Bearfaced-Chic

Hahaha no he doesn't. Stop making things up!

They earned an average of about $75k pa back in 2007 according to this. So it would not seem unreasonable to assume some earn $109k now.

A victory for large untrimmed bushes! Bring it on I say........

Wouldn't it be great if there's a HPC'er or two in the audience. Especially if it was one of the more crazy ones! As far as I can make out, Darling will say nothing if he's allowed to get away with it. "Gentleman" Vince Cable will probably talk most sense but get ignored. And Osborne, yes I agree, out of all of them, he's got the greatest potential to fk up.

Apologies if it's already posted but I couldn't see it. From the Radio Times.. As part of the televised hustings that will lead us up to the general election, Channel 4 gives a studio audience the chance to probe the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, and his Conservative and Liberal shadows, George Osborne and Vince Cable. Studio-based democracy can easily turn into wrangles of claim and counter-claim, with dirt flying in every direction. While Alistair Darling tries to persuade us that he and Gordon Brown rescued the economy from an abyss, George Osborne will doubtless try to pick more holes in last week's budget, while fending off questions about his own plans for cuts to come. Vince Cable's reputation as an economic seer will be put to the test. But in a live debate there's always the chance of a killer blow, a memorable quip or, more likely, a grievous slip. Krishnan Guru-Murthy will be fielding the questions and hoping for fireworks. Might be a giggle!

From the very top to the very bottom, there is no longer such a thing as 'personal responsibility'. As a consequence of this there is no longer any accountability. Personally, I blame everybody else.

I imagine those same 80% wouldn't think a credit card debt the size of their gross annual wage would be anything to worry about either. Pay the minimum off every month, what could possibly be the problem? Better still, stick it on the mortgage and rack it up again by treating yourself to a new car and holiday.

I hope he kept the receipt. Is the worthless paper still under warrenty?

What I can't understand is why we can't just print some money and buy it back.

I predict more free money for Labour voters...........

Don't forget that a 100k pension pot has only 'cost' 60k (for a high rate tax payer, assuming no growth or inflation). There are very few other places you can get a 66% return on every contribution you make (apart from BTL of course!).

Without wishing to derail this into ANOTHER global warming thread, the models you talk about are just a load of random 1's and 0's. Unless they have successfully made a prediction that has subsequently come true.

What's a 'Google'?

Excellent idea. We could have our own individual roads too.

Banks and housebuilders look very cheap. Fill your bootz!

Thanks, it's just gone onto my Christmas list to Santa. Reading the reviews on Amazon, they were generally positive apart from a reviewer who gave it one star. His review was entitled 'The Rantings of a Tyrannical Technocrat'. I think I'm going to enjoy it

Absolutely! Hopefully this will free up significant funding for homeopathy research, astrology studies and harnessing clean energy from the power of prayer.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. There used to be some great posters on this site. And there still are. Good posters come and go. But sometimes I miss the old days.

I think the smart money has already left, just as the dewy-eyed optimists arrive........ Private investors have been shrugging off the recession and buying record amounts of funds this year. Figures from the Investment Management Association (IMA), the industry trade body, show that net purchases of funds totalled £2.4 billion in October - the seventh consecutive month in which the figure has topped £2 billion. More impressive still, this brings the net total of funds purchased in this calendar year to £21.1 billion, already more than the previous record total for a full year, which was in 2000 Fund purchases at record levels

I would have thought the rich want nothing more than the perpetuation of the status quo. Rampant inflation will cause rampant poverty. People will go hungry, and as Lee Perry reminded us "A hungry man is an angry man". If I was rich, I'd want to keep people fat and stupid........

Yes they're like freaky bailiff vampires!

Gerard Baker is leaving The Times.... http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle5504996.ece

You raise some very interesting points. I too would like to fully understand this (though apparently we're told if we as a nation *really* understood it there'd be piles of dead bankers in the street). Every time this topic comes up on this forum there seems to be 20 pages or so of argument between various members without any resolution. I do have a question though. This idea that a fractional reserve system can only be maintained by creation of more debt (to pay back the existing debt plus interest). But if money = debt = a promise of future labour then if I "pay" back with future labour the debt is cancelled and the money ermmmm disappears? i.e I borrow 10 quid from Mr B'anker at 10% interest. I then clean his car (or something equally repugnant) for a quid and give him back 11 quid. The debt is cancelled and the banks have 1 pound profit (which they would then spend on virgins and cloven hoof polish?). So then if there was a world wide ban on lending today (as seems to be happening!) then as long as I could generate more "money" than the value of interest on my loan then in theory I could eventually reduce the capital outstanding to zero, the debt is cancelled and the created credit has been destroyed? Forgive the ramble and the possible confusion between money, credit and debt. But I would like to know why I'm wrong!! I'm also wondering if this is relevant to the OP's argument?

Fixed.......

We should remember that one of these GoldBugs recommended people max out their credit cards to buy physical as we approached the $1000/oz mark, which doesn't look like a good decision to me today. Of course if you're in it for the long term and are planning to hold then we will see if the future proves them correct. But it seems that most of them will never sell regardless of price (it'll always go higher). When people investing obsessively in one commodity whilst forsaking all others try and offer me advice, that's when I get nervous. Houses anyone? I should add that I have no problem with holding a *small* amount of physical should the worst case happen. But by then I think we're all pretty fewked anyway............ Edited.. to include the correct quote