anon

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b0547428-d191-11db...0b5df10621.html "Meanwhile, Bill Galvin, the Massachusetts securities regulator who helped investigate analyst conflicts of interest in 2002, said on Tuesday that he had subpoenaed Bear Stearns and UBS for records on their equity research on subprime lenders. Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he planned to introduce legislation that would prevent lenders from offering consumers mortgages that they could not afford. Jeffrey Kirsch, chief executive at American Residential Equities, warned: Once politicians get involved, it will take out a lot of home buyers and affect people’s ability to refinance."

And how long do people think itll take the government to privitise this id database? 2 years? when they realise that itll cost them 3 times (at least) what they expect.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5520dce6-ce1b-11db...0b5df10621.html possible reason

Pan's Labyrinth.. that film is pure 100% genius. an absolute master peice. studio ghibli have loads of great films; nausica is pretty good, but yeah mononoke is fantastic. if you get the choice the subtitled version is always better than the dubbed imho.

Thing is one of the main supports for the strong pound at the moment is the potential for a higher yield via increasing interest rates. if the BoE look like its turning dovish and lowers or even just holds for a while, then that support is going to vanish and the pound will fall. great for (whats left of) our exporters but not so good for the stuff we import (ie 80% of our food and a large number of other items in the cpi basket) which will all shoot upwards in price, reigniting the whole inflation situation.

i disagree there. what i see comming out of america is an over welming arrogance. i dont think they can comprehend a world that doesnt want or need the US dollar. having been the worlds international trading currency of choice for so long they feel its a birth right, hense the anger we see when any country decides to deal in other currencies. i think this is why they 'allowed' it to happen. IMHO of course.

big bag of cheesy wotsits in whsmith up from 50p in early 2006 to 59p late 2006 (18% increase).

i quite like Topps tiles (tpt), good points:highly cash generative (60% gross margin), good organic growth potential, ~4% dividend yield, history of returning funds to shareholders. bad points: low competition barriers, its in the retail sector. call me crazy but i also like HMV at todays price (~143p). good points: good brand image (and they own waterstones), ~5% div yield, 100m share buy back in next 6 or so months (17% of the shares issued), good take over target. bad points: internet sales lowering customers. higher risk aim shares: Cambrian mining (cbm) -great management Tanfield group (tan) -great growth potential Armour group (arg) -great from a technical point of view 'dodgy 5 year plus' gamble share: Tertiary mining (tym) -huge potential, huge risk.

id rather associate with our european neighbours than with the americans. however, id rather keep them as neighbours, not join their family.

not too bad a year, descided to take some risk with my savings so started investing in shares, made some stupid mistakes at first, learnt from them and even managed to be ~20% up in 10 months. also started a small second pension. job relocation to a different town fell through meaning i dont have to give up a 5 year contract in a good job. finally realised i was priced out of the market and gave up on owning for the time being, which was a relief in a way.

only your primary residence is tax free when sold. additional properties are liable for 40% capital gains tax when sold.