem hell bent on punishing small businesses by regulating them out of existence and taxing them to death. What NuLabor is doing to this country is turning it into a soviet. We can take our place in the European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Bring back Norman Tebbitt, bring back Norman Lamont, bring back Nigel Lawson - all is forgiven. Thatcher was right all those years ago in her assertion that the EU would become a "socialist superstate"

With the right planning permission you could develop it into a very high rise luxury villa

I don't know why we haven't already switched to the system they have in Germany and other european countries. The public pay compulsory insurance premiums and all hospitals are effectively private hospitals. This allows their healthcare to be amongst the best in the world and it is run by professionals, rather than incompetent middle managers with no medical credentials and "trusts" that are effectively not to be trusted. In the days when our wards were run by medical staff, service was much better than it is today. Hospitals were also cleaner and friendlier.

I agree - but unfortunately most people still believe that their new found "wealth" is due to the governments economic management. Once you lose control of the money supply, you may as well be living in a dictatorship. This is exactly why the euro is really a form of totalitarianism and in effect, we are already members - we just haven't realised yet. The probable outcome of this calamitous mess is that we will be forced to join the euro, so signing what remaining sovereignty we had away forever and further centralising power within europe.

I don't see what is totalitarian about bringing in professionals to run the government. You aren't going to get the average home-owning jo to vote in a government that would bring real stability so it might need to be done for them before it's too late. This was once a prosperous nation with the majority having a sense of decency. It's become a scum filled trough with even those that can't afford it clamouring for the latest gizmo at the expense of decent hard working people. Only a popular revolt will challenge this lot and with the entrenched perception among middle england that any government that sees personal net worth increase must be OK (even though it's not because of government policy), it's not going to be easy.

I second that. In fact, we should lynch the entire government and whitehall while we are at it. Bring in some professionals to run the country, not these weak fools who bow to pressure from vested interests and care only about getting voted in again.

The problems would not have arisen if the government had planned properly for this mass influx of people seeking work. I don't blame people coming into the country to seek work, I place the blame firmly and squarely on the government whose failure to put in place the necessary planning rules will cost a whole generation dearly. There is enough room for everybody and everybody could have somewhere decent to live if the planning laws were changed and a new minimum requirement drawn up for the size of new dwellings was put in place. There really is no reason (other than greed) for people to be crammed in to tiny new builds. There really is no reason for land to be released in tiny pockets here and there for development by profiteering developers. The planning system is medieval, seriously flawed and bows to readily to NIBYS and vested interests. It's time we took to the streets en masse to get things changed.

That worked to a limited extent in the 1980's when the tories privatised and contracted out absolutely everything. Unfortunately, many of the services that were privatised are now run as private monopolies instead of public ones, so with no competition they are just as crap as they were before. This is the case for many bus services and other municipal services. What happened was that the senior gaffers of the public service were offered directorships at the newly privatised service. What we need to do is have an independent recruitment process that favours polish immigrants over local gravy-train incumbents. As another example, look at how filthy our hospitals have become under the privatised cleaning system. Free market capitalism can only work if there is true competition, undistorted by vested interests and regulation that skews things in favour of collectivist arrangements. Before I get off my soap box, there is one final and disgusting example of what can happen when services that were once public are privatised and opened up to competition; In Bristol the bus service was privatised and became almost exclusively owned by "First" who also now run train services among other things. There were a couple of smaller private bus services that also operated. One in particular, was run by a company called "Durban". It had won the contract for a few routes which it operated profitably. First decided they didn't like this, and ran a service in parallel and timed to arrive just before the smaller Durban service. The effect was to wipe out the competition and create a complete monopoly. I suspect the local chambers of commerce turned a blind eye to this since it is probably run by the same people (or past associates of) the bastards that decided to wipe out a small business. Buy hey, life goes on.

I agree, the times we are now living in are a turning point away from the golden era of cushy retirements for the average worker who's made contributions or been lucky enough to have signed up to a generous occupational pension. The future is indicating that the first wave of people who've already realised that the demise of social security past retirement has begun and are turning to morally questionable practices such as BTL in order to saddle the burden of their old age on some unsuspecting youngster. The government won't raise income tax sufficiently to bridge the gap so they are taking it into their own hands - only the social consequences of this are even more profound than if the government had just had the balls to raise taxes in the first place. I see that perhaps the most important thing that any of us possess in this changing world is our health. If we are strong and healthy, we are more likely to have the capacity to work until we are quite old. This is going to be the reality for millions in the future. It's a grim prospect but some people actually like having something to do when they are old. The difference here of course is that the things they do will be for somebody else and towards their own survival. Bring on voluntary euthanasia.

It reminds me of the grotesque inequality that existed in the former soviet union. Communist party employees enjoyed massive perks at the expense of the rest of the population. Whatever way you look at it, this lot must go and they must go soon. They need to have their work scrutinised by an independent public inquiry and they must justify, in court, why they deserve such huge salaries. By private sector standards, those salaries would seem excessive.

I don't think it will be long before this government (under pressure from large institutional investment corporations) introduces compusory pension contributions. The legislation is likely to preclude any rights to limit losses on the stock market. It's a fund managers dream - a bottomless pit of money to squander on the casino stock market; the likely outcome is that the rich continue to get richer as the poor subsidise them through ever increasing tax burdens and state sanctioned theft.

So, by my simple calculations, somebody paying £500 a month for 20 years should have 500 x 12 x 20 at least before charges have been taken off but before interest has been added on. The basic figure would therefore be £120,000. This leads me to question the figure of £65,592 that this article refers to. Does it take into account the falls in the stock market? Is this why it is far less than the actual amount payed in?

What's the difference between monopoly capitalism and communism? Not a lot I think. The prevailing economic and social system is one that more closely resembles national socialism than free market capitalism. In a free market economy, small businesses are free to trade unhindered by mountains of regulations (which actually favour collectivism and corporations) and there is true choice offered to consumers. What do we have today? A few mega corporations (and with the possibility of more of them merging to make even bigger ones) which spend a lot of time lobbying the EU to introduce more and more regulations and rules to stifle free competition from small businesses. If I'm not very much mistaken, this is approaching the sort of system they had in the soviet union where there was excessive beaurocracy and regulation and no competition. A recent example is the new regulations introduced concerning home wiring. Now once upon a time, a friendly man in a van could come and fix your wiring. You might even have a go at it yourself. Most of the time this was sufficient (particularly if the tradesman had good references). Not any longer. Regulations have come from the EU which insist that any electrician must have a license costing thousands, a van equipped with things he might never use (also costing thousands) and be regulated out of existence. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the consumer. It's your friendly local electrical collective which, since it is a collective borne out of assimilating all the small electricians who are now out of business, can afford to pay the exorbitant fees to some faceless official for the privelege of practicing as an electrician. This communism by the back door is stifling competition and driving people out of business. It's not just electricians either. So, free market capitalism is dead in the water and an insidious form of collectivism is growing stealthily under our noses. Soon it will be against the law for you to change a lightbulb in your own home as some corporation with the the right license must come and do it for you. I wonder how long it will be before the european union goes the same way as the old soviet union?

I also remember the CBI lobbying the government to allow the next wave of uncontrolled immigration into the UK from the new EU members from next year. FFS, they can't have their cake and eat it, can they?

I got rid of my tv 4 years ago and never miss it. I don't and wouldn't pay the BBC a penny all the time they spend the license fee on cross subsidising rubbish digital services, game shows, property porn, antiques get rich quick shows and soaps like eastenders. The BBC is meant to be a public service broadcaster, not a mouthpiece for the government and vested interests. It's high time we scrapped the license fee and made the BBC earn its keep. If I want to watch biased news I turn to CNN, why should I be forced to pay for it on the BBC?

Agree 100%

When the fiat currency is worthless, what will replace it? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8...tcard&hl=en

She deserves vitriol. After all, she appears to be taking the piss. She is supposed to be an intelligent human being, having worked in information technology as a consultant, yet she plainly believes (or claims she does in her "diary") that banks are charities and self inflicted hardship and pregnancy is a legitimate cause for them to pull out all the stops for her cause. In a parallel universe maybe...

This woman seriously beggars belief. If her story wasn't on the BBC web site she would probably be on the streets by now. I suspect her antics have a dark underside to them. In a world of irresponsible lending, irresponsible pregnancy and ever evaporating security the lenders are afraid to threaten her because she has an audience. It is with knowledge of the public's general gullability that she persistently takes the piss out of other borrowers, FTBs and home owners. The same mentality applies to females getting up the duff at 16 and expecting the state to bail them out.

To me, being a landlord should be a profession. It should carry with it a large slice of social responsibility and be properly and justly regulated. I have no objection to professional landlords acquiring property and letting it out a fair rates. What I desipise is the nonchalant and lazy BTL amateurs. They see some property porn and realise they want a slice of the cake to keep up with the man down the pub. This ill considered and sleazy activity, whereby somebody realises they can get a free ride at somebody elses expense is the worst kind of exploitation since it is accompanied by very little in the way of ethics or consideration for the social consequences. It has been facilitated by the banks and lending institutions whose sole purpose is to make money. As has been mentioned on here before, BTL landlords that buy with BTL property with a mortgage are merely agents for the lender. The lender doesn't lose out if the landlord loses his deposit through capital depreciation. Who is the greater fool I wonder?

The BTL landlords' own property won't be immune to capital depreciation whilst the market price of potential BTL properties fall. How would a landlord leverage equity if it's been wiped out by a crash?

Actually, the reason CT is so high is that property prices are high. Private landlords must pay higher mortgage payments and thus the council must pay higher rentals to those landlords for DSS tenants. Most of your CT goes on housing beneift, though the only people to benefit are private landlords and their DSS tenants. We need a huge correction and a program of "back to work" for people who've become reliant on housing benefit and welfare handouts. If they had got off their arses in the first place to do the jobs now being done by Poles, this ridiculous situation could have been avoided. Unfortunately the government is incompetent to the degree that it helps private landlords screw money out of councils through housing benefit payments at the expense of honest hard working folk and the social fabric of the nation. So I would say that lower house prices should eventually bring lower council tax, but only after several years and assuming unemployment doesn't increase.