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.

I think Clegg realises he's may a bit of burke of himself over it and is trying to move away onto something else.

Very good Hilary.. Btw what are your thoughts on a GJ short?

Shortie 2 days blimey, your very lucky. I just want some hay fever tablets and I have to wait for 2weeks and 2 days before I can see my doctor.

This is the norm aswel.

In fact last year in the summer it got to over three weeks and the local newspaper got hold of the news.

Soon had it back down to 2 weeks but thats far too long.

You can get an emergency appointment on the same day if you ring before 8.30 am but what is an emergency!!!!!!

Jesus have you seen the sell off on the FTSE 250..........stonking.

Wonder if its time to get my shorting boots on.

I hear Evil K today as borrowed more on Mothercare his biggest short for a few years.

My near neighbours, Paul and Sandra Dunham are presently in hospital. They were actually taken there this morning, the very day of their extradition flight to the USA.

They were due to present themselves at 10am to London police station. for extradition to the USA on a flight later today.

I have only just found out from a 'Comment' at the bottom of an Internet News article, and probably because his name has been kept in the background, that they have a very clever son, whose name is Dean Dunham.

Did you catch Freddie Starr on TV a few days ago? Freddy kept quiet and his solicitor did the talking. This was a day or so before Freddie was interviewed by Susanna Reid and got his name in the media again for walking out on her.

You can have only one guess at the name of this lawyer, who is one of the most prominent in the UK.

Here is the lawyer's web site:

http://www.consumeruk.co.uk/about.asp

I never take take me shorting boots off GF...

LOL, I probably wouldnt either but due to other business commitments I cant give shorting or intraday trading all the time I would like to give as in the past.

Chris, dont you worry bud, we'l be back next year,

Reckon it will be a double winning season.

Lower low and a higher high on the 5-minute, Shortie, but it's been tightly rangebound since yesterday morning's sell-off and the bounding lines are quite clearly defined.

It doesn't know if it's Arthur or Martha at the moment so, personally, I'd let it decide first and hop on board then once it breaks from the range. The market will still be there tomorrow or the next day or whenever it decides where to go...

You might have called it right, but it's just a gamble with a poor risk/reward ratio in my eyes while it's in that range.

One Million Housing Benefit Claimants Who Are Officially ‘Employed’ Makes A Mockery Of The Fall In Unemployment
Posted on May 15, 2014 by johnny void



The number of people with jobs forced to claim Housing Benefit hit record levels according to the latest figures making a mockery of the so-called fall in unemployment.

The number of in-work Housing Benefit claimants now stands at over 1.049 million, the highest figure on record. In May 2010, when this Government weren’t elected, the number claiming this benefit was just over 650,000.

Housing Benefit is probably the best indicator of how many people in the UK are poor. Available to those in or out of work, as well as pensioners, the only criteria are being a tenant on a low income and having low, or no, assets or savings. Even those with jobs on Housing Benefit will have a disposable income little higher than someone on out of work benefits, as the benefit is reduced as earnings rise*. All of the Housing Benefit bill goes to landlords, and the rates are capped at the bottom 30% of properties in the local rental market.

Both the press and politicians are finally questioning whether the fall in unemployment is masked by a huge increase in the number of self-employed people who are barely scraping an income. People are known to have been encouraged to come off unemployment benefits and claim the lower rate of Working Tax Credits by companies running Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare-to-work schemes. These firms receive huge pay outs if they can persuade a claimant to take this risky move, which involves declaring themselves as working at least 30 hours a week towards self-employment.

If this was happening on a large scale then you would expect the number of in-work Housing Benefit claimants to soar. The same would happen if many of the people now officially ‘employed’ are actually on workfare, or zero hours contracts with sporadic and precarious incomes. That is exactly what’s happening. The number of people overall claiming housing benefits hit 5 million households last February and has more or less stayed there ever since. This is a quarter of a million more than in May 2010 and the figures were at record highs then. The rise is almost entirely down to claimants who the Government say are working.

If these claimants were actually earning any money, then this would be seen in the average weekly Housing Benefit claim for those in work. As previously mentioned, the benefit is cut as incomes rise, so it could be that people are only claiming a few pounds a week to top up meagre incomes and pay soaring rents. The figures show however that this is far from the case. The average weekly Housing Benefit claim for those in work also hit a record high in the latest period and now stands at £90.44 a week. This is only just under £3 less than the average claim for those out of work. What this suggests is that most of these working Housing Benefit claimants have full awards, meaning they are only earning a few pounds at most above current unemployment benefit rates.

No matter how much the Government try to claim that official unemployment has fallen, the number of people who have incomes around the current level of out of work benefits is higher than ever. This is the reality of the recovery for those not enjoying George Osborne’s house price bubble. And with both in and out of work benefits being haphazardly slashed, not only are more people poor than ever before, but they are getting poorer.

Above graph from the latest DWP Quarterly Statistical Summary (PDF).

As employment increases you would expect the numbers in work claiming benefits to increase.

quite extraordinary - well not really ...... sticky is great at ladling out rubbish and worse, but God forbid you should call him an idiot, let alone a liar in his turn

Now come on read it properly Hays.

And if you said that, to say someone who had never ever claimed benefit like my late father, hed have wondered what on earth you were talking about.

His outlook would be why do you need benefits if your working.

Lets face it and be honest here you are only claiming housing benefit because you are on a low take home wage/salary and housing costs have spiralled out of control.

but if you read sticky's usual stuff, he frequently tells a different story when it suits about house prices, and thus rental levels once you get north of the wash

the answers of course are never anywhere near as simple as most post here

If there was a figure of say 5% of employees working and claiming benefit then an increase in employment would produce 5% of new employees claiming on a pro rata basis.
Now, of course, these new employees coming off unemployment will have a lower average income as the normal figure includes people on high and very high earnings. Getting a job from unemployment will put you at the bottom of the scale in wages.

This means that the 5% figure is far too low and the real increase in working claiming benefit will be a much higher increase, possibly 10%.

(note, the figures of 5% and 10% are for illustration purposes)

Hays not with you sorry, can you put it another way please.

We are now living in the benefit utopia of the world in this country. I was born in an era where my parents couldn't afford central heating, despite the fact my father worked his socks off and my mother stayed at home to look after her 2 children. We couldn't afford holidays, go to the pub or eat in fancy restaurants. My parents didn't have credit cards, so if we didn't have money in the bank to pay for something we didn't get it. This is not a sob story, quite the contrary as I'm very grateful I have been brought up to understand that if I want to buy something I have to work to afford it. It's become the modern mentality with a large section of the population in this country to think that the country owes them a living, but I guess you cannot blame people for using the system and abusing it when it's there to be abused.

Thanks for the view Hilary. I made the call on the basis GJ seamed to top out technically. Also if consumption falls ultimatly this has knock on effect within money supply and deflation.

hays - your logic has to be faulty .....

if you're unemployed, you'll be getting housing benefit
if you're employed, and certainly if you work more than 16 hours a week (i think that's right), your housing benefit is cut