... but in terms of how we measure success, or what constitutes being 'a man' the type of society they lived in is irrelevant ... not surprising to me that those making a fortune out of 'pay day loans' are being vilified in many sectors ... the uncomfortable, morally unacceptable but somewhat inevitable face of extreme capitalism ... it is the ideal that counts in my book and the true mark of a man is not how much money he can accumulate, particularly where it involves the exploitation of your fellow man ...
Booked for Brighton and 'Boro...looking forward to heading to Burnley to see the 'ginger Mourinho' on his home turf When we gel properly, this season is going to be awesome...meanwhile, i'm having a blast (but i'm glad i didn't make it to Blackburn )
Morning all from a very damp West West London, seems to have been raining all night! Cannot wait for the week-end, going to a gig on Friday night, then the game on saturday and then out with an old mate on saturday for a few beers and a "real Indian" dinner. Proper week-end. Great debate on the virtues of socialism and parental vs. state responsibilities, the Nest lamost getting back to to heady days on 606. Shame that we are so many posters missing:- SLB, Lenny, NNW, Norway etc etc.
I echo that w_y. I guess having about half a dozen people engage in debate is a qualified success. I know there will be a lot of others out there who probably enjoyed reading the posts but unfortunately do not join in - and also one or two who find the whole thing boring - it's not football !! As always on this forum people with radically different views express them with politeness and humour. Glad that commie b*st*rd OFH is not around
Sæl öll. Cappuccino, coffee, tea donuts and fruit are on the bar. Frothy cappuccinos for for al, HH, and W_Y Coffee and cramel frapachino for IB Coffees for COYH, Frenchie, Kev rob theo vic-rijrode and kiwiqpr Strong coffee for Sandy Milky coffee for Yorkie Espresso for SuffolkHorn Strong black coffees for Bragi Norway and zen Black coffee half hot half cold and no sugar for Charlie A peppermint latte for DanH Tea for BHD Cornish Mark jsybarry jerzeypie Lloydinio NZ and BCFCRed Tea with skimmed milk and no sugar for GG and Leon Hot chocolate with marshmallows for BBW Caramel latte for Hornette Scullion Canary Dave Fossefilberto and Maestro Una paloma for Mexican Hornet The scandinavian systems will never work in England as you are too ready to accept everybody and you will always want to go in different directions because of this. We will put out differences aside for the common good and then do politics later. Need a bus service, health care, education get the project organised as best we can, these are things that do not need politics. Once the project is working let someone who thinks they could do a better job make an arguement and if it is persuasive let them have a go. The numbers of people are smaller so we all know each other and this makes working together for the common good easier. How can a politician who has been to a private school and university with the same people he or she sees everyday in parliament have any connection to anything outside their political bubble? And also this covers the left side and the right. The government must know where to stop spending the peoples money and I think in England and most places they do not. Do you run a bus service to a place with a few people every hour, of course not. Do you offer plastc surgery on the health system, only in special cases. Do you teach in schools subjects that will not benefit society, no. We have no army, air force or navy. We have coast guards who protect our water and the US seems to think they are our air force. So little money is spent there.
Damn - you worked out my profession. I am not speaking about neighbours sharing and borrowing. Money is like all other assets- it has to be put to work. A company that rents cars expects you to pay money for one. A person who lends you money HAS to be compensated. Interest is that compensation. It is not wrong or immoral and I will take no lessons from any religion that justifies killing but not lending money. I am a pensioner - I put some of my hard earned dosh aside during my working life - called savings - and I would not have done so if I would not earn interest. That money is then used to invest in companies and helps build the economy. Oh - and yes Islam does forbid nterest but they simply get the same amount of money buy adjusting prices of sale and buy back. How else would they have the ability to lend for house loans etc etc. Dividends on shares could equally be deemed wrong under your argument - but they are again the means of rewarding the person who puts their money into that company. It is a fact of life that some people own shares and others don't and that some have savings to earn interest and others don't. I am afraid that many socialist use the extremes to justify measures that are just wrong. It is perfectly feasible to regulate the amount of interest on pay day loans - they are not a bad idea in themselves - but the excessive interest is not good but can easily be legislated against. Briefly on your other points. I was pointing out that over 200 years ago dooms-dayers were predicting the immediate collapse due to lack of resources. However human ingenuity has so far always found ways to overcome it - and they probably always will. The world's problem is over-population. The real solution - but don't ask me how to implement it is to limit childbirth for a 100 years - one child per family worldwide would decimate the population and would mean there were plenty of resources for all. That will never happen but is probably more practical than all the environmental arguments going - do you really expect 80% of the world's population not to try to get what the capitalist rich West has?
Interesting point on "pay-day loans" Harry. As you say, the original idea was not a bad one and the loan was intended to protect some people from massive overdraught fees by providing a small loan for a few days before that person got paid. Yes the APR looks massive, but the cost was much smaller than that of an unathorised overdraught. Problem is that it has been taken over by spivs and conmen who are encouraging people to carry over their loans and even take out bigger and bigger ones - this is were you would expect the regulators to be controlling and closing down these spivs. Interesting on the radio this morning as a reports that massive overdraught fees are also being investigated.
Who knows - the real solution to that particular problem - how to implement limits on childbirth - may already have been solved with this 'technology' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ironment-secretary-owen-paterson-8877634.html - if science can already genetically modify crops to produce sterile seeds, who knows what can be done with humans - or what can happen to humans who consume those crops? The real problem facing capitalism in this regard is that it relies upon ever-increasing numbers of consumers - shrinking those numbers would be the equivalent of business suicide.
Thanks for the caramel latte Ak, I saw an interesting article on the BBC website yesterday that said one in ten Icelanders will write a book in their lifetime! What is your's called? colognehornet, no need to apologise, I am reading and enjoying the postings and I am learning a lot from both sides of the house, not enough yet to alter my opinion, but never say never!
The problem I have with interest is that in the case of 'leaving money in the bank to accumulate' ie. making my capital work for me as opposed to work being the basis of earnings are firstly that money tends to accumulate under that system - and secondly I see it as a form of indirect theft. If I have 10 Million invested in a bank or whatever earning 3% interest then this money does not just arrive out of the mist but is missing in another area. If you take a classical capitalist example that of Greece - their government privatized everything which could possibly make a profit in the past - then made whole areas of their economy e.g. the shipping industry exempt from taxation. The result being an impoverished state where most of their money has privatized and accumulated in private Greek hands normally located in Switzerland (or London !). Greece needs help in getting that money back - not handouts which are dependent on reducing their infrastructure even more than it is already. As for the arguments related to environment etc. population controls etc. there is no political party in any democracy which could foreward this idea and expect to be elected - the same thing with asking people to change their lifestyle - politically it just doesn't work. What worries me is that modern capitalism has lost any connection that it may have had to a 'Work Ethic' and has commuted itself to a consume ethic (To have is good in itself) as a result our countries spend billions trying to convince us that we need things which we in fact don't - all of this accompanied by a general 'dumbing down ' of society through media, T.V. etc. Capitalism = creating needs, which in turn creates relative poverty in as much as the people must be convinced that what they have is not enough for them. The real raiser of living standards is the recreation of community - call this socialism if you like, I personally don't have a name for what I really want, but maybe communalism from below describes it.
Napóleons strÃð: efnahagsleg áhrif þeirra á Ãslandi Napoleon's wars, the economic effect on Iceland and the second book Julia Bradbury and her tight trousers.
I thought you might write one about your admiration for Gordon Brown AK - and you already have a great name for that particular book
Oh my heart sinks - you earn rights by being responsible. Why do we call them rights, more appropriate to call them "lefts". I am enjoying reading these discussions, to balance H I lean right of centre. Capitalism is not a perfect system but it is the best we have and it is up to government to manage its weaknesses. The Human Race will not move on until it evolves to manage it's greed and respect all the life and resources we have been given on this planet. I fear something cataclysmic will need to happen first to make us wake up. Beware the evils of socialism, these people like to control everyone/thing to satisfy their own power egos.
That is actually not the case. At University I wrote a thesis on the Economics of a Declining Population. (Swayed by writers of the time like Gordan Rattray Taylor). Simplistically provided you switch your main focus to per capita GDP rather than total GDP and focus companies towards achieving results compatible with those goals then in fact the greatest problem is just ........ people - it would be nigh on impossible to get any kind of voluntary arrangement to limit family size to one child - ask China its difficulties. Getting there is the problem - if you could achieve a world population of a stable one billion people those billion would all have a far better chance of a decent life - without the need for extremes of poverty.
