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Money v Making Stuff-Should Britain bid farewell to the golden egg of banking.
Jeremy Bosk
Posted: 29 August 2011 23:52:28(UTC)

Joined: 09/06/2010(UTC)
Posts: 1,316

Prof

At your recommendation I have just wasted half an hour of my life reading that thread looking for something, anything either interesting, new or worth repeating. Some parts that initially looked interesting I read twice but concluded that they were just blah.

That thread is appallingly empty of facts, relevance or reason. They discuss whether the rot set in in 1997 or in the eighties under Thatcher. They discuss whether Cameron is a bigger crook than Blair. Please tell them that you have changed your mind and want them to stay away.

engineertony

It sounds as though you led an interesting and useful life before you retired and are enjoying your retirement now. Well done.

For your sanity stay away from "-Chart of the Day- UK Economy, more and more sickly".
Robert Court
Posted: 30 August 2011 09:59:19(UTC)

Joined: 22/08/2011(UTC)
Posts: 606

engineertony

Great to see somebody with a positive attitude who is still busy doing things he enjoys doing!

I had an elder brother who started work in a period of high inflation and fairly rapidly moved to a 6 digit salary (at least 10 times what I earned by the time he reached this figure).

I saved for two years after getting married to buy my first ever washing machine and it took me several years to save enough to afford to buy a house outright, but didn't due to the negative attitude of my then wife.

The thing is this:

He'd invite me along with a party of friends to a ski lodge where he'd hired his own private ski instructor. I would have only been able to afford to buy a round of drinks for his friends if I'd dipped into my life savings.

However, he had a great lifestyle whilst I lived within my means. He was capital rich and cash poor - myself vice versa.

I don't envy him.

He's dead.............. but at least he lived whilst alive.

I agree with you 100% re. increasing debt by 5% per annum.

The country is a cybernetic higher recursion of the lowest component - an individual.

You can say that if an individual can afford a 2.5 times salary mortgage then a country can afford to borrow 2.5 times its 'earnings' to invest in something good and strong and 'permanent', but we'd all prefer to own our living environment and feel insecure.

Governments borrowing money just to help pay back what they already owe equate to your individual stung by the zero percent credit cards - imagine a country's credit rating goes south and ending up paying 27% interest!

That would surely be time to call it a day and move to another planet!
Anonymous Post
Posted: 30 August 2011 20:54:53(UTC)
Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

Jeremy Bosk
Just catching up on a few posts.i.e. yours at #371-hope a reference to a past post does not upset you .
On occasion I have been somewhat provocative to help generate discussion.
With respect my English I recognise that without a shadow of doubt it is nowhere near as good as yours, and quite a number of other participants on Citywire. You yourself have complimented some of them, like Rose G.
You are very observant, and I have to admit to being bi-lingual, so my English is not as good as so that of some other participants.
Nevertheless, I do believe I have a good understanding of the posts.

Prof Eman
Moylando
Posted: 30 August 2011 21:53:57(UTC)

Joined: 08/09/2010(UTC)
Posts: 28

I occasionally dip into this thread to see where you doom merchants have got to. I see its got to somewhere between despair and armageddon.

The thing that seems to worry you is that this small country of ours has declined from the heights it once ( relatively briefly ) scaled
having been a quiet backwater away from the hubs of civilisation for most of its history.

Now with many other countries we are suffering a bit - but this only really matters at the level of individual, family and small community levels where things are good or not so good depending mainly on circumstances which can be unfavourable but which compared with most of the worlds population are idyllic.

The circumstances of this country are that it is one of the most affluent in the world, the people in it have enough food, we are free within the law, communication is open, discrimination is low, education is provided for all, we have a decent health service, opportunities for improvement exist to be taken. We are a democracy. We are reasonably well served by government ( given the inexorable frailty of democratic government ) People have leisure and entertainment choices. Our climate is temperate and we rarely experience major disruption by natural events or social disorder. Nothing is perfect and there are a few things that are dysfunctional.
Most important we have the capacity both as individuals and groups to shape our future. Despite our relative decline we are still abundantly better off than British people were a few decades ago.

We are more fortunate in material terms than 95% plus of the worlds population. We have expectations and hopes which may turn out to disappoint us. In many countries people dare not hope and expect little

Reading some contrived partisan chart from some vague economic chronicle a contributor chimes ... 'more bad news'
Bad news ? Try Ethiopia - Bangladesh - Gaza

engineertony
Posted: 30 August 2011 22:49:53(UTC)

Joined: 24/05/2011(UTC)
Posts: 71

Robert Court

Kind words, and I perhaps have followed your brother, been to the top, all five star, business, owned five houses, country clubs and black tie gatherings. Then down to the bottom some twenty years ago, walking the streets, in the reading room all day for a warm with the tramps & homeless. Life is great, re-married and back up from zero, retired and very happy, lots to live for.

Back to borrowing. It all depends what we do with what we borrow. I borrowed to buy a Caterpillar digger and it's been worth it's weight in copper ( £4500/ton), cleared the undergrowth on two acres and turned over the soil to a good depth, dug out to repair burst water pipe, dug out to repair septic tank (this is Scotland), and the local agent says he'll sell it for me for what I paid for it. Borrowing money with no return or chance of a return is when the problems start.
Incidentally copper has been at £6000/tonand looks like rising again...these are scrap prices.

Moylando

Agree, agree, Britain is a great place to live. I've worked in some of these places, been chased out of Iran when the Shah left and Ayatollah Khomeini returned, some of the Americans didn't make it. Even in the oil rich middle east, there's people starving, there are slaves and all kinds of injustice, thousands without any papers/passports/birth certificates. I saw kids in Malaysia with disabled limbs because they'd had a break which was never properly set. We had a hairy time in Iran after the invasion, we lost a tractor & trailer to bandits after a crane had been delivered to Basra, we got chased to the Kuwaiti border by gunmen just out to rob us of our 4X4.

All

There's only one answer if you've got into debt and have to keep borrowing to service it, stop living for a while, turn the heating off, live on beans, no holidays, sell the stuff you don't need, sell the car, sell the house or one or two of them. I've been there, it works.
Translate this into a national strategy and ten years from now we'll be balancing the books, and living at the standard of living we earn and deserve. Perhaps it doesn't matter whether it's earned from manufacturing or from sleight of hand as long as the earnings beat the spending.

Jeremy Bosk
Posted: 31 August 2011 00:06:40(UTC)

Joined: 09/06/2010(UTC)
Posts: 1,316

Prof

Now that I know where you are coming from I will find it easier to keep my cool. I feel guilty whenever I am nasty to you as I know some of it must be my lack of understanding.

Others

Yes. Time to count our blessings.
Robert Court
Posted: 31 August 2011 07:54:38(UTC)

Joined: 22/08/2011(UTC)
Posts: 606

engineertony

I believe in a healthy society.

I know that people who are suffering probably feel that things can't get much worse, but they could as you've pointed out and that even the poorest in the UK are probably far better off than many millions if not billions of people elsewhere.

What's lacking is real leadership at the present, somebody who can pull the country together and make us ALL feel we are doing our bit.

Lots of people have written about the negative side of Churchill - that he was a drunken manic depressive etc but he united the country 'in its hour of need'

We need somebody who could even appeal to those on benefits and want them to cry out:

'Here's my widow's mite! Here's 10 pence of my lousy £46 per week! Take it please if it helps make my country strong again!'

The country DOES need to live within its means.

We can be far more prosperous if we can only 'make hay while the sun shines' and then have something to fall back onto when the economic tide next turns against us.

I know Norway has a tiny population compared with the UK but look what they did with their oil money!

Not just this generation, but also their children and their grandchildren are almost 100% guaranteed to benefit as the national fund set up by Norway's governments is a huge insurance pot that hasn't been squandered away (unlike our country's taxes from North Sea Oil & Gas).

In good times the government needs to have such a surplus of tax revenues or 'whatever' and then gently stimulate the economy in times of need (but ONLY from previously gained wealth).

To desperately borrow when already hugely in debt and make even just paying back the interest an onerous task (let alone the capital) makes things far worse in the long run.

The ten year yields on UK gilts are extremely low and at present but they could shoot up almost overnight and destroy the very fabric of our society.

That is an unacceptable risk.

The whole country needs to be motivated to ensure we destroy the debt that is building up to cripple us.
Jeremy Bosk
Posted: 31 August 2011 08:19:44(UTC)

Joined: 09/06/2010(UTC)
Posts: 1,316

All

Our problems will be fixed by a mixture of inflating away the debt - however subtly - and government policy changes to support growth instead of depress it. Or we will have financial Armageddon worldwide, almost everywhere but Switzerland and Botswana will default on their debts and growth will pick up very slowly because the banking system will be crippled and mutual trust will take a generation to recover.

I remember an attempt at raising popular support in the 1960s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...i/I%27m_Backing_Britain

I hope I am being realistic rather than cynical here. Popular campaigns tend to be hijacked by publicity seekers, partisan politics and half-baked schemes.
Anonymous Post
Posted: 31 August 2011 12:52:05(UTC)
Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

Dear all
Some very interesting posts within the last few days.
Indeed we should count our blessings.
However there is the past, the present and the future to consider.
Some of our blessings relate to the past, I am not sure they will relate to the future.
Some of us will batten down the hatches and no doubt survive, but that will not be everybody.
Looking through recent post under various headings in citywire. I(t seems to me that the UK is becoming more and more unequal, and less and less fair.
e.g.Some 200 times average earnings and the gap growing whilst other nations can exist happily on 20 times the average. Is that fair and reasonable?
A democracy based on the rich able to buy in the Government of their choosing, your Lord Ashcrofts aided by the likes of the bonus earning banking fraternity, who see investing in Elections as an instant return gamble. Is that fair and reasonable?
A democracy based on FPTP, only needing to keep some 30% of people happy. Is that fair and reasonable?
Dressing up AV as a ticket to ride by BNP. Was that fair and reasonable?
Powerful lobbies in Government. Are they all fair and reasonable?
A democracy based on Magistrates handing down huge jail sentence for small riot related incidents. Is that fair and reasonable?
Blame game. e.g Blaming all our ills on immigrants, some of whom have been/are our allies. Is that fair and reasonable?
Lack of reward e,g, the Ghurka debate of the recent past. Was that fair and reasonable?
Blaming people for abuse of the benefit system e.g immigrants - but from the Independent, yesterday - Homelessness can spread to middle class, Crisis study warns. (Homelessness charity points to direct link between economic downturn and welfare cuts, and rising numbers living in the streets.) when, more than half of the capital's 3.600 rough sleepers are now not UK citizens: most are migrants from Eastern Europe who cannot find work and, unable to get benefits or return home, are left to fend themselves on the streets. Is that fair and reasonable?
Their research is clear that it is the welfare and housing system that traditionally have broken the link between unemployment and poverty and homelessness, yet these are now being radically dismantled by the coalition. The government must listen and change course before this flow of homeless people becomes a flood. Is that fair and reasonable, when bonuses in the billions continue for some. Another article in the independent- Life on the poverty line. Breadline Britain of 12/12/20200, gives further evidence of the rich/poor divide.
The North/South divide. The North already in recession, but not the South. Is that fair and reasonable?
House prices falling everywhere except London and SE. NE down 8.8% according to the Land Registry. Is that fair and reasonable?
Depends on how you look at things. The future does not appear to be rosy, and there is a distinct feeling of them and us, with the ranks of us swelling.
Some people thought that the Lib Dems would be good partners in government, but many now appear to have doubts. Their role as junior partners is such that they have little say. It is one thing to be able to predict the Crash, and the riots, but quite another to mange things to avoid/reduce further problems.
But then many people do not think highly of MP's anyway.
Does the above give some reasons for lack of leadership.
Perhaps some of you might want to suggest further reasons for the malaise, unfair/unreasonable.

Prof Eman
Moylando
Posted: 31 August 2011 14:15:47(UTC)

Joined: 08/09/2010(UTC)
Posts: 28



Prof - Your list of grievances are unfortunate facts of life in a country like ours, I could trot out many more examples for all the good it would do. To ease the unfairness is possible and from post 1945 government onwards there have been efforts to do so - probably more social and political will than in most any other country. We've come a long way. The poor are less poor and one could argue that is because there are some who have become rich.
What is driving people like the Prof nuts is the inequality and that my friend is the nature of mans existence on earth.
As for achieving what is fair and reasonable - ah well that's another story - who arbitrates ?
As for a leader to lead us to this utopia. If there were a person so strong and charismatic that he or she could lead us all in the same direction towards some common idea of what is fair and reasonable then I would be extremely frightened of such a person.
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