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.

“Half an hour ago on the border between Italy and Austria I saw with my own eyes a great many immigrants …



With all solidarity with people in difficult circumstances I have to say that what I saw arouses horror … This huge mass of people – sorry, that I’ll write this – but these are absolute savages … Vulgar, throwing bottles, shouting loudly “We want to Germany!” – and is Germany a paradise now?



I saw how they surrounded a car of an elderly Italian woman, pulled her by her hair out of the car and wanted to drive away in the car. They tried to overturn the bus in I travelled myself with a group of others. They were throwing faeces at us, banging on the doors to force the driver to open them, spat at the windscreen … I ask for what purpose? How is this savagery to assimilate in Germany?



I felt for a moment like in a war … I really feel sorry for these people, but if they reached Poland – I do not think that they would get any understanding from us … We were waiting three hours at the border which ultimately could not cross.



Our whole group was transported back to Italy in a police-cordon. The bus is damaged, covered with faeces, scratched, with broken windows. And this is supposed to be an idea for demographics? These big powerful hordes of savages?



Among them there were virtually no women, no children—the vast majority were aggressive young men … Just yesterday, while reading about them on all the websites I subconsciously felt compassion, worried about their fate but today after what I saw I am just afraid and yet I am happy that they did not choose our country as their destination. We Poles are simply not ready to accept these people – neither culturally nor financially.



I do not know if anyone is ready. To the EU a pathology is marching which we had not yet a chance to ever see, and I am sorry if anyone gets offended by his entry …



I can add that cars arrived with humanitarian aid – mainly food and water and they were just overturning those cars …



Through megaphones the Austrians announced that there is permission for them to cross the border—they wanted to register them and let them go on—but they did not understand these messages. They did not understand anything.



And this was the greatest horror … For among those few thousand people nobody understood Italian or English, or German, or Russian, or Spanish … What mattered was fist law… They fought for permission to move on and they had this permission— but did not realize that they had it!



They opened the luggage hatches of a French bus—and everything that was inside was stolen within short time, some things left lying on the ground …



Never in my short life had I an opportunity to see such scenes and I feel that this is just the beginning.”

Nicked from across the road.




German leadership has left the whole of Europe in crisis says Leo Mckinstry


http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/608465/Germany-crisis-Leo-McKinstry-Angela-Merkel


The EU is essentially a German-led entity with Berlin’s politicians now dictating the fate of the continent as surely as if they were in command of occupying armies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is truly the empress of this realm, capable of ruining entire European societies with just a word from her cold lips.

It is a familiar role for Germany. Ever since it first became a unified state in 1871, it has been a menace to the peace and stability of Europe.

In the modern history of the world no other advanced nation has come close to inflicting such repeated damage or spreading such profound misery.

Now the German political class is at it again, dragging Europe towards permanent ruin through its spectacular mishandling of the immigration crisis.

The scenes of chaos throughout Europe are a monument to the appalling vanity of Merkel and large sections of the German public.

In their mix of shortsightedness and smugness they are the architects of this present catastrophe

What we have really witnessed is not genuine compassion but German triumphalism in a new form. Here was a chance for Germany once again to parade its moral superiority over other nations.

Indeed Merkel wallowed in self-congratulation when she declared her open door policy “painted a picture of Germany which can make us proud of our country”.

All this trumpeted conceit is repugnant. It is a bit rich to be lectured by German politicians about the virtues of racial tolerance. Moreover there has been a large element of self-interest in the German approach since many of its policy makers seem to believe that the country needs more migrants to counter- balance the ageing population, though in practice this is economic illiteracy since all experience in Europe shows that immigrants are a colossal drain on the public purse.

But far more importantly, the remorseless flood of migrants is now tearing apart the very fabric of the European order.

Max,

Are you getting the support you need?

Never mind that , Facebook is down and their shares are down as well 4%

I'm not getting the support I think I am entitled to Fred.

My needs are huge, so can I put you down for a few bob, or your house/money/chattels?


It's good to give Fred, remember that!

I am glad you are thinking.

But I had nothing when I came, borrowed on the way, and will leave little other than memories of my existence to others.

I hope house/money/chattels are not what others remember me for.

Has the market caught up?

slashing junior doctors' pay
i know i commented similarly before, but this has to be absolute and utter total lunacy
we are already desperately short of doctors, and many will now either walk away from the profession or move abroad
a two-year old could see that this will be an inevitable result

That's ok we can have immigrant doctors , after all that's the plan is it not ,replace Brits with foreigners .

Very good read on Merkel Max and absolutely right .

on a much more serious note ......
it would make better sense to encourage doctors (and nurses) to stay on after they have qualified, perhpas by way of some financial inducement

a similar comment could be made for overseas students who qualify with good and commercially useful degrees

These days I haven't time (or inclination) to stay at a computer trading. But I do still have a bit of an interest in the equities market.

I have been very encouraged by the ideas in the reports from the researchers at Galvan. So I thought of giving them £10k to let them have a go with CFDs for me. The objective would be capital growth.

They use the City Index CFD platform, I believe, and trade both ways with FTSE 350 stocks. They generally use around a 3% stop loss.

Every time they trade, it costs from £20 to £50. A £10k overnight position long costs about £1, short being around £0.70.

It doesn't take a fool to realise, that if things do go the wrong way, you can be quickly out by several £k.

Speed of trading is going to be a problem - unless you give them more freedom of control. I immediately go, "Hmmm?".

I also think about them "churning" trades.....

They also trade IPOs, and particularly before they hit the open market.

Cash can be put in or taken out at the click of a mouse. You can 'go dormant' too.

Good stuff?

They have a good name?

Bad idea?

They have a bad name?

If I give them £10k and they can turn it into a mere £10,500 after a year, then that would be better than any bank deposit and I would get a bit of fun and interest out of it too.

Any thoughts?

Saw Corbyn's speech.. What drivel. It was just airy fairy nonsense with no substance. Labour cannot tell the difference between activists on social media and the actual electorate.

I see hays has been down to party HQ for the mantras.

Corbyn's speech was very acceptable to the conference attendees and many who have examined the speech.

That is what he needed.
=-=-==

Tell me how many more members have the two porkies signed up for the torris party since the election.

I think the tory party has been bought by a handful of hedge funders and a few trotters and the like.


--==-=

But the media and cronies and party ars. lickers will wail away as usual.

Are you practicing your curtsy?


=-=-=-=-=

Manuel,

By the way, I thought the NHS was safe in Wacky Dave's hands.

No wonder he spends his time outside the UK!

I hope he takes a passport!

What Fred post's on here, you have got wonder why he is trying to get rich on the stockmarket maybe its a case of if you beat them join them

Jeremy Corbyn doesn't want to sit in No 10. He wants to protest outside it
The Labour Party is pretending that voters don't exist


By Dan Hodges5:32PM BST 29 Sep 2015 Comments14 Comments
Imagine you are the leader of a political party. That party hasn’t won a general election for a decade. It’s unlikely to be in a position to win an election for another decade. The polls show the voters are moving even further away from your party. Or rather, you’re party is moving further away from the voters. They show the voters are also moving away from you. Your personal approval ratings are the worst ever recorded.
What do you do? What can you do?


If you’re Jeremy Corbyn, you do something that is breathtaking in both its audacity and its simplicity. You just pretend the voters don’t exist. You simply ignore them. And you hope that if you do, perhaps they’ll just go away, and never bother you or your party again.
Today was Jeremy Corbyn’s opportunity to introduce himself to the British people. His chance to tell them who he was. Where he comes from. Where he wants to go.
But he withdrew the invitation. This was a private affair. Just Jeremy and few old friends.
He didn’t literally say to the assembled delegates, “I am one of you”. But that was his message. I am one of you. I will always be one of you. I will never belong to anyone else. You certainly won’t ever catch me trying to sell myself to anyone outside of this hall.
The start of his speech was instructive. He thanked the people who had voted for him. He thanked his constituency party. He thanked his fellow leadership candidates. He thanked the Labour Party general secretary. He talked about his “mandate”. His mandate is “huge” apparently.


Then he broadened out. He spoke about Saudi human rights dissident Ali al-Nimr. He spoke about Shaker Amer who has been detained in Guantánamo Bay. He spoke about human rights abuses in Bahrain. And the assault on Yemen. Some people thought because he was now Labour leader he might stop campaigning for human rights. Or maybe begin focusing on things that were a priority to British voters. But they were wrong. He wasn’t going to let a little thing like becoming leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition change him.
Finally he began to confronted the really big issues facing the nation. Such as trolling on social media. It had to stop, he said. The conference rose in acclamation at his words. The Tories may be the people you turn to when you want things like the economy fixed. But someone swears at you on Twitter? Labour will be there.
Even though his slogan was “straight talking” there were one or two things he didn’t think it was necessary to talk straight about. Or talk about at all. Like the deficit. Unlike Ed Miliband he didn’t forget it – for the first time he was speaking from a prepared text and using an autocue. He just didn’t bother. The deficit is a bit like the voters. If you don’t mention it, it might just disappear of its own accord.


Another thing he didn’t talk about was the 2015 election. There was no attempt to analyse why Labour lost. Or how Labour lost. Or even acknowledge that Labour did lose. The closest he came was a strange passage in which he seemed to imply the Conservatives had bought the election with money provided by hedge funds.
There were odd occasions when political reality was allowed to intrude. But only on terms Jeremy Corbyn and his party could relate to. So the economic challenges facing the country were framed – inevitably – as an heroic fight against austerity. There was a housing crisis. So Labour would build more homes. Simple.
And of course, there was the obligatory ritualistic genuflection to the 150,000, the new activists who have joined the party during and since his election. Those commentators who mocked the significance of this tide of progressive humanity swelling Labour’s ranks just didn’t get it, he said. They were like sports reporters ignoring the fact a football club had lots of new fans, and sold a lot of new season tickets, and who wrote the club was struggling.

Which for me, was the defining moment of the speech. This is what Jeremy Corbyn actually believes. That the most successful football clubs aren’t the ones that assemble the best team, or score the most goals or secure the most points. But the ones who supporters cheer the loudest.
And they did cheer. At the end of his speech Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters rose and gave him a genuine, spontaneous and passionate standing ovation. Jeremy Corbyn is not leader of Her Majesty’s opposition, or a future prime minister. He is one of them. And he always will be.

This may or may not surprise you

So Corbyn trotted out almost word for word a speech rejected by Ed Miliband in 2011!

A significant chunk of Corbyn’s speech was, in its essentials, written in 2011. Not by Corbyn, of course, but by the writer Richard Heller.

Four years ago Mr Heller offered Ed Miliband some unsolicited advice. As best I can tell, Miliband ignored him. Corbyn, however, has been happy to draw upon this well. Let’s compare and contrast this speech with Heller’s words from four years ago.

Corbyn said this afternoon:

Since the dawn of history in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and clout which are denied to the many.

And time and time again, the people who receive a great deal tell the many to be grateful to be given anything at all. They say that the world cannot be changed and the many must accept the terms on which they are allowed to live in it.

And Heller said:

Since the dawn of history, in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and even sanctity, which are denied to the multitude. And time and time again, the people who receive a great deal tell the multitude to be grateful to be given anything at all. They say that the world cannot be changed and the multitude must accept the terms on which they are allowed to live in it.

And then Corbyn said:

These days this attitude is justified by economic theory. The many with little or nothing are told they live in a global economy whose terms cannot be changed. They must accept the place assigned to them by competitive markets.

By the way, isn’t it curious that globalisation always means low wages for poor people, but is used to justify massive payments to top chief executives.

Our Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude. That is still what our Labour Party is all about. Labour is the voice that says to the many, at home and abroad: “you don’t have to take what you’re given.”

And Heller wrote:

For many years, this attitude was justified in terms of high philosophy, spiritual values or religious faith. ‘The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate He made them high or lowly And ordered their estate.’ More recently, this attitude has been rationalized by economic theory. The multitudes with little or nothing are told that they live in a global economy whose terms cannot be changed: they must accept the place assigned to them by competitive markets.

“The Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude. That is still what the Labour Party is all about. Labour is the voice that says to the multitude, at home and abroad: ‘you don’t have to take what you’re given.’

Back to Corbyn’s speech. He then said:

Labour says:
“You may be born poor but you don’t have to stay poor. You don’t have to live without power and without hope. You don’t have to set limits on your talent and your ambition – or those of your children.”

“You don’t have to accept prejudice and discrimination, or sickness or poverty, or destruction and war. You don’t have to be grateful to survive in a world made by others. No, you set the terms for the people in power over you, and you dismiss them when they fail you.”

That’s what democracy is about. That has always been our Labour Party’s message. You don’t have to take what you’re given.

It was the great Nigerian writer Ben Okri who perhaps put it best: “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love”.

Compare that to what Heller wrote:

“Labour says: ‘you may be born poor but you don’t have to stay poor. You don’t have to live without power and without hope. You don’t have to set limits on your talent and your ambition – or those of your children.You don’t have to accept prejudice and discrimination, or sickness or destitution, or destruction and war. You don’t have to be grateful to survive in a world made by others. No, you set the terms for the people in power over you, and you dismiss them when they fail you.’

“That has always been Labour’s message. You don’t have to take what you’re given.”

Then Corbyn said:

But they’re at it again. The people who want you to take what you’re given. This Tory government. This government which was made by the few – and paid for by the few.

Since becoming leader David Cameron has received £55 million in donations from hedge funds. From people who have a lot and want to keep it all.

And this is what Heller advised:

“They’re at it again. The people who want you to take what you’re given. This Tory-led government. This government which was made by the few – and paid by the few. Before the last election David Cameron’s received £x millions in donations from just y people. People to whom much had been given and who wanted to keep it.

Corbyn continues:

That is why this pre-paid government came into being.

To protect the few and tell all the rest of us to accept what we’re given. To deliver the £145 million tax break they have given the hedge funds in return.

They want us to believe there is no alternative to cutting jobs.

Slashing public services. Vandalising the NHS. Cutting junior doctor’s pay. Reducing care for the elderly.Destroying the hopes of young people for a college education or putting university graduates into massive debt. Putting half a million more children in poverty.

They want the people of Britain to accept all of these things. They expect millions of people to work harder and longer for a lower quality of life on lower wages. Well, they’re not having it. Our Labour Party says no. The British people never have to take what they are given.

And Heller wrote:

“That is why this Tory-led government came into being. To protect the few and tell all the rest of us to accept what we’re given. David Cameron and George Osborne want us to believe that there is no alternative to cutting jobs, slashing public services, vandalizing the NHS, attacking pensions, reducing care for the elderly. Destroying the hopes of young people for a college education – or a decent job afterwards if they do manage to get one. They want the British people to accept all of these things. They expect millions of people to work harder and longer for a lower quality of life. They want families to accept more stress and hardship and whole communities to accept destruction.

“Labour says no. You don’t have to accept any of these things. No one has to take what they’re given from David Cameron and George Osborne.”

fred - there's no denying that NHS is a huge drain on resources and it is nowhere near as efficient as it should be .... further, it cannot possibly cope with a growing and ageing population

NHS should not be a political issue, but it is inevitable that it has become such

the ideal option would be to scrap it and start all over again, but for obvious reasons that is not possible
raising taxes through the roof against the so-called rich to fund NHS - and of course for all the other pet schemes of JC's - also does not work as has been shown throughout history

do i have an answer?
no, i can't say that i do, but mangling junior doctor's wages to help out NHS is also and most assuredly not the answer

http://news.sky.com/story/1561154/corbyns-speech-was-offered-to-ed-miliband

you prefer a lot with addled brains?