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.

Missed on the Buses...(the inspector made the show)....I used to think....saw a Carry on film a couple of weeks ago....with Corbett as a dectective....looking for Watt...sort of "The Munsters show"....ohhhh Iiii... sayyyy....with Kenneth Williams....those bolts...really suit you Herman....(along those lines)....a scream.....

What a jumper.

Some things to read at leisure .. the end of the US dollar as a reserve currency?

Long-ish articles, well worth a read imo.



China


Dec 17, '14



THE ROVING EYE
Go west, young Han
By Pepe Escobar

November 18, 2014: it's a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China's Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9.

Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain.



More: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-171214.html


...................................................................................

Russia and China, time's, they are a changing...


Russian Roulette – Is the west about to shoot itself in the head, heart and the foot – just to make sure?

Posted on December 24, 2014 Updated on December 26, 2014


One year on, as the Federal Reserve celebrates another birthday, both Gold and Silver were beaten down in the London aftermarket close, while trading was at its lowest. And the Russian Rouble was similarly attacked by those behind the curtain.

As the Russian Rouble recovers some of its losses of the last week, in the last few days, I have been re-visiting some of my reading matter, of the last few weeks.

Ever since Russia annexed Crimea, ostensibly to give citizenship to ethnic Russians, but many feel it was to save its only warm water port, “The West”, has been ratcheting up the tension and the rhetoric on Russia.

The NATO block has interfered in Ukraine, too many times. The American led organisation the IMF, has been interfering, with its money, and the West has provided IMF led financial support to the Ukrainian Government and military, and rumours abound, that the IMF and its minions have taken Ukraine’s Gold – some 40 tons apparently – as a surety. (Rumoured to be the source of Holland’s recently returned 127 tons of Gold).

According to Bloomberg today, Ukraine has sold more of its Gold holdings, reducing its holdings from 26.1 tons, to 23.6 tons (2.5 tons) and Russia has bought more rising from 1,168.7 tons to 1,187.5 tons (18.8 tons).

But Russia is not the one in trouble – the Fed and the U.S. is. Russia’s Debt to GDP ratio is roughly 11 percent. What is the Debt to GDP ratio in the United States? According to the IMF it’s 112 percent. What is the Debt to GDP ratio in Japan? It’s a staggering 230 percent. And Russia is sitting on a lot of reserves of very valuable natural resources.



More: http://moneymatterstoo.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/russian-roulette-is-the-west-about-to-shoot-itself-in-the-head-heart-and-the-foot-just-to-make-sure/?preview=true&preview_id=28691&preview_nonce=957e3242a0&post_format=standard

The US debt is not a problem. China holds a huge amount of the debt. Both parties are happy with this. The US gets funded by China and they get access to a huge market enabling their rapid expansion. It also means a lower exchange rate for China. This relationship has existed for many years already and is set to continue into the middle of this century.

The point of both articles have sailed straight past you...you didn't even come close to twigging.

Both the articles are similar to a number of similar pieces written recently. It is a sort of alternative reality. I am not sure what the motives are of the authors.

Our area has a warning for tomorrow for 'yellow snow'.

Or was it a 'yellow warning' for snow? Hmmm? Well, whatever....

Warning: Do not eat yellow snow.

From the comment section:


If you pay for your van, pay for the fuel and pay for the insurance City Link will still give you a job! (According to their website).


Become a Service Delivery Partner with City Link

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Low-cost entry (Giles Insurance, fully liveried sub-letting vehicle scheme, flat rate VAT scheme)
Competitive rates of pay
Prompt BACS payments
Full training
A branded uniform
Working as a Service Delivery Partner is rewarding both financially and personally. You can expect flexibility, great rates of pay and plenty of support and advice from us.
Click below to apply for the opportunity to partner with City Link and earn as you deliver.

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City Link Owner Drivers
A branded uniform! 170 drops a day!

*City Link gives no guarantee that there will be parcels for delivery and/or collection on any day. City Link is not under any obligation to provide a minimum amount of work or any work to the SDP.



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/dec/26/ben-jennings-collapse-city-link-cartoon

It is up to HMRC to determine self employment. The basis always was that self employment was not allowed where you worked exclusively for one company for a long period, meaning you were not running a proper business. This relationship was always regarded as employer/ employee. There has always been casual labour to cope with temporary needs such as seasonal demand.

Yes, thats's the way it used to be.

It's obviously changed, and not for the better.

Most self employed people don't know how to run a business, they confuse going to work with making money...see city link story above.

Even if the company had kept going, most of the self employed drivers would have eventually gone bust...you cant run a business on the rates being offered, not with the overheads that come with the "job"

The courier business is a very difficult one to run. Without the self employed incentive, parcels turn up much later. Since the mass changeover to self employed status, we now receive packages in record time. The drive for this speed has come from online businesses such as Amazon, EBay and stores like Argos, Tesco, John Lewis. The genie out of the box now and it would be difficult to return to the previously slower service. The current self employed system gives an incentive to couriers to deliver at speed.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/26/labour-bloodbath-scotland-general-election-2015-snp-westminster

Labour set for a bloodbath in Scotland in general election, poll says

Labour is on course for a bloodbath in Scotland in 2015, according to a special Guardian/ICM online poll.

The Scottish National party, which took only 20% of the vote in the 2010 general election, has subsequently more than doubled its vote to reach a commanding 43% of the prospective poll next May. Scottish Labour, which secured a very strong 42% in Gordon Brown’s homeland last time around, has since tumbled by 16 points to just 26%.

The Conservatives sink from 2010’s 17% to 13%, while the great bulk of the 19% share that the Liberal Democrats scored last time around is wiped out as they fall by 13 points to 6%.



On a uniform swing, these results – which are reinforced by a recent Survation poll for the Daily Record – would entirely redraw the political map. Labour’s band of 41 Scottish MPs would be reduced to a parliamentary rump of just 10 members, underlining that the Scottish party’s newly elected leader, Jim Murphy, has a mountain to climb.

The SNP, meanwhile, would storm ahead from the mere six MPs it returned in 2010 to take a crushing majority of 45 of Scotland’s 59 constituencies. The Lib Dems, who currently hold 11 seats, would lose all but three, and the Tories would continue to languish with the single seat they currently hold.

Such dramatic Labour losses north of the border could easily offset the gains Ed Miliband hopes to make in England and Wales and potentially put Downing Street beyond his reach next year. But a unique analysis, conducted for the Guardian by Prof John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, suggests that the crude assumption of a uniform swing could actually be understating the catastrophe facing the party.

I would be surprised if Mundell held held his seat and would expect at the May election that Labour will hold on to 30 seats.

Cameron's bribery will back fire.

I would be surprised if Mundell held held his seat and would expect at the May election that Labour will hold on to 30 seats.

Cameron's bribery will back fire.

We’ve almost arrived at the Christmas break. Today we have new polls from Opinium (their last of the year) and YouGov (their penultimate of the year – there is one more to come on Monday night). I’m not sure when Populus put out their final poll of the year, and Survation have a Scottish poll being published next week, but that should be it for the year.

Topline figures for today’s two polls are:

Opinium/Observer – CON 29%(nc), LAB 36%(+2), LDEM 6%(nc), UKIP 16%(-3), GRN 5% (tabs)

YouGov/Sunday Times – CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 8% (tabs)



Latest YouGov / The Sun results 22nd December - Con 32%, Lab 36%, LD 6%, UKIP 16%; APP -22

Just like Osborne and Cameron and cronies have done!

Cruella, has just done a deal with Boris Berlusconi.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/referendum-reset-voting-dials-as-scottish-majority-switch-to-support-snp-over-labour-9946040.html

Labour Party faces wipe-out in Scotland as majority expected to vote for SNP

The Labour Party could face being wiped-out in Scotland – despite a leadership change – due to the growing popularity of the SNP in the run up to the general election next May, a poll suggested on Friday.

The stronghold threat comes two weeks after Jim Murphy was declared the new leader of the party which is expected to get 26 per cent of the vote while the pro-independence Scottish National Party is on track for 43 per cent, a Guardian/ICM poll of 1,004 Scottish adults states.

A dramatic turnaround, based on Labour’s 42 per cent in 2010, could diminish any hopes for Ed Miliband to beat the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition to form his own Labour-lead government next year.

Labour’s previous hold on 41 seats could slip down to 10, while SNP are set to increase their takeover from six seats to 45 of Scotland’s 59 total places in the House of Commons.

Although the SNP lost a historic independence referendum in September, by 55 per cent compared to 45, it has been said to have forever changed the landscape of Scottish politics with a high voter turnout of nearly 85 per cent of the whole population.

“We are prospectively looking at the collapse of citadels that have always been Labour since the 1920s,” Professor John Curtice, a polling expert from Strathclyde University, told the Guardian newspaper.

“It is becoming clear that the independence referendum has reset all the dials.

“Previously rock-solid Labour seats in Glasgow voted yes in the referendum, and this now appears to be giving rise to a particular surge of nationalist sentiment in those parts of Scotland where it was once assumed that the SNP couldn’t reach.”

This is the important part of the article above


A dramatic turnaround, based on Labour’s 42 per cent in 2010, could diminish any hopes for Ed Miliband to beat the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition to form his own Labour-lead government next year.

Unless the SNP do a deal with old labour.