overlander

You actually believe this rubbish that these electric cars are environmentally friendly ? These monstrosities are an environmental disaster and to boot dreadful performance. The environmental costs to extract the lithium is enough to delegate them into the history books. Lets not talk about the massive costs in diesel last i heard it was about 500 gallons/hr for the machinery to extract it. I could go on all night about how bad they are. But a more measurable quantity is the performance, they are crap to put it nicely. I tried a tesla yes it got off the line quickly but this thing is running out of puff at 90 +, my M5 would demolish it in the straight and in corners. Ok i will give you that the model S is pretty damn quick most likely quicker than the M5 but thats not your typical electric car. There was no hiding the weight regardless of how low down it was. Sorry but no petrol head would ever cite performance as a deciding factor, they are garbage. Now in 8 years time my M5 will still be worth 50% of its new price and will delight its new owner and the next for many years. After 8 years your environmentally friendly tesla will be in landfill. Lets not get into the infrastructure thats another disaster.

It seems to me that the piggys are squealing loud and very organised, now all it will take is a few lucky hits and they could be heard. They seem to be squealing away with very little counter actions this could be easily fixed. Any idea what we could call a counter petition agreeing with osbourns proposals that could be a start.

They are not going down without a fight, they are running scared. http://www.property118.com/open-letter-george-freeman-mp-conservative/76353/#comments Open Letter to George Freeman MP – Conservative Dear Mr Freeman I have been a Conservative voter for my whole life and have used the influence of my property forum and blogs (200,000 subscribers) to encourage my peers to vote the same way. I would very much like to meet with you to discuss my concerns regarding the budget, in particular the impact on lending institutions and a hardcore of Conservative voters who invest into buy-to-let property. I believe the impact is far more wide reaching than may have been considered and could well lead to another banking crisis, as I will go on to explain below. My understanding of the logic behind the budget announcement is to reduce incentive for highly geared buy to let transactions, which the Bank of England recently reported to be a risk to the economy. I broadly agree with that. However, the consequences of the budget are that an established private landlord using a high gearing business model could now end up falling into the 45% tax bracket even if his rental portfolio is only breaking even and even if he has little or no other income or resources with which to service that increased tax burden. Please see the example below:- SCENARIO AS OF TODAY Rental income: £300,000 per annum Mortgage interest: £200,000 Other legitimate expenses: £100,000 (e.g. insurance, letting, management, maintenance etc.) Taxable income = zero. SAME SCENARIO AS OF 2020 Rental income: £300,000 per annum Legitimate expenses excluding interest: £100,000 Net taxable income = £200,000 Net cashflow is still zero but tax is payable on £200,000 less a tax credit of £40,000 due to the 20% relief on the £200,000 of mortgage interest. Given that net cashflow is zero, where is the landlord expected to find the money to pay the extra tax from? The position worsens when interest rates increase. It gets worse! Until now, buy-to-let mortgage underwriting and associated lending criteria has been based on the current tax system, which has not made provision for this extra tax. Many thousands of established professional landlords have based their business models on the current tax system and lending criteria. If these landlords are now allowed to fail we could be looking at another credit crisis, plus of course a further negative impact on the housing crisis.. Worse still General consensus is that highly geared landlords will be able to pay down their debt by selling some of their properties. However, the very nature of a highly geared property investment strategy means that in several cases the net sale proceeds would be insufficient to pay CGT due to outstanding mortgage liabilities having significantly exceeded the original purchase price of assets due to refinancing in line with property values during the property boom which has occurred since the early/mid 90’s. There is no CGT rollover relief available to private landlords on residential property so they cannot convert to a corporate structure either without incurring CGT. Accordingly, many are trapped into an inevitable bankruptcy scenario by the budget announcements. The net losers (in addition to these landlords) will be the banks and society as a whole due to the losses incurred on forced sales, the reducing supply of quality rental property and the associated demand led rental inflation. The Chancellor said that he wishes to make it easier for people to become homeowners. A significant exodus from the Private Rental Sector may well facilitate this in terms of reducing property values but it will not create any more housing. In fact, it may well reduce incentive to develop new housing. This is because over the last two decades a significant proportion of new build housing stock has been purchased by landlords, thus driving up the profits of developers to a point where it makes developing new builds viable. A reduction in the appetite for buy-to-let investment, combined with a reduction in property prices, may well have the effect of reducing property developer profits, and hence incentive to build new homes. Another knock on consequence of this is that a reduction in new developments would result in less new social housing being built. My suggestions It would be politically very awkward for the Chancellor to do a u-turn at this point, albeit not impossible. However, the following concessions may be equally effective to deal with the Chancellors objectives whilst negating the necessity to openly backtrack in order to avoid the negative repercussions and unintended consequences of the Summer 2015 Budget:- Option 1) announce that the new tax rules only apply to new debt as of 2017 or Option 2) introduce CGT rollover for residential investment property in order to allow landlords with large portfolio’s to roll their assets into a corporate structure or Option 3) declare a CGT amnesty for BTL landlords for a given period which will still have the effect of reducing the size of the PRS (albeit with some reduction in property values due to the possible scale of transactions) but with reduced negative consequences in terms of insolvency induced forced sales and the knock on effects to banks and property developers. I look forward to your reply and hope we can schedule a meeting sooner rather than later. Yours sincerely

The diesel car is finished now, in 10 years they will be pretty rare to see new ones. With the every tightning euro regulations the diesel is on borrowed time. The new euro 6 regs will kill the diesel as they now need ANOTHER expensive system which uses a chemical called adblu. The new passat has it and the system is flawed on so many levels on a passenger car it's a total joke. All big manufacturers are rushing to get out the new breed of petrol engines. Ford predict the diesel will be extinct in the near future. They are working in extending the new 3 cylinder petrol into their range.

The problem here is the unanswered question the yes campaign refuse to answer. It also is the case that one shoe does not fit all and you cannot please everyone. Do not get me wrong the ideology of going independent is good but the reality is completely different. Both sides of the argument are incompetent the yes lot have a cupboard full of hidden truths the no camp sat doing nothing until the crap hit the fan. For example if I was 16-24 I would vote yes as I have nothing to lose so why not they are completely shafted already. If i was a benefit scrounged I would vote yes as they are offering to increase the budget for the poor. But once again no mention how this is going to be paid for. If i worked for the public sector I would be shitting me pants by now as again he was asked how he would fund the massive pension burden. His little nugget of information was they will open the borders and let more immigrants in, yes like that's worked before. Now not sure how many are employed in the public sector but it's a fair share. If I worked for any company related to military contracts it would be a no. Now onto what I assume is the main category on here, I have a mid end 6 figure sum invested in stocks, bonds, metals and cash isa's. There is no way in hell I am going to vote yes and risk upsetting anything, as apart from the metals if it's a yes vote the only way is down for most my investments as the fallout from a yes vote will be massive. If I was loaded and I mean loaded I really would not care either way. There will be more subsections of course but there should have been a second box for maxdevo and that would change everything. The wheels on the yes campaign bus are falling of as people come to terms where it really matters cold hard cash and more importantly the uncertainty involved for very little gain. But on saying all that a little voice in my head keeps saying yes lets just see what happens when the crap hits the fan. One thing for certain is the whole establishment needs resetting so even a no vote will be good. Changes are a coming like it or not.

You always this up tight, lighten up my old chap.

At least the armed forces are sorted.

Yes all true but who will be the lender of last resort, they can't answer it. It becoming clear that there are only two viable choices, a formal currency union which has been ruled out or we just continue to use the pound. If the choice is just continue to use the pound scotland actually ends up with less power. The yes team will not come out with a credible answer to any of this.

The banks pulling out is making it pretty real up here, standard life also upping sticks. Lots of question starting to get asked about how independent scotland will be able to back any new bank that is created. Especially if scotland defaults on its share of the uk debt, they would not be able to raise enough money. Think the yes will now be pushed for hard solid answers now..

I honestly think they are secretly pushing Scotland into a yes vote. Talking to people today who were firmly in the No camp are now voting yes. I for one have now changed to a yes, this country need a shakeup and a yes vote would certainly do that, for better or worse we need change. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29098334

They must do something with it, I think there is too much cash tied up to just let it sit. Its all too easy to condem these firms but they really must have a hard time moving on the gold.

Yes Hatton Garden Metals do so how do they make any profit unless they refine and hallmark themselves. Ok the ones who pay very low I can see how they pay. But what about the ones who try and pay a decent price who do they sell the gold to?

Just a quick question, the companies that buy scrap gold pay widely from 50% below spot price to as little as 5% below spot. If i was to refine my own gold I would be lucky to sell it for more than 20% less than spot price. So what do these firms do with the gold?

One of my pet hates is the fabled German car quality, the new BMW and Mercedes are so unreliable they are now in the lower end of JD power survey. Our work changed from Ford to VW passat turbos and what a disaster that was, they would eat oil. They were like a throw back from the 70's when you used to check your oil before you went on a journey. It got so bad the salesmen would just run them until the oil pressure light came on the top up at the next services. The new polo is just like a tin can inside, the fiesta is just so much better built and nicer to drive.

I travel many thousands of miles and to be honest i find the premier inn more than adequate for its purpose. You usually get a decent spot just of the motorway and a pub next door for a few beers at night. In fact after you have been in 5* hotels long enough you get sick of the pompous nature of these places and again half the time the room in the prmier inn is larger and just as nice as some so called 5* hotels. I think premier inn know there market well and hope they do survive this recession.

Up here we call Asda, Asbo due to the clientele who frequent it. Tesco on the other hand is ok, the quality of the food is good and i do believe they are one of the better supermarkets to deal with from a supplier point of view. I also like their returns, absolutely no questions asked when we returned a £500 lcd tv as i found the picture quality to be less than expected.

"Fury" my as5 i think they just like to sensationalise trivial news. Absolutely no one i know could even tell me the price of fuel, just look at the amount of cars on the road and the speeds they travel at, no one cares. I reckon it would need to hit about £3-£4 a litre before anyone would notice. As much as i hate to admit it, there is still a lot of spare cash in the UK, but times are a changing.

The tanker has turned, at long last the beast has turned. The whole ponzi scheme is still hanging on with nothing more than VI spin and sentiment. With a figure of -3.6% both have taken a severe battering and at the worse possible time, september is a normally a good month. The VI's have taken a severe battering today and the sheeple will be cacking their pants this morning.

Maybe because they never wrecked the economy and owe the tax payer billions.

So mortgages starting to flow companies announcing better conditions and the FTSE going up mmmm starting to look like a recovery. Guess i will need to be happy with my average 25K off as it looks like thats it :-(

Just watched it, seemed quite good pointed the blame straight at crash Gordon and the banks.

Apologies if posted before but this might have slipped under the radar. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatc...atch-up#2920536

Hi DiggerUK, Why do you find it better to go for the smaller sizes are they easier to sell or just more flexible when it comes to sell. Could easily change to 4 X 250 and cut down on the coins. Will have a think about it. Thanks for the advice.

Hi DiggerUK, Why do you find it better to go for the smaller sizes are they easier to sell or just more flexible when it comes to sell. Could easily change to 4 X 250 and cut down on the coins. Will have a think about it. Thanks for the advice.

After a bit of more research proof coins in moderation can be a good idea as even if gold starts to drop some well chosen proof coins would hold their value as they have intrinsic value as they are rarer and unusual. I do feel that this would be a slight gamble but as long as i keep the quantity of proofs small it should be ok. Unless of course anyone else has an other opinion i would like to hear it. Basically i have decided on six 100gram gold bars and the same amount (cash pounds) in Sovereigns, Britannia Bullion Coins, with about 20% of them being proof versions. Hopefully Gold will not crash but this is for a long term investment about 25 years so should be a safe bet. I should add that i will not buy them all at once as i do not want to exceed the £10,000 limit.