For those who have a brain.

[davek]

Sorry Dave, I forgot Cameron was planning to use one of those earthquake bombs as soon as he gets into power. Probably on a coal mine in Wales somewhere. Just because.

He wont need an earthquake bomb - the swingeing cuts will bring the country to its knees.

Still, as long as the chinless chaps from the Bullingdon Club are boxed off.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

A country that's reliant on the state sector to survive will suffer. I mentioned in another thread, in some parts of the country the state has a larger share of the economy than in Soviet era Russia. I appreciate that this is probably a good thing in Daveland but thankfully many disagree.

 

[davek]

A country that's reliant on the state sector to survive will suffer. I mentioned in another thread, in some parts of the country the state has a larger share of the economy than in Soviet era Russia. I appreciate that this is probably a good thing in Daveland but thankfully many disagree.

In Daveland we've nationalised the commanding heights of the economy...everyone wears red pioneer bandanas and sings songs all day long.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

i swanned through school tbh, and probably wasted my 'free' education, i was a child so was it not the job of the school system to see that i reached my potential ? it was the old gce o'levels that i did, and i managed to get 6 with very little effort and no revision whatsoever, now to me someone should have taken me aside and said "you should be going on to 6th form and uni and not going into a manual trade" you can't really lay the blame at the door of someone because as a 13 y.o. they wanted to arse about. i was at an educational level that was quite alien to my family and also some of the options available to me would've been alien to them as well. if i had gone on to uni i would've been the 1st from our family to do so. so before you lay the blame with those who wasted everything that was before them and now it's their own fault, just bear in mind that guidance isn't necessarily available to everyone.(i'm meaning others here, not me, i'm quite content with shiz).

i don't earn much and if it wasn't for tax credits i would be in deep shoite, but i get to be a part of everything in my kids lives, i can pay the bills, the kids get to do all their activities and we all have our health, i cba being part of the rat-race anymore and try to keep up with the joneses etc.(i would have to work all kinds of long shifts and weird hours for not a lot more really) i see people close by that earn big money, sometimes more in a month than i do in a year, but they are envious of the time i get to spend with my family, sure they can afford shiz that i can't but tbh i don't strive to be like them. of course i would like some of the material things that they have but then they would love to have done a lot of the things that i have over the years. they can go on as many flash annual holidays as they like, but they will never in their lifetime catch up with the ones i had over a period of 7 years travelling, and i do somehow manage a 3 week holiday every summer, which always gets the response of "3 weeks.. you must be doin' alright", no actually i just know how to do things in a way that i can afford them.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

i swanned through school tbh, and probably wasted my 'free' education, i was a child so was it not the job of the school system to see that i reached my potential ? it was the old gce o'levels that i did, and i managed to get 6 with very little effort and no revision whatsoever, now to me someone should have taken me aside and said "you should be going on to 6th form and uni and not going into a manual trade" you can't really lay the blame at the door of someone because as a 13 y.o. they wanted to arse about. i was at an educational level that was quite alien to my family and also some of the options available to me would've been alien to them as well. if i had gone on to uni i would've been the 1st from our family to do so. so before you lay the blame with those who wasted everything that was before them and now it's their own fault, just bear in mind that guidance isn't necessarily available to everyone.(i'm meaning others here, not me, i'm quite content with shiz).

I was much the same, coming from a working class home without a university background. It wasn't until I was 20 or so that I woke up and realised that there's a whole lot of cool things out there to learn about. School wasn't good at all, and I fear that they certainly aren't these days because they teach kids to pass exams rather than enstalling in them a love of learning. That's one of the reasons why I support a small government because education should not be tied to politics, it's far too important for that.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

You can't rely on the government for bugger all, whoever is in charge. All you can do is give yourself the very best odds of succeeding by trying bloody hard.

Agreed, but some determine how high those odds are stacked against you. If you really want to give yourself the best possible odds of succedding, move abroad.

And Reidy, behave lad - instead of going on your jollies for seven years you should have got your head into studying. Don't blame Thatcher for your seven year bender.

*waits - this is going to be brilliant lads. reidy is worse than old Ghost and apple.*

 

[Robert Jarvis]

I do not think the current state of the Country's finances is a laughing matter.

Surely as we have a mountain of debt something needs to be done. If you have a mountain of debt there are only 3 ways to sort it out,

Cut your spending to what you can afford,

Try and raise your income

Do both

but surely it is madness to keep spending money you have not got and which you have to borrow thus increasing your debt.

 

[davek]

I do not think the current state of the Country's finances is a laughing matter.

Surely as we have a mountain of debt something needs to be done. If you have a mountain of debt there are only 3 ways to sort it out,

Cut your spending to what you can afford,

Try and raise your income

Do both

but surely it is madness to keep spending money you have not got and which you have to borrow thus increasing your debt.

If the government hadn't stood behind the toxic debts run up by the freeloaders in the financial services sector, delivered quantitative easing, dropped VAT and propped up the motor industry with the car scrappage scheme you'd have 4-5 million unemployed right now.

Slash and burn prudence and the resultant mass unemployment/social dislocation, or continued intervention in the short to medium term in attempt to stimulate a recovery. The choice is a simple one at the next election.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Agreed, but some determine how high those odds are stacked against you. If you really want to give yourself the best possible odds of succedding, move abroad.

And Reidy, behave lad - instead of going on your jollies for seven years you should have got your head into studying. Don't blame Thatcher for your seven year bender.

*waits - this is going to be brilliant lads. reidy is worse than old Ghost and apple.*

far from being on my jollies mate, working 14 straight 12 hour shifts in holland, did that for about a year.
you have to work to survive, when you emigrate you are often putting everything you have into it and start again from scratch, then you end up having to work the shifts that nobody else wants cos you are new,they still have unemployment in these places so you aren't alone in looking for a job, we both worked 12 hour nights on a crap wage for the 1st year.
i got a job that tbh i'm amazed i got, the hand of fate waved my way really and as well as being as well paid as i could get over there, there was plenty of overtime which they needed me to do, towards the end of the year my manager said that his boss had said to stop my o.t. for a spell so that i wouldn't earn more than him, he wasn't arsed if i did cos he knew how many hours i was putting in. twas a good job, i didn't arse around and i'm certain it would've led to better things, although with plenty of cash i was happy as i was.
again after we came back it was start from scratch with no money left due to havin' to spend it all, again it was a case of having to work daft shifts to get back on our feet. it's the only way you can earn a decent wage in engineering these days, plus employers pay crap knowing that you can get tax credits to boost your income, which they used to do with the old system as well.
even these days, if the phone rings tonight i have to go to work, no matter what time it is.

from what i've seen it's the 4 years at uni that was jollies.

i still get election papers arriving from new zealand with a postal voting form, i don't vote though as it's nothing to do with me unless i decided to go back. i voted just before i left, with the decision based on who would help the people i knew the most.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Agreed, but some determine how high those odds are stacked against you. If you really want to give yourself the best possible odds of succedding, move abroad. *waits - this is going to be brilliant lads. reidy is worse than old Ghost and apple.*

Sure, that's just the nature of life though. The wealthy will always have an advantage over the poor. Equally some will be blessed by the genetic lottery, be it with natural intelligence or good looks. That's just the way things are. You can't complain about the lot you're given, just try to make the best of it.

You sense as a nation we're at a crossroads. The government is increasing in size and influence. Of course the government doesn't produce anything. The only industry we really rule the world in now is finance and there seems a widespread desire to drive that industry elsewhere as well.

Demographically this could bankrupt us. The government has already shown an unwillingness to challenge the unions over public sector pensions, which is creating a large, elderly and dependent population and an increasingly narrow base of workers to pay for this social security. We're not having enough babies naturally so the only way to keep things going is through migration, which of course causes its own problems.

This isn't going to change unless someone has the courage to make some big decisions. Labour have shown through their tenure that they won't do it. I'm not sure the Tories will be any better. It strikes at the fundamentals of the political system as it always encourages vocal minorities.

To use a made up example. UK farmers benefit from the CAP implemented by the EU to restrict competitive access to the European market by farmers outside of the EU. This harms the consumer with less selection and higher prices. Now lets say each farmer benefits from this to the tune of £1,000 a year. If there are 100,000 farmers in the country it costs the nation £10m, or £1.6 for each UK citizen. So it's obviously worth the farmers while to lobby for something that benefits them but harms society, but not really worth the rest of societies time to fight it.

The whole area of lobbying operates on a similar principle and ensures that decisions are made for wholly inappropriate reasons.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

If the government hadn't stood behind the toxic debts run up by the freeloaders in the financial services sector, delivered quantitative easing, dropped VAT and propped up the motor industry with the car scrappage scheme you'd have 4-5 million unemployed right now.

Slash and burn prudence and the resultant mass unemployment/social dislocation, or continued intervention in the short to medium term in attempt to stimulate a recovery. The choice is a simple one at the next election.

It's short-termism in the extreme. The governments answer to a situation arrived at by excess borrowing was to drop the interest rate to historic lows to encourage people to borrow yet more.

The whole point of markets is that those companies that perform badly fail, and those that do well succeed. Yet we have this ridiculous situation of companies 'too big to fail'. So these failing banks have been bailed out and nothing has changed.

This culture of excess borrowing, especially in the property sector, is giving Greece incredible difficulties, with Spain not too far behind.

I'd give short odds on something very similar happening again before long.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

It's short-termism in the extreme. The governments answer to a situation arrived at by excess borrowing was to drop the interest rate to historic lows to encourage people to borrow yet more.

The whole point of markets is that those companies that perform badly fail, and those that do well succeed. Yet we have this ridiculous situation of companies 'too big to fail'. So these failing banks have been bailed out and nothing has changed.

This culture of excess borrowing, especially in the property sector, is giving Greece incredible difficulties, with Spain not too far behind.

I'd give short odds on something very similar happening again before long.

is that gonna get us back our 60p euro ?

 

[davek]

It's short-termism in the extreme. The governments answer to a situation arrived at by excess borrowing was to drop the interest rate to historic lows to encourage people to borrow yet more.

The whole point of markets is that those companies that perform badly fail, and those that do well succeed. Yet we have this ridiculous situation of companies 'too big to fail'. So these failing banks have been bailed out and nothing has changed.

This culture of excess borrowing, especially in the property sector, is giving Greece incredible difficulties, with Spain not too far behind.

I'd give short odds on something very similar happening again before long.

But there's been a shaking out in banking, we've seen big beasts go to the wall and others merge. The bounses run up in banking are as a result of that concentration. As for dropping interest rates: I'm sure lots of home 'owners' with whacking mortgages were grateful for the measure. When the market ****s up, the State steps in. Simple as that.

 

[neville]

Evening Toffees

My humble opinion through experience

How a working class person can vote tory is beyond me

Labour are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination

However I have a long memory

I am a Health and Safety Consultant and know first hand that the Tories want to 'deregulate' Health and Safety

Alarm bells

I will be voting labour

 

[Gazdalf]

I would choose Lib Dems if I could be bothered. At least they have a man that has the brains to sort out the Finances of the country.