Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Skinny,

Interesting poll.

What would be expected by many.

----

One question which I haven't seen guesses for is how many British Medallists at the recent Olympic Games are the offspring of second and third generation immigrants?

Strange how the "Empire" came to the "needs" of Britain when "wanted", but only some "Commonwealth members" are received with the same enthusiasm.

As far as "culture" is concerned, it is sometimes easy to question it and revise your valuation of some of its "values", acting spontaneously sometimes is more difficult.

Also, maintenance of "family" cultures binds many families together for their own "good" and that of others.

PS.

Remember the figures before the last referendum 40/60, after the ref 60/40.
The silent majority often have more sense than the rabble rousers.

This_is_me (20012)
"Fiscal Cliff” in perspective. [...]
"Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:"

Total budget cuts so far are not $38.50
They are $385.
However, your point is the same.



That's a pretty good way of doing it. You've divided by 100 million, reducing it to the size of a single household's budget. There might be 100 million households in the U.S. which is why dividing by 100 million works.

Another way is dividing it by the number of people, circa 250 ~ 300 million. You get smaller numbers, but then it's per person instead of per household. The point is the same.



To puncture political hyperbole (on both sides) it's usually a good idea to take the amounts of money they mention and divide by the number of people in the country, or the number of tax-payers, or the number of households. I do this for all U.K. political ranting. This instantly reduces very big numbers to the personal level so it's obvious what variety of horse manure the politicians are talking.


Fred1new (20016)
"Debt ain't the problem, it is whether you can service it and utilise it beneficially."

Yes, that applies if the debt is constant. What if (as in the U.S. case) the debt is growing year by year? That ought to be a big glaring signal that you CAN'T service the debt. I do wonder why people keep buying U.S. government bonds. I suspect the Yew Ess Gummint will end up printing money to repay the bond holders. This will cause inflation, so that the inflation exactly cancels out the return which the bondholders thought they would get. Muuaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!

Arf,

Are you a strategist?

I understand the necessity of intending to return the "loan".

But loans are generally thought to be on temporary basis.

I don't think Obama is squandering the money, and would expect that tightening of the screws will come.

But which ever way one looks at it you have a temporary devaluation of "cash" which is "inflation" from a different position.

Also, whatever is said when you think about putting money into the market by Q.E. etc. it is a form of wealth distribution. The latter is what is choking the present tory leadership.

Personally I would prefer the State ploughing money directly into the improvement of state owned infrastructure and "hoping" in permeates into the general economy.

They are beginning to do the latter, but has been delayed and it is choking some of the them.
Nos da i chwi.

Flat-rate state pension 'expected to start in 2017'

A new flat-rate state pension likely to start in April 2017 will be simpler than the current system of means-tested top-ups, the government will argue as it outlines details later.

The weekly payment will be £144 plus inflation rises between now and 2017.

The current full state pension is £107.45 a week, but can be topped up to £142.70 with pension credit.

Plans to introduce legislation were included in the Queen's Speech, but detailed proposals are now ready.

These have been expected for some time, with the aim of simplifying the system by replacing the means-tested pension credit element.

This is me.

Your post "Fiscal Cliff” in perspective, makes its own point.

Just shows how the US debt hole just keeps getting bigger.

The UK debt is just the same, with the government stating that borrowing is shrinking, but conveniently don't mention that they are still borrowing far more than the country is earning, and coupled with the interest on existing debt, we are digging almost as fast as the USA.
Most of the worlds countries are doing the same.

fred why are polish migrants ignorant dirty is it that it is normal in poland .
two girls in the pub friday they stunk and were told to leave that turned in to abusive
jestures

Inflation is a stealth tax which has been used by successive governments to lower the level of national debt.

Here's the UK position, expressed as a percentage of GDP. Fortunately, we don't have any wars to finance at the moment. I think the chart is a little out of date, and currently the debt level is between 70% and 80%.



And here's the US position. Much worse than ours imo.

UK National Debt

i'll defend the poles, for reasons other than my grandparents came from there ..... i guess in "idiot's" view they should never have been allowed in, notwithstanding that they made a success of their lives

we have a small group of poles in our little town, and as far as i can determine they work very hard indeed ...... certainly, about 6 of them run a small car-wash enterprise .... this is slowly growing thanks to their service both in greeting you and the work they do.

in london, many of the artisans and small/medium-sized building companies are polish .... our project meant that it was put it out to tender .... the winner was a polish company, which wasn't the cheapest, but had by far the fewest "grey" areas .... they worked very diligently and to an excellent standard .... i would certainly use them again

in conclusion, "idiot" spouts absolutely garbage yet again with his preposterous sweeping generalisations

go and tell those builders in ireland they are now knocking them down not fit to live in do not take my word it is there for any one to read
the workman ship was terrible if you want a cowboy then you nowhere to get one

so we are going to have a to tier pensions .
11m of pensioners that retire before april 2017 will get over£ 35 less
after paying for over 45 year or more
the tory party wil be wiped out

Tory is already dead. But Labour should choose a right leader! as well.

we have a small group of poles in our little town, and as far as i can determine they work very hard indeed ...... certainly, about 6 of them run a small car-wash enterprise .... this is slowly growing thanks to their service both in greeting you and the work they do.
so they the so clled skilled people coming to the uk
cynic so in you small town they make and pay taxes all 6 of them cleaning cars
is it april fools day

UK should learn from Australia and Canada, and focus on choosing immigrants not t be chosen by low level workers and those who come to use/misuse NHS to treat their costly illnesses free of charge.

Cameron and allies have not lived with normal people so cannot not understand .., IMO

"viilage idiot" - you really do live up to the sobriquet i have awarded you ..... you talk out of your rear end without knowledge of the facts, though that rarely bothers you ..... as all the work on my project was supervised and passed off by my very good architect, i KNOW absolutely that it was first class workmanship

as for our local car-wash guys, my first-hand experience also confirms the quality and value of their work, and as they are working on "proper" sites and not from the back of a van, i am quite sure they pay their rent, taxes and all the usual crap

i think you would be happier if you lived among the white supremacists in south africa

Homebase in Bishops stortford have the poles washing vehicals. I hardly think its tax free work. :-))

i also suppose that you'll also tell me that all YOUR local "pure white anglo-saxon" builders, plumbers, gardeners, handyman etc pay all their taxes etc on the all the cash-in-hand jobs that they do

"village idiot" by sobriquet; village idiot by nature

They do 'hand jobs' Cynic?! )


*sorry*

They give it a wash and wax here. lol