TheUsualSuspect

Although I wouldn't put it in such black and white terms I do tend to agree. There does seem to be a large number of people who prioritise careers and material goods over having children - possibly too much indoctrination into an anarchistic and somewhat futile existence ? As a counterpoint, I have read some works by researchers in statistics that demonstrate that the number of children is also IQ related, and that low IQ tends to large families thus spreading the genetics for low intelligence to subsume those with more cognitive ability. One thing i am sure of, one cannot be 'educated' to be intelligent. It has a genetic precondition. One wonders what is the point of education ? Although I digress...... An interesting post.

As I pondered posting, I appreciated that it's something you either know or don't. Hence my caution. Apologies for my naivety in assuming that it is not something that everyone in the country understands. From the media, and their clamour for growth at all costs, it must just be economic commentators in said profession that don't understand the concept. Again, apologies.

I always assumed it was because using the phrase 'Printing money' was not acceptable. A similar thing has happened with the phrase 'Credit Crunch'. I recommend J.K. Galbraith's 'The 1929 Crash'.

I sometimes wonder whether people understand Exponential growth. It doesn't matter if it's 2% or 10%, it's all exponential. I recommend anyone to read up on Exponential Growth, this is not a patronising comment, merely a plea for all to understand what it actually is as we live in a system dependent upon it.

I was thinking of myself But seriously yeah, I know how Sarah Palin feels now.

The problem with the comment is that it does not address why 'middle class' people cannot afford to have children. All it does it create discontent against a mythical 'ubermenschen'. Classic distraction technique in my opinion. Goebbels would've been proud.

Your 2 posts on the subject in rapid succession either suggest you are 'quaking in your boots', or that you're posting nonsense to get a rise out of other people's legitimate right to protest. From your comments on the subject, you have accused people of being Gold-rampers, students and anarchists with vested interests. I would suggest to you (again) that this is more worrying for bankers than any protest march will ever achieve. You seem obsessed with poo-pooing any suggestion that people have that right as it is a waste of time and no-one will listen. My suggestion (again) is that this Direct Action is more effective than previous actions.

Perhaps. I would argue that the people who have a vested interest in destabilising the economy beyond it's ability to be fixed are not Gold rampers, students or anarchists. They are the same people who will be paying themselves eye-watering bonuses whilst telling ordinary people to swallow down austerity. If protest marches, sit-ins or letters to one's MP achieved anything, perhaps such direct action would not be necessary, but it seems to me the only way to send a powerful message to the vested interests is to hit them where it hurts, namely in their pockets. As an aside, it seems to have worried people more than any of the previous protests have achieved and that to me suggests it's already working, hence worth doing.

It's not a stupid protest at all. It's causing more worry than a million people marching down Whitehall will ever do. Rumours about a run on Northern Rock caused absolute panic. Loads of people with stacks in the bank were queuing round the block when it dawned on them everyone else was pulling out their cash. I wonder how people will feel if they suspect a lot of other people are going to withdraw their money ? Here's an idea, don't withdraw your money, then on the 8th when the shit hits the fan, be caught up in the melee of all the wise-people who'll be elbowing aside children and pensioners to get to the front of the queue to withdraw their wedge. You may not be withdrawing your cash, but what if millions do ?

That is true, but you seem to have at least seen the light with the London property bubble. Make your money there, but don't buy there. I've always been of the mind that anyone buying in London is a mug. You can buy a place 3 times the size for the money outside that rat-infested crap hole. As this thread is about CC though, I personally agree with the decision to scrap it for people such as yourself. It is an anomaly and I would like it extended to the ones who've managed to escape it this time due to being a household whose combined income is above the threshold. It's a good 1st step though. Good luck with your house.

I'm sorry, but this makes me want to reach for the violin. You can't afford a mortgage that (relatively) speaking is what anyone earning an average salary is completely affordable - ie 1/4 of your salary, most people statistically are paying 1/5th to 1/4 of their salary for housing. You are bleating about nothing. You just sound like someone who doesn't want to spend any money and will probably never buy a place even if house prices did fall. If you earn that amount, then don't buy in London, but don't bleat on about how poor you are.

Anyone on 44k a year is on very nearly double the national average (£25428 according to the ONS site http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285) I have no sympathy for middle class benefits. The benefit system was not set up to take tax off the lowest paid 80% to pay for people in the top 10-15% of earners to receive child benefits. As an aside, if you're earning that amount of money then perhaps you need to stop buying the plasma TV's, fags and booze and get your priorities right.

What a pleasant thread. 150 people losing their jobs allows a series of schoolboy 'puns'. How indicative of the selfish, me-me-me society in which we live. Never mind, so long as you get a bargain on your house you'll be happy.

Take it how you wish. House prices are a canary in the mine. Once they stop being propped up, then watch it all collapse. And you're correct, the spin being put out by the media is so obviously at odds with what most people are seeing around them it's become laughable. There was a headline in the Express yesterday about how retail sales had risen by 1.2%. This, when several major retailers going bust, would suggest a redistribution of sales amongst the ones who are still going. Namely increased sales for a much smaller pool. The way it's portrayed is "The Green Shoots are back" (I paraphrase). This is not over and the media are still using pre-2007 games when the reality is that the economy is going off a cliff. Does anyone know a person who is not fearing for their job ? Anyone who is willing to spend all their savings on crap they don't need ? It's the desperation of a bust system and I suspect the next year is when the real depression starts.

The 'coming House Price Crash' has been coming for at least 3 years before I joined this site as a member. In that time it has been suggested one should sell up, buy gold, invest in a rifle and stockpile tinned food. There will be no house price crash of the order of magnitude necessary to adjust house prices whilst the current debt-based money system exists. There will be a crash but at the point it happens, in my opinion, the whole economy will go down the pan and the idea that anyone will be settling down into a Lazy-Boy armchair whilst the missus picks out new curtains will be the least of ones worries. All that is happening now is that the powers-that-be are attempting to stabilise a basically broken system. The debt that exists can never be repaid. The interest on the interest each year makes this a mathematical impossibility. Accept this fact, forget about house prices and be prepared. It's either massive inflation through printed money, or a collapse of the system through the banks being in constant need of propping up until they are all that's left. Combined with the dwindling resources, namely oil, there is nowhere left for the World's economy to grow into. It's game over as far as I can see. House prices, from what I've learnt over the last 7 or 8 years, when they do collapse will be a sign that the whole thing is about to collapse in a spectacular style as that is the moment that banks and the money you have are about to become worthless. We are not going back to pre-2007 after a brief blip.

As with other industries, IT will go East. Learn Mandarin, a skill many programmers struggle with, or how to grow potatoes. There is some delusion that the UK has a 'comparative advantage' or some such nonsense. It is delusional for several reasons, primarily the idea that some badly-dressed 'dude' in a Hoxton cyberspace is somehow more creative and entrepreneurial than a Chinese person, additionally it clouds the fact that people in the UK are going to have to work, possibly for subsistence, rather than over-inflated salaries for work that serves no real purpose. Wealth is not created by pushing marketing strategies and 'blue-sky' thinking. It comes from allocating your capital to crucial infrastructure and generating real assets that can be traded with the world. If your cost base is too high, people will buy it from somewhere else. Until people recognise this fact, we cannot progress.

If the phrase "banks create wealth" is also banned then I would be happy to concur.

I'm still to be convinced by the MMT theory, but your point that 'someone has to buy the debt to supply the money' is partly why the theory exists. It is not necessary, from a logical standpoint, for a country to rely on an external agency to create that country's money supply. I think you mentioned in an earlier post that it would lead to a licence to print money, but that is the very thing that the proposal suggests is happening now... why pay the interest on it is the question ? I did mention though that there were some holes in the proposal and I think that the limits on how much money can be created is one of them. At present we rely on a brake mechanism that is supposedly dependent upon risk assessment. I would suggest that certainly over the last 30 years there is no such thing, as the dysfunctional Risk Assessors have proven time and again that they have no ability in this area. I have no particular need to sell this idea, but until some limit is proposed, then yes, there is the potential for abuse, but we already live in such a system. As to your point about money representing something. This, according to (ahem) Marxist theory is the reason that there is such corruption in the current setup. Money is not a commodity. It represents nothing other than trust. Thus money, to use your comment is not monetising anything. I don't quite understand your comment about Gold as it seems tangential and not really relevant to the issue being discussed. As a basic principle though, the 'Western' world is increasingly obsessive about accumulation of money, failing to understand it has no value and is not real wealth. It can evaporate in an instant. Money has no inherent 'value' other than the trust placed upon it and that is why I find your last comment strange. It seems a clumsy attempt to describe Marxist principles, but using a strange defensive language. Labour cannot be monetised, it has real value. It IS money only if one believes in money as a store of value, which it does not inherently possess. Apologies if I'm making a clunky attempt to describe this. I never quite know on this site whether people are genuinely debating or just throwing around slack comments, so I've merely attempted to give my position in a very simplistic way.

That's an interesting comment about OBL. He certainly achieved a lot of what he set out to do by drawing the US/UK into completely unaffordable wars. Now all he has to do is sit back and watch us collapse into debt - that's of course assuming he ever existed/is still alive/etc.

The principle is that at present we allow banks to create money, then pay interest on it. By directly controlling the money supply, there would be no interest to pay. There are some holes in the proposal, but the basic idea seems sound to me. Why do we allow banks to create money out of thin air then pay them interest ? It's an unsustainable process for one thing. Every pound created by banks means that (at say 5% interest) needs to be paid off with £1.05. That small increase multiplied up is where the banks are making their profits and there is surely something wrong with the system when the BoE (or the Government) could create the same money with no additional cost. There's also a problem with things as they are that in creating such debt, more debt must be created just in order to pay off the interest. In the example above, unless 5 pence is created as debt by the banks, then there is no way to repay the interest. Debt is money in the current system. If everyone paid off their debts, there would be no money if you pursue it to the nth degree.

I appreciate what you're saying, but it doesn't help solve the fact that by 2050 there will be, on current trajectories, 12-13 billion humans on the planet. There are simply not enough resources to feed them, never mind provide cars/Nike football tops/etc. when the Oil runs out. I admire your optimism and there is a lot to be said for seizing the moment, but if we all individually carry on in that mindset there will be nothing left and if you're aiming to retire in 2050 then I suspect you're going to have to adjust your outlook that the "growth" that would be necessary simply cannot happen in the finite world we inhabit. Bearing that in mind, the opportunities that you mention are all well and good, but if your/my generation don't stop with the infinite growth model we're using, then there will be nothing left. We simply have to think outside the current setup and start thinking about sustainability rather than exponential growth. Mind you, i'm not in a much better position, 2040 would be my retirement date so we're in a very similar boat.

Isn't that the interesting point ? 2 years of non-payment yet still no attempt at repossession ? Why would that be one wonders ? A cynic would perhaps ask why they don't want to write off some of the loss and get some of their money back. Mind you, that would mean writing down their asset values, according to the example by 50%. You can't pay bonuses if your assets all turn to shit.

Aside from sounding like an advertising campaign, how does this theory work if all these "consumers coming online" increase the demand on resources that are already starting to look decidedly thin on the ground ? "Change creates growth, jobs, growth and opportunity" you say. Does it really ? Aside from creating growth twice, how is this sustainable ? There has been exponential growth for the last 60+ years and yet people are relatively poorer now than they were even 20 years ago. Actually, it is pointless discussing this when reading such brainwashed drivel. The post has no real content but it does make me laugh with its glorious vision of the future. Enjoy yourself in 2050.

Don't bother wasting your time Lucifer. The lack of empathy, the narrowness of vision and the complete inability to think for ones-self are all too common traits. The divide and rule of the media are partly to blame. The Bourgeoisie that think they've done alright by sheer luck and assume everyone else should knuckle down and work harder. There's no class-consciousness in this country. You just have to accept it. Perhaps one day when some of the sorts you come across have tried living off sod-all are in that situation they'll get it, but I suspect many of them would assume that they are 'deserving poor' or some such schlock devised by the wannabe-elite to convince themselves they are part of that club. Good AIDS v Bad AIDS, as Chris Morris once demonstrated, has a particular resonance.

I think we should post strongly barbed criticism on internet forums. Possibly set up a Facebook group. That'll show them.