We're All In This Together .....

[ahinton]

:laugh: wicked boy! :smiley:

Who? Vinteuil? ahinton? JohnSkelton? Anyone who picks their nose in preference to picking a candidate in a General Election?

Oh, sorry - I thought for a moment that I was on the Pedants' Paradise thread...

As you were...

[Serial_Apologist]

Who? Vinteuil? ahinton? JohnSkelton? Anyone who picks their nose in preference to picking a candidate in a General Election?

Oh, sorry - I thought for a moment that I was on the Pedants' Paradise thread...

As you were...

OK then - anticlimax of the day, but for those of poor memory, here goes:

"If Maggie Thatcher gets up your nose, picket"

[ahinton]

OK then - anticlimax of the day, but for those of poor memory, here goes:

"If Maggie Thatcher gets up your nose, picket"

I meant "who was supposedly the "wicked boy"" as mentioned by AM! Anyway, yes, I am sufficiently long in the tooth (if not the nose) to remember that phrase and assumed when first I heard it that it must have been uttered by a NUMskull with scarred gills - and, let's face it, some members here might NOT be old enough to remember it!

[teamsaint]

lets see what the people who realy run the world, the banks, are up to this weekend. Oh look, they are planning for next week. Well that is good...isn't it?

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/ecbs-draghi-flags-euro-risks-spurs-rate-cut-110000713--business.html

Oh look, they are planning to lend more money to European banks at 1% , so that they can buy spanish and Italian government bonds at 7 %. Tell you what, I will do it for 3 to 5% and save them billions.

And look here..

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/doubts-growing-over-business-lending-plan-7855196.html

the Bank of England is handing out £80BN (thats eighty BILLION folks) to British commercial banks....which they will use to boost their balance sheets or buy government debt.
Meanwhile in the real world the high streets are on freefall.......living standards are plummeting, and george osborne really is in charge of it all.
I am stocking up on essentials........(RVW, DSCH, that sort of thing !!)

[Lateralthinking1]

People aren't taking out loans because they don't think they can pay them off. As the articles suggest, the banks are still willing to finance borderline, and hopeless, cases. They have taken little notice of the fact that such activity caused the crisis. The Government is trying with this measure to encourage further lending by the banks to justifiably nervous cases and the taking out of such loans by the financially insecure. That hardly bodes well. George Osborne particularly seems increasingly out of his depth.

As was highlighted on the radio, a graph of the long-term performance of FTSE 100 companies looks just like a mountain range. Peaks here. Troughs there. Some more troughs. By contrast, the graph for the remuneration of the heads of those companies is one side of one mountain. Relentlessly upwards. We have noted before on this forum how 99% of those companies have unnatural tax arrangements. They, and their management teams, are supposed to represent the gold standard of entrepreneurial spirit. In truth, they are more risk averse than almost everyone on this planet and rewarded by Governments precisely for being spineless.

The non-broadcasters' broadcaster, Robert Peston, is forever banging on about the jittery disposition of the markets. It only takes the utterance of the word Syriza for our solid-as-a-rock bastions to become all of a dither in the trenches. What was a sensible new arrangement for Spain, and no need to panic, is now the entire melting of the Arctic. News of a petty little tweet from the partner of Hollande has apparently sent out shock waves of extra-seismic magnitude. Only two reasons are at all plausible. One, the financial sector is so ravaged by drug taking that it has lost all comprehension of reality. Two, it is fully compos mentis, it is having a field day holding worldwide democracy to ransom and it is still milking that system for the very little it is now worth.

[handsomefortune]

and angela knight ...'what's she on'?

a scarey new drug is available in the US apparently, called 'bath salts'...initially, i thought it was a joke as superficially it sounds so innocuous (and you get clean)! instead, it's the name for a chemical combination that allegedly makes people who absorb it violent and a danger to others, some having been tazered to death. :sadface: maybe a bag of free bath salts arrives with a disastrous personal loan!

[JohnSkelton]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-06-16/citis-buiter-greece-will-be-forced-out-euro-regardless-who-wins-sunday-electi

[Lateralthinking1]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed...-sunday-electi

Interesting. The link between a country's age based demographics and the capacity for upheaval is compelling. We have had a similar discussion here before. However, the security, or otherwise, of countries in the west shouldn't be assessed purely on the basis of them having larger and wealthier elderly populations. A key question is about the extent to which those in that category have something to offer the young over time. Another is about the extent of realism in the aspirations of younger age groups.

The ratio of owner-occupied units to total residential units in a specified area

ie Home-ownership

Over 90% - Bulgaria, Hungary (Is an exclamation mark required here?)
Over 80% - Singapore, Palestine, Ireland, Slovenia, Greece, Spain (and here?)
Over 75% - Italy, Norway
Over 70% - Israel, Belgium, Brazil
Over 65% - New Zealand, Finland, Canada, United States, Australia, United Kingdom
Over 60% - Sweden, Japan, Portugal
Over 50% - Denmark, France, Austria
Over 40% - Germany, Netherlands

The countries shown in bold have all seen a dramatic rise in home ownership during the last decade. Some of the other countries have seen some more modest rises. Clearly, most of the countries in the lower categories are considered anything but poor in world comparisons. Although having cultures that are less obsessed with home ownership, they are arguably having to subsidise those for whom it has become faddish. Between those extremes, one finds the United States and the United Kingdom.

That the US has come a cropper because of an increase through the 60 percentiles - now 69% - is a part of the reason why we are all in this current mess. A new consensus is that 64% is a realistic figure in the west. That means the US, and the UK, need to adjust their levels of aspiration down slightly and the most troubled countries need to adjust theirs dramatically down. This isn't necessarily "a huge ask" for it requires a step backwards into the comparatively recent past where 64% was near to the norm.

And that, I think, is where the age issue needs to be looked at more carefully. In countries where teenagers' parents and grandparents are not home owners, age wars make sense. They are wars against older privileged elites. Where there is home ownership in families - and that applies to the overwhelming majority living in most EU countries - family resources are best pooled. For 64% has never been seen as indicative of bad play. The Germans have shown decades of contentment with levels of just 42%.

It is on the basis of having sensible levels of home ownership that Governments in the west should be able to target programmes of assistance to the most needy, whatever their ages. That, of course, includes crucial policy mechanisms for much fairer rents. Whether they will see it, or want to see it, is questionable - it is not necessarily a vote winner among those who have six kids and expect each one to be a home owner - but a policy of divide and rule will lead to unhappiness and ultimately chaos.

Few would want to see wealth at the lower levels so diluted that home ownership divides sharply on class lines at 30%. That though could happen if Governments take from senior to give to junior and in that process remove the opportunity for either to own a home. The promise of further houses in the average family and the result of far fewer would be incendiary, whatever the age demographics, and it would provide the conditions for wars against elites. Management of expectations should start now.

[Lateralthinking1]

...........European Banking Stocks Fall Despite Greek Vote Result - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18482286

However much uncertainty there is in Greece following the election, one thing is crystal clear. The situation is many times more certain than it was before the election. Interesting isn't it? The financial sector has moved in one night from being overly anxious in respect of minor negative events to being wholly negative in respect of unequivocally positive*, if not fully resolved, events.

Meanwhile, Norman Lamont races to the microphone no sooner than the result is announced. What is the ex-Chancellor's message? A Greek tragedy has at least been postponed but the focus shifts immediately to Spain which is becoming an enormous problem.

Funny that. Expert after expert earlier in the week told Martha Kearney that the Spanish difficulties were not at all in the same league, that the bailout was modest and sensible, and that Spain's Government was trustworthy.

With reference to the title of this thread, we are not all in this together. For once, conspiracy theorists are right. We are being stitched up left, right and centre. As each day passes, that is becoming more and more transparent.

*In terms of the EU and the Euro if not necessarily for everyone in Greece

[teamsaint]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/25/david-cameron-sweeping-welfare-reforms?newsfeed=true

I wonder if getting rid of the "something for nothing" culture extends to the undeserving rich like er.. well.... cameron for example.

[amateur51]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...?newsfeed=true

I wonder if getting rid of the "something for nothing" culture extends to the undeserving rich like er.. well.... cameron for example.

I think it's time for another MP to take up the Matthew Parris challenge and try living for a week on welfare benefits. As wiki reminds us ....

"As an MP he took part in a World In Action documentary during 1984 requiring him to live in Newcastle for a week on £26.80, the then state social security payment set for a single adult by the government he supported as a Conservative. The experiment came to an embarrassing end when he ran out of money for the electricity meter. "

Step forward Francis Maude! :biggrin:

[Stephen Smith]

IMO Francis Maude is odious, so an inspired choice for the challenge. He wouldn't last a few days living like the people he talks down to.
In comparison at the time I remember M Parris coming over as a decent man - as evidenced by his decision to leave behind the role of whipped party apparatchik and become a commentator - an excellent one, again IMO. (I remember watching the original documentary - and when he was stood a pint in a pub when his money had run low).

[amateur51]

IMO Francis Maude is odious, so an inspired choice for the challenge. He wouldn't last a few days living like the people he talks down to.
In comparison at the time I remember M Parris coming over as a decent man - as evidenced by his decision to leave behind the role of whipped party apparatchik and become a commentator - an excellent one, again IMO. (I remember watching the original documentary - and when he was stood a pint in a pub when his money had run low).

I'd forgotten that bit, Stephen Smith - yes it was a very brave and exemplary thing to do.

Did you hear the delicious stramash when Eddie Mair asked Francis Maude about his volunteering activities when he was 'bigging up' the Big Society?

Childish delight insists that I offer you the link :biggrin:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/155599-eddie-mair-putting-francis-maude-on-the-spot-what-volunteering-do-you-do

Simply marvellous radio :ok::laugh:

[Flosshilde]

Excellent - how went from telling us all that we should be involved in something, to not being able to say what volunteering he does, to saying that nearly everyone is involved in volunteering anyway. Which means that the government doesn't need to keep telling us that we should be volunteering as part of the Big Society (& to be fair to Cameron, he has basically dropped the idea :erm:)

[amateur51]

An excellent article from Polly Toynbee about the benefits cuts present and proposed and the housing crisis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/25/cameron-benefit-cut-will-backfire

Where does this government get the data upon which it bases its social policy? It's almost as though it has a different agenda :whistle: