Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2013 17:56:43 GMT
Only to the Northern folk. All the locals, well everybody outside Hanoi still refer to it as Saigon. It's even SAI on the airport tag thingys.
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 3, 2013 22:04:42 GMT
The banks cannot go back to a two or three times salary approach because of the central tension at the heart of Capitalism - which is what drove us into the abyss in 2008.To explain:
Capitalism is transactional in nature - there must be buyers and sellers.
Capitalism is driven by the desire for profit - so Capitalists will always seek to maximise profit.
In most situations, the Capitalists greatest cost is labour, so Capitalists will always try to drive down these costs - BUT - if they are too successful, then Labour cannot afford to buy what the Capitalists have to sell.It was this contradiction that led to 'sub-prime' - with governments sympathetic to Capitalists having been in power since the late 70's (in the West), the Capitalists had been too successful in driving down labour costs, so that Labour could no longer afford to buy - no transaction = no profit.So credit had to become ever looser in order to keep the whole thing going. Spot on Calais. When I talk about going back to 2 or 3 times salary I do recognise that there would be masive upheaval and lots of paper profits would be lost. The reality in all of the madness that is now ensuing is that if these silly debts were cancelled nothing would happen. Goods/services could still be produced and transactions could occur. If all of us non-rich people simply started our own money system and stopped engaging with the greedy rich then their massive wealth and paper profits would become meaningless. Agree about the central tension. In 2007/08 it drove us to the abyss. What has happened since then is the realisation that the deck of cards credit system can't really happen much more. What is now happening is that the lives of ordinary people are now being reduced as the greedy rich cling on to power. It is one more stage towards the Marxist prophecy. We are being forced to give more for less i.e think about how much we pay for housing etc now after loose (fraudulent in my eyes) credit and fiddled LIBOR rates forced prices up so greedy people could get more profit through interest. Why is it that disabled people etc etc are having their vital services taken away because the financial market failed five or six years ago?
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 3, 2013 22:38:49 GMT
You have spoken about mortgages being paper debt. The money I got from selling my house, after putting a rather nice deposit on the new one is very real and sitting rather nicely in my bank account. This will indeed at some point go back into the system as it does get spent. If you bought another house at exactly the same price and the same mortgage level then you would have no extra money in the bank. The fact that you have says that you have either traded down in price of your house (and you would have had money in the bank if everything had been transacted in cash) or taken a bigger mortgage. If it was the latter then please say whether the bank gave you a huge suitcase of cash or simply did everything electronically. Once again, I make the point. If the governemtn allows me to create debt out of nothing then I have little overheads so could loan you my created debt at a lower rate and start to make money.
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 3, 2013 22:55:31 GMT
I hate the fact the socialist types who know nothing about Finance have the misguided impression that every banker is some kind of Gordon Gekko type of money grabbing capitalist, sniffing coke off hookers' tits while raiding the pension funds of orphanages. When in fact most are just office drones. Personally, I am not interested in the people who are just doing a job. It is the greedy, fraudulent people at the top I dislike. They preach market forces to us but became ultra-socialists when it the market failed and they wanted everyone else to sacrifice loads to allow them to keep their lavish lifestyles. Not sure about the 'coke off hooker tits' you refer to but they are greedy and money-grabbing. Just look at the amount of money that had to be pumped into the financial system to rescue them. The cuts that are being forced on vulnerable people are pennies in comparison. This tells you that without the banks, their greed and their reluctance to accept their beloved market principles when it was adverse to them there would be been plenty of money for vulnerable. They may not be directly raiding the pension funds of orphanges but I can tell you that life for children in children's homes has gone slowly downhill since 2007. Social services are continually making utterly bewildering decisions that potentially put children at risk or at least worse off in order that books are balanced. I trust I am not being classed as one of your socialist types with no knowledge of finance.
|
|
|
Post by jt on Nov 4, 2013 4:35:50 GMT
Bought at the right time in the first place and had no mortgage on the old one. Moved in to a much bigger house so the mortgage was much higher than nothing. Still had a very nice chunk left over as well.
Of course it was all transferred electronically as it is the safest way to do it. I'm not daft enough to keep my cash in a mattress.
|
|
|
Post by jt on Nov 4, 2013 5:22:11 GMT
I don't think those at the top can be blamed for everything. You have to lay blame at people who live way beyond their means. There are a large number of people who have taken loans or mortgages out and not thought properly about how they will pay it back. I have worked with people in the past who have relied on getting overtime to pay the bills. When there wasn't any they then struggled to pay money back.
I used to go into a lot of houses where you would consider the occupants to be on the breadline. One thing that would always be there would be the large wide screen TV. Latest games consuls, sky TV. Parents always drinking loads, buying lottery tickets and chain smoking. Those at the top have always been a target as people don't seem to want to open their eyes to what is in front of them.
Large private companies bring billions into the economy but many have said they will move the headquarters out of the UK if they continue to be berated as they are.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2013 16:18:55 GMT
The banks cannot go back to a two or three times salary approach because of the central tension at the heart of Capitalism - which is what drove us into the abyss in 2008.To explain:
Capitalism is transactional in nature - there must be buyers and sellers.
Capitalism is driven by the desire for profit - so Capitalists will always seek to maximise profit.
In most situations, the Capitalists greatest cost is labour, so Capitalists will always try to drive down these costs - BUT - if they are too successful, then Labour cannot afford to buy what the Capitalists have to sell.It was this contradiction that led to 'sub-prime' - with governments sympathetic to Capitalists having been in power since the late 70's (in the West), the Capitalists had been too successful in driving down labour costs, so that Labour could no longer afford to buy - no transaction = no profit.So credit had to become ever looser in order to keep the whole thing going. If all of us non-rich people simply started our own money system and stopped engaging with the greedy rich then their massive wealth and paper profits would become meaningless. You mean like BitCoin? Personally I think all transactions should take place in bottle tops & buttons.
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 4, 2013 20:29:43 GMT
Bought at the right time in the first place and had no mortgage on the old one. Moved in to a much bigger house so the mortgage was much higher than nothing. Still had a very nice chunk left over as well. Of course it was all transferred electronically as it is the safest way to do it. I'm not daft enough to keep my cash in a mattress. If you moved into a bigger house and now have a mortgage again you have, overall, lost out. Think about it. It is the year 2000. There are 2 houses. One is £100k and the other is £200k. You buy the £100k one. Over the next 10 years prices double. Your house is now £200k. You sell it and have £100k left (we will ignore paying off of the mortgage and buying selling fees for simplicity). Great. You use your £100k to put down a deposit of of 25% on the second house. This house has also doubled in price so you put down £100k on a £400k house. If you had bought the second one first you would have paid £200k. Now you have a £300k mortgage. The banks are the winners. It was transferred electronically because if the banks were forced to use cash i.e. real money then the mortgage market would collapse. this is because it is paper debt.
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 4, 2013 20:51:30 GMT
I don't think those at the top can be blamed for everything. You have to lay blame at people who live way beyond their means. There are a large number of people who have taken loans or mortgages out and not thought properly about how they will pay it back. I have worked with people in the past who have relied on getting overtime to pay the bills. When there wasn't any they then struggled to pay money back. I used to go into a lot of houses where you would consider the occupants to be on the breadline. One thing that would always be there would be the large wide screen TV. Latest games consuls, sky TV. Parents always drinking loads, buying lottery tickets and chain smoking. Those at the top have always been a target as people don't seem to want to open their eyes to what is in front of them. Large private companies bring billions into the economy but many have said they will move the headquarters out of the UK if they continue to be berated as they are. I don't entirely disagree. People should try and stick to their means. This is what is being forced upon people now and there is a slow realisation of where it went wrong before. However, loose credit by so-called financial experts allowed financially inept people to do such things and the rest of us were punished as a result. i.e. House prices were and still are artificially high meaning that I have a high mortgage beacvuse the other option is not owning a house and paying ever-increasing rents (and rent when I retire). To that extent, both groups are culpable. 2nd part - Libor rates were fiddled, taxpayers money was taken to rescue a completely failed system. Sorry but these banks lent money and suddenly found that people couldn't pay it back. That is a market operation and sorry Mr Banker but your expertise failed you so you have to take the hit. Why do I have to pay the banks because they stupidly lent money to people that couldn't pay it back? They did it through greed and should have accepted the consequences. If a geezer in a pub offered to pay me £1k tomorrow for lending him £500 tonight and I did it and never saw him again, would the banks say, oh, Mr Sharpe, to protect your integrity we will give you the money. What's more would I be allowed to then lend it back to them at extortionate rates? As for your last sentence, I'm sick of hearing that lame, lame excuse when another company is exposed for not paying tax properly etc etc...I'll make the same offer I made to a Tory MP on Radio 5 Live a few years back. If any of these financial 'experts' want to leave because I am questioning their greed then I will come to the docks/airport whatever and load their bags for them. Cheerio. Perhaps we might get a financial system that is there to support the real economy not a financial sytem that expects the real economy to support it. Personally, I would rather have lots of small companies paying fair tax, fair wages and not existing to make ever-increasing profits at the expense of society in general than the large companies using their might to force small companies out of business and refusing to pay tax properly (thus gaining an unfair advantage over smaller companies).
|
|
|
Post by nws on Nov 4, 2013 21:42:54 GMT
If all of us non-rich people simply started our own money system and stopped engaging with the greedy rich then their massive wealth and paper profits would become meaningless. You mean like BitCoin? Personally I think all transactions should take place in bottle tops & buttons. We need a system which prevents speculators and is used purely for 'real' transactions. I think the small local schemes such Brixton, Totnes, Lewes pound etc might be more interesting. In essence I would not want an economic system that stifles all entrepreneurs but the system we have is totally broken and getting worse with hugescale fraud and corruption at the top. Most of us don't crave the earth we just want ot have a house, food, heating etc etc and be able to spend time with our families and friends. Think about how these simple needs have all been attacked in the last few years. Housing is too high in price. Food is becoming more expensive because of shortage (yet fabulously wealthy people are using it as a commodity, with people dying of hunger as a result). Heating is going up and up in price and becoming unaffordable. People are spending less time with immediate family because they have to work longer hours or more unsocial hours to suit the system. People are spending less time with other family members and friends because they don't have the time (for the same reasons as just explained) and/or they cannot afford to get there. When will this madness end. Personally, I have managed to pay off all debt except my mortgage. I hope I don't have to incur any more debt. I want to be out of the grip of these people so that when I earn my money I buy goods and services from the people supplying them without paying interest. I want to pay a fair price for those goods and services and receive a fair wage.
|
|
|
Post by jt on Nov 4, 2013 21:59:02 GMT
Bought at the right time in the first place and had no mortgage on the old one. Moved in to a much bigger house so the mortgage was much higher than nothing. Still had a very nice chunk left over as well. Of course it was all transferred electronically as it is the safest way to do it. I'm not daft enough to keep my cash in a mattress. If you moved into a bigger house and now have a mortgage again you have, overall, lost out. Think about it. It is the year 2000. There are 2 houses. One is £100k and the other is £200k. You buy the £100k one. Over the next 10 years prices double. Your house is now £200k. You sell it and have £100k left (we will ignore paying off of the mortgage and buying selling fees for simplicity). Great. You use your £100k to put down a deposit of of 25% on the second house. This house has also doubled in price so you put down £100k on a £400k house. If you had bought the second one first you would have paid £200k. Now you have a £300k mortgage. The banks are the winners. It was transferred electronically because if the banks were forced to use cash i.e. real money then the mortgage market would collapse. this is because it is paper debt. There are myriad examples that you could use and none would be the same. I don't need to put figures on here but my mortgage is now roughly what it was when I purchased my first house. The fickle world of paper debt has been around for thousands of years. The banknotes you carry now are exactly that. A piece of paper that has a promise on. We live in a culture where we have to have someone to blame for our own inadequacies and shortcomings. The press, mainly the red tops, print a story and then people have their target. I've worked at demonstrations about banking, climate control etc and some people when I've talked to them had no idea what they were actually there for. Politicians go for easy votes and that, unfortunately, means jumping on the backs of the minorities in some areas. Take the fox hunting bill. Townies are up in arms about cute foxes being killed and it is now against the law to hunt them in one of the quickest humane ways possible.
|
|