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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Results : January 21st 2016

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  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    Tim_B said:

    Tim_B said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    snip
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    Only the mountain remains? I suppose that will happen. Perhaps I should scratch the march to the sea re-enactment.

    I believe Chickamauga has stuff worth seeing.
    Kennesaw Mountain is worth a visit. They have cannons etc still in place with good signage and you can get a good sense of how the battle went.

    Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is worth a visit too. They have a large Confederate section, not to mention Margaret Mitchell, Bobby Jones (take a golf ball to leave on his grave) and folks from the Great Locomotive Chase (immortalized in Buster Keaton's "The General"). The locomotive itself is on display in Kennesaw I believe.
    Shermans March to the Sea and subsequent march up through the Carolinas was marked by an absence of battles. The whole point was he had no lines of communications and his opponents were too weak to stand.
    Indeed even his advance to Atlanta was relatively bereft of battles as Johnson tended to withdraw to keephis army in being. Kennesaw Mountain was a rarity as Sherman tended to try to outflank Johnson.

    The main big battle of that period was between Hood and Thomas at Nashville.
    There were huge earthworks to defend Atlanta. There's nothing left of these.
    No I guess not. I suppose the town would want the memory of them and they were wasted. Atlanta must have expanded as well.
    Metro Atlanta has almost tripled in population since I first worked here. There is not much respect for the past. The only remaining trace I know is at East Lake Golf Club, where depressions on the 4th and 8th fairways (which are parallel) are apparently the remains of the Atlanta defense from the war between the states.
    Yes - I meant to write "the town would 'not' want the memory of them"
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    MTimT said:

    Tim_B said:

    MTimT said:

    Tim_B said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Tim_B said:

    MTimT said:

    Tim_B said:

    MTimT said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    I must do it. I want to go on a six or eight-week holiday some time and visit all (well, many of) the Civil War battlefields. I'd like to follow Sherman's path through Georgia and the Carolinas, though I guess it would be wise not to tell the locals that's what I was doing.
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    Are you done with the storm yet? How was it?
    Basically, light rain and wind all day. Looks like we're done. It's just cold. I suspect you won't be so lucky.

    Reminds me of that old Tommy Cooper joke - I asked the doctor if he had anything for wind and he gave me a kite.
    Looks like the worst will be to the east and south of us - more Annapolis and Baltimore than DC and Frederick. So far, about 4", but it is very light and powdery, so only about 5lb a shovel. Easy clean up so far. But the worst is to come. TV is predicting a switch to full blizzard shortly as the moisture from the ocean gets pulled onshore.
    I just let Heidi out in the back yard and noticed a dusting of snow on my BBQ. Everywhere else is just soggy and damp.
    You have Heidi Klum at your house?
    No, just Heidi the German Shepherd and prognosticating canine. She thinks I'm much better than Heidi Klum ever would ;)
    Somehow this exchange reminded me of Peter Sellers and Dudley More down the pub:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvQq_tqB0jA
    Peter Cook!!!! Pete and Dud - comedy gold.
    Yep, brain freeze. I blame the Blizzard of 2016...
    So we've gone from a mounting squash problem to issues with too much snow? :lol:
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    Rogueywon said:

    So actually talking about the article...

    In so far as we can tell anything at all from a tiny handful of local results...

    The Conservative vote is holding up well. We've passed peak-UKIP. The Lib Dems still haven't hit bottom. Labour are continuing to lose ground in straight fights against the Conservatives or SNP, but have mildly benefited from former UKIP voters returning to their old affiliations.

    That said, the Newington/Thanet result was heavily driven by the Manston Airport issue. Labour was previously hammered in the area for having the temerity to suggest that it might not be worth a taxpayer bailout for an airport which had never managed to keep its head above water financially since it was sold off by the RAF. UKIP and the Conservatives both promised that if they got in, they would use the magical powers of rainbows, pixies and unicorns to re-open the airport. UKIP got in, quickly realised it couldn't deliver on its promise and is now being castigated for its U-Turn (it's turned into a localised version of the Lib Dem tuition fees turnaround).

    Is Kent in danger of spending too much of its time living in the past?
    I only ask, I don't know or have any other motive for suggesting it. It just comes to mind.
  • notmenotme Posts: 3,293

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
  • nigel4englandnigel4england Posts: 4,800
    notme said:

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
    I sold my house in November 2005, but missed the peak by about 18 months. As we know these things go in cycles, it always seems to be that seven years after the crash prices start rocketing once again, check it out. I think we are in a bubble once again, particularly in the South East, and with interest rates set to rise later this year for the first time in eight years, I can see the bubble bursting.

    Slightly different this time though with mass immigration but first sign of it slowing will be a good time to get out. Which brings me back to my original question, how do I short house prices?
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    I must do it. I want to go on a six or eight-week holiday some time and visit all (well, many of) the Civil War battlefields. I'd like to follow Sherman's path through Georgia and the Carolinas, though I guess it would be wise not to tell the locals that's what I was doing.
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    The naval home port of the Confederacy, the first shots were fired with guns made here, and the War didn't really end until the final lowering of the Confederate Ensign on the Mersey on 6th November 1865, when CSS Shenandoah finally surrendered to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool.

    The "Embassy", actually the office of the Confederates' Bankers, Fraser Trenholm, is still there at Rumford Place (oddly decked out in the Stars and Stripes these days).
    https://localwiki.org/liverpool/Liverpool_-_The_Home_of_the_Confederate_Fleet

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,755
    notme said:

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
    Didn't he ask "how" to sell it ? I assume he doesn't want to go through the rigmarole of selling his own house...
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes

    It was foreseen though, Roger, and people were shouting warnings. Some people did not, would not listen. Who was it on this very site who said the run on Northern Rock was nothing to worry about and, "Will be forgotten by Friday"?
    Wouldn't be the same person who said Jimmy Saville was a 'fuss about nothing' and because we live in 'a more prurient age' would it? Bless.

    Brown's greatest weakness was he believed his own propaganda that he had 'ended Tory (sic) boom and bust' - such historical ignorance in one allegedly so smart is breathtaking...but as the old saying goes 'this time its different' are the four most expensive words in the English language....
  • nigel4englandnigel4england Posts: 4,800
    Pulpstar said:

    notme said:

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
    Didn't he ask "how" to sell it ? I assume he doesn't want to go through the rigmarole of selling his own house...
    Not any more I don't, so advice on how to bet against the housing market would be much appreciated.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Sobering video on Guardian website — 43 year old gets severe liver disease from drinking 2 cans of lager a day:

    http://www.theguardian.com/society/video/2016/jan/22/the-great-british-booze-problem-epidemic-nhs-video
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    RodCrosby said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    ...
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    The naval home port of the Confederacy, the first shots were fired with guns made here, and the War didn't really end until the final lowering of the Confederate Ensign on the Mersey on 6th November 1865, when CSS Shenandoah finally surrendered to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool.

    The "Embassy", actually the office of the Confederates' Bankers, Fraser Trenholm, is still there at Rumford Place (oddly decked out in the Stars and Stripes these days).
    https://localwiki.org/liverpool/Liverpool_-_The_Home_of_the_Confederate_Fleet

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
    Doesn't Liverpool have the first steel framed building or some such?
    The CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool wasn't it? The great hope of the south was to foment conflict between the UK and the USA.
    Liverpool of course had made money out of the slave trade.
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    ''Mr Mann identified 40 of the millionaires who have joined Labour in the last three months as living on the same London street, thought by The Times to be Huddleston Road in Tufnell Park.''
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4672394.ece (£)

    The Huddlestone Road Set.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Those swing figures mean little unless considered in the context of the year to which they relate! To take the St Helens result - Compared with May 2015
    Thatto Heath, St Helens (change on 2015),
    Lab 964 (71.1%; +5.4)
    UKIP 182 (13.4%; -1.8)
    Con 147 (10.8%; -2.1)
    Grn 62 (4.6%; -1.5)

    So a Con to Lab swing of 3.6%.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281

    Scott_P said:

    @michaelsavage: Oof. @SpenceLivermore says Corbyn supporters more interested in "ideological cleansing" of Labour than winning power https://t.co/UPMtGHXcAA

    The right of the party are no better. My next but one piece will focus on their delusions.
    I hadn't thought they were too bad....until I read that article (and that's 'Lord-lose-an-election-for Labour-get-a-peerage-Livermore, but win-one-for-the-Tories-get-a-knightood-and-all-hell-breaks-loose, to you...)
  • JohnLoonyJohnLoony Posts: 1,790
    edited 2016 23
    (FPT)

    Earliest political memories?

    Being aware of the strikes and power cuts in c.1977 when I was 9.

    Watching James Callaghan on TV and discovering (from the subtitle) that he was the "Prime Minister", and not the "Pri Minister" as I had previously thought.

    Being slightly amused when our teacher at school (when I was 7) was called Mrs Carragher, because it sounded a bit like Callaghan.

    The first news event in the big outside world that I remember and which I can put a date to is the conjunction, and meeting in space, of USA astronauts and USSR cosmonauts, in July 1975 (when I was 6). I have always remembered the fact that it happened 140 miles abpove Bognor Regis.

    On Thursday 7th July 1977 we were excited because the date on the blackboard said "7/7/77". I did not realise at the time, but there was a parliamentary by-election in Saffron Walden on that day.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548

    notme said:

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
    I sold my house in November 2005, but missed the peak by about 18 months. As we know these things go in cycles, it always seems to be that seven years after the crash prices start rocketing once again, check it out. I think we are in a bubble once again, particularly in the South East, and with interest rates set to rise later this year for the first time in eight years, I can see the bubble bursting.

    Slightly different this time though with mass immigration but first sign of it slowing will be a good time to get out. Which brings me back to my original question, how do I short house prices?
    To short housing, probably best to short housebuilders and retail banks.

    That tide of Chinese and Russian money buying housing may be about to turn. Or maybe not, but if it did then it could reverse the gearing on the whole of the London market.
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737
    edited 2016 23

    RodCrosby said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    ...
    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    The naval home port of the Confederacy, the first shots were fired with guns made here, and the War didn't really end until the final lowering of the Confederate Ensign on the Mersey on 6th November 1865, when CSS Shenandoah finally surrendered to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool.

    The "Embassy", actually the office of the Confederates' Bankers, Fraser Trenholm, is still there at Rumford Place (oddly decked out in the Stars and Stripes these days).
    https://localwiki.org/liverpool/Liverpool_-_The_Home_of_the_Confederate_Fleet

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
    Doesn't Liverpool have the first steel framed building or some such?
    The CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool wasn't it? The great hope of the south was to foment conflict between the UK and the USA.
    Liverpool of course had made money out of the slave trade.
    Yes (the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building), Oriel Chambers, 1864
    "One of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe.", "almost unbelievably ahead of its time", Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design, 1949.
    "one of the most important buildings in the world" Quentin Hughes, Seaport: Architecture and Townscape of Liverpool, 1964

    CSS Alabama (the most successful battleship in history), and much of the Confederate fleet, was built on the Mersey.

    And Cotton!
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited 2016 23

    ''Mr Mann identified 40 of the millionaires who have joined Labour in the last three months as living on the same London street, thought by The Times to be Huddleston Road in Tufnell Park.''
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4672394.ece (£)

    The Huddlestone Road Set.

    In Corbyn's constituency I think. There would have been a time, not that long ago, when millionaires didn't live in Islington North at all.
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes

    It was foreseen though, Roger, and people were shouting warnings. Some people did not, would not listen. Who was it on this very site who said the run on Northern Rock was nothing to worry about and, "Will be forgotten by Friday"?
    Wouldn't be the same person who said Jimmy Saville was a 'fuss about nothing' and because we live in 'a more prurient age' would it? Bless.

    Brown's greatest weakness was he believed his own propaganda that he had 'ended Tory (sic) boom and bust' - such historical ignorance in one allegedly so smart is breathtaking...but as the old saying goes 'this time its different' are the four most expensive words in the English language....
    Browns biggest weakness was he was clueless.
    As Reagan might have said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'My name's Gordon Brown and I'm here to teach'
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,709
    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Tim_B said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    I must do it. I want to go on a six or eight-week holiday some time and visit all (well, many of) the Civil War battlefields. I'd like to follow Sherman's path through Georgia and the Carolinas, though I guess it would be wise not to tell the locals that's what I was doing.
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    Only the mountain remains? I suppose that will happen. Perhaps I should scratch the march to the sea re-enactment.

    I believe Chickamauga has stuff worth seeing.
    Kennesaw Mountain is worth a visit. They have cannons etc still in place with good signage and you can get a good sense of how the battle went.

    Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is worth a visit too. They have a large Confederate section, not to mention Margaret Mitchell, Bobby Jones (take a golf ball to leave on his grave) and folks from the Great Locomotive Chase (immortalized in Buster Keaton's "The General"). The locomotive itself is on display in Kennesaw I believe.
    Shermans March to the Sea and subsequent march up through the Carolinas was marked by an absence of battles. The whole point was he had no lines of communications and his opponents were too weak to stand.
    Indeed even his advance to Atlanta was relatively bereft of battles as Johnson tended to withdraw to keephis army in being. Kennesaw Mountain was a rarity as Sherman tended to try to outflank Johnson.

    The main big battle of that period was between Hood and Thomas at Nashville.
    There were huge earthworks to defend Atlanta. There's nothing left of these.
    Is there stil the cyclorama near Stone Mountain? The KKK used to burn crosses there when I lived in Atlanta, but probably not so socially conservative nowadays.
  • nigel4englandnigel4england Posts: 4,800

    notme said:

    notme said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    "Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."

    If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.

    It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.

    In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.

    If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes


    I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
    I fancy selling the housing market later this year or early next, but I'm not sure how to go about it?
    Aye, if i make a hundred predictions, and one comes right, its easy to forget about the 99. The storm clouds were gathering around the housing market in 2005 onwards though. No way would I have bought at what very clearly was a bubble.
    I sold my house in November 2005, but missed the peak by about 18 months. As we know these things go in cycles, it always seems to be that seven years after the crash prices start rocketing once again, check it out. I think we are in a bubble once again, particularly in the South East, and with interest rates set to rise later this year for the first time in eight years, I can see the bubble bursting.

    Slightly different this time though with mass immigration but first sign of it slowing will be a good time to get out. Which brings me back to my original question, how do I short house prices?
    To short housing, probably best to short housebuilders and retail banks.

    That tide of Chinese and Russian money buying housing may be about to turn. Or maybe not, but if it did then it could reverse the gearing on the whole of the London market.
    Exactly, the oil price won't be good for the housing market either. Just been on IG and can't find a market
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    RodCrosby said:

    RodCrosby said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    ...
    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    ....

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
    Doesn't Liverpool have the first steel framed building or some such?
    The CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool wasn't it? The great hope of the south was to foment conflict between the UK and the USA.
    Liverpool of course had made money out of the slave trade.
    Yes (the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building), Oriel Chambers, 1864
    "One of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe.", "almost unbelievably ahead of its time", Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design, 1949.
    "one of the most important buildings in the world" Quentin Hughes, Seaport: Architecture and Townscape of Liverpool, 1964

    CSS Alabama (the most successful battleship in history), and much of the Confederate fleet, was built on the Mersey.

    And Cotton!
    Most successful commerce raider. Hardly a battle ship more a steam frigate or light cruiser.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited 2016 23
    6 of the 20 top places in the UK for burglary are in or near to the Ilford area:

    2. Clayhall
    3. Redbridge
    4. North Ilford
    9. Barkingside
    17. East Ilford
    19. Hornchurch.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3411620/The-20-postcodes-Britain-likely-burgled-London.html
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669

    Tim_B said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    I must do it. I want to go on a six or eight-week holiday some time and visit all (well, many of) the Civil War battlefields. I'd like to follow Sherman's path through Georgia and the Carolinas, though I guess it would be wise not to tell the locals that's what I was doing.
    I went to Gettysburg when I was 15. Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and Pickett's Charge still loom large in my memory. It's well worth a visit. When I go to see friends (the family I stayed with when I was 15) off Long Island I regularly stop at a motel the other end of the Chambersburg Pike to break the journey, which otherwise is about 20 hours.

    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    Only the mountain remains? I suppose that will happen. Perhaps I should scratch the march to the sea re-enactment.

    I believe Chickamauga has stuff worth seeing.
    Kennesaw Mountain is worth a visit. They have cannons etc still in place with good signage and you can get a good sense of how the battle went.

    Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is worth a visit too. They have a large Confederate section, not to mention Margaret Mitchell, Bobby Jones (take a golf ball to leave on his grave) and folks from the Great Locomotive Chase (immortalized in Buster Keaton's "The General"). The locomotive itself is on display in Kennesaw I believe.
    Shermans March to the Sea and subsequent march up through the Carolinas was marked by an absence of battles. The whole point was he had no lines of communications and his opponents were too weak to stand.
    Indeed even his advance to Atlanta was relatively bereft of battles as Johnson tended to withdraw to keephis army in being. Kennesaw Mountain was a rarity as Sherman tended to try to outflank Johnson.

    The main big battle of that period was between Hood and Thomas at Nashville.
    There were huge earthworks to defend Atlanta. There's nothing left of these.
    Is there stil the cyclorama near Stone Mountain? The KKK used to burn crosses there when I lived in Atlanta, but probably not so socially conservative nowadays.
    The Cyclorama is being moved to the Atlanta History Center.

    Stone Mountain has a long and unfortunate history with the KKK.

    In Georgia, the KKK is now equated with neo-nazis and other unpleasant types.
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse is starting to make itself felt. For those who are in its path on the eastern seaboard good luck and stay warm.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,234
    Tim_B said:

    Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse is starting to make itself felt. For those who are in its path on the eastern seaboard good luck and stay warm.

    I managed to sneak out...just ;)
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Does Atlanta Airport still have the weird robotic voice on the train between terminals?
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    AndyJS said:

    Does Atlanta Airport still have the weird robotic voice on the train between terminals?

    Probably - to be honest I don't notice it.
  • Tim_BTim_B Posts: 7,669
    RobD said:

    Tim_B said:

    Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse is starting to make itself felt. For those who are in its path on the eastern seaboard good luck and stay warm.

    I managed to sneak out...just ;)
    Bugger -we'll get you next time!
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,641
    AndyJS said:

    6 of the 20 top places in the UK for burglary are in or near to the Ilford area:

    2. Clayhall
    3. Redbridge
    4. North Ilford
    9. Barkingside
    17. East Ilford
    19. Hornchurch.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3411620/The-20-postcodes-Britain-likely-burgled-London.html

    Clayhall is *in* Ilford North! And I think "East Ilford" is either Aldborough or Seven Kings. Still, it is a worrying statistic.
  • WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    I think that's too sanguine a view from the EU side. The EU's credibility would take a huge hit if one of it's biggest and richest members left.

    If we stayed part of the project by joining the EEA then things may be fine, but (apologies for repeating myself) that will be a hard sell after a Leave vote.

    But I could be wrong.
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    ***** BETTING POST *****

    OK ...... someone had to be first and I know it's only January but might I suggest a very modest bet on Britain's adopted super new tennis star Johanna Konta to win SPOTY 2016.

    Johanna who SkyBet have on offer at 200/1 no less, is going like a train in the Australian Open. If Andy Murray can win SPOTY, then what's stopping her?

    DYOR
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737

    RodCrosby said:

    RodCrosby said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    ...
    Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    ....

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
    Doesn't Liverpool have the first steel framed building or some such?
    The CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool wasn't it? The great hope of the south was to foment conflict between the UK and the USA.
    Liverpool of course had made money out of the slave trade.
    Yes (the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building), Oriel Chambers, 1864
    "One of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe.", "almost unbelievably ahead of its time", Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design, 1949.
    "one of the most important buildings in the world" Quentin Hughes, Seaport: Architecture and Townscape of Liverpool, 1964

    CSS Alabama (the most successful battleship in history), and much of the Confederate fleet, was built on the Mersey.

    And Cotton!
    Most successful commerce raider. Hardly a battle ship more a steam frigate or light cruiser.
    OK, a "warship", a cruiser, technically.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281
    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    If we stayed part of the project by joining the EEA then things may be fine, but (apologies for repeating myself) that will be a hard sell after a Leave vote.
    Given a fair chunk of the LEAVE vote is driven by 'Free Movement of Labour' (which is now being muddled with the still separate migrant disaster) I doubt EEA membership will be sellable post-leave given it too is predicated on 'the four freedoms'......
  • WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    ***** BETTING POST *****

    OK ...... someone had to be first and I know it's only January but might I suggest a very modest bet on Britain's adopted super new tennis star Johanna Konta to win SPOTY 2016.

    Johanna who SkyBet have on offer at 200/1 no less, is going like a train in the Australian Open. If Andy Murray can win SPOTY, then what's stopping her?

    DYOR

    I think she'd have to win a slam title but there are four and, hey, 200/1.

    But... there is Rio.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Latest RealClearPolitics averages for GOP nomination puts Trump 15.8 points ahead:

    Trump 34.6%
    Cruz 18.8%
    Rubio 11.2%
    Carson 8.4%
    Bush 4.8%
    Christie 3.6%

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    Wanderer said:

    ***** BETTING POST *****

    OK ...... someone had to be first and I know it's only January but might I suggest a very modest bet on Britain's adopted super new tennis star Johanna Konta to win SPOTY 2016.

    Johanna who SkyBet have on offer at 200/1 no less, is going like a train in the Australian Open. If Andy Murray can win SPOTY, then what's stopping her?

    DYOR

    I think she'd have to win a slam title but there are four and, hey, 200/1.

    But... there is Rio.
    Indeed so, and an opportunity for her to win Olympic Gold! (Only joking)
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    AndyJS said:
    Given the closeness of polls such as this, I find it ever so slightly surprising that those nice people at Ladbrokes continue to offer a "Leave" outcome at 2/1.
  • WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    If we stayed part of the project by joining the EEA then things may be fine, but (apologies for repeating myself) that will be a hard sell after a Leave vote.
    Given a fair chunk of the LEAVE vote is driven by 'Free Movement of Labour' (which is now being muddled with the still separate migrant disaster) I doubt EEA membership will be sellable post-leave given it too is predicated on 'the four freedoms'......
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956

    ***** BETTING POST *****

    OK ...... someone had to be first and I know it's only January but might I suggest a very modest bet on Britain's adopted super new tennis star Johanna Konta to win SPOTY 2016.

    Johanna who SkyBet have on offer at 200/1 no less, is going like a train in the Australian Open. If Andy Murray can win SPOTY, then what's stopping her?

    DYOR

    *** STOP PRESS ***
    Johanna progresses to the last 16 in the Oz Open.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,109
    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    If we stayed part of the project by joining the EEA then things may be fine, but (apologies for repeating myself) that will be a hard sell after a Leave vote.
    Given a fair chunk of the LEAVE vote is driven by 'Free Movement of Labour' (which is now being muddled with the still separate migrant disaster) I doubt EEA membership will be sellable post-leave given it too is predicated on 'the four freedoms'......
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    Bbbut I don't understand. Surely LEAVE has guaranteed that we can renegotiate every treaty so that we keep all advantages, lose all disadvantages, spend less, get more, square the circle and transmute base metal into gold...:-)
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395

    AndyJS said:
    Given the closeness of polls such as this, I find it ever so slightly surprising that those nice people at Ladbrokes continue to offer a "Leave" outcome at 2/1.
    Thanks for flagging that up!
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    viewcode said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    Bbbut I don't understand. Surely LEAVE has guaranteed that we can renegotiate every treaty so that we keep all advantages, lose all disadvantages, spend less, get more, square the circle and transmute base metal into gold...:-)
    But it's only because all the major players in Europe, including the likes of Cameron, are so totally convinced that come what may we will vote to remain, that the renegotiated terms are so puny as to be virtually meaningless.
    Vote to leave and we'll then get down to the real business, with the real decision to be decided at Referendum Mk 2 in a couple of years' time.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Still no agreement on a new government in Spain following last month's election:

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/spanish-prime-minister-rajoy-kings-petition-new-government
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,109

    viewcode said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    Bbbut I don't understand. Surely LEAVE has guaranteed that we can renegotiate every treaty so that we keep all advantages, lose all disadvantages, spend less, get more, square the circle and transmute base metal into gold...:-)
    But it's only because all the major players in Europe, including the likes of Cameron, are so totally convinced that come what may we will vote to remain, that the renegotiated terms are so puny as to be virtually meaningless.
    Vote to leave and we'll then get down to the real business, with the real decision to be decided at Referendum Mk 2 in a couple of years' time.
    I'm having difficulty differentiating what I said in satire from what you said in seriousness.
  • WandererWanderer Posts: 3,838

    viewcode said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    Bbbut I don't understand. Surely LEAVE has guaranteed that we can renegotiate every treaty so that we keep all advantages, lose all disadvantages, spend less, get more, square the circle and transmute base metal into gold...:-)
    But it's only because all the major players in Europe, including the likes of Cameron, are so totally convinced that come what may we will vote to remain, that the renegotiated terms are so puny as to be virtually meaningless.
    Vote to leave and we'll then get down to the real business, with the real decision to be decided at Referendum Mk 2 in a couple of years' time.
    Where will the Parliamentary majority for a second referendum come from?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281
    viewcode said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    If we stayed part of the project by joining the EEA then things may be fine, but (apologies for repeating myself) that will be a hard sell after a Leave vote.
    Given a fair chunk of the LEAVE vote is driven by 'Free Movement of Labour' (which is now being muddled with the still separate migrant disaster) I doubt EEA membership will be sellable post-leave given it too is predicated on 'the four freedoms'......
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    Bbbut I don't understand. Surely LEAVE has guaranteed that we can renegotiate every treaty so that we keep all advantages, lose all disadvantages, spend less, get more, square the circle and transmute base metal into gold...:-)
    You forgot the Unicorns....oh no, that's the Nats.....
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    Wanderer said:

    viewcode said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Wanderer said:

    Apologies for going off topic. I was chatting to the Hungarian ambassador this evening about Cameron's EU renegotiation and he sounded very confident that a deal would be done by June at the latest. That would strongly imply a referendum this year. He suggested that the lack of public rowing and leaking is actually a positive sign that things are happening.

    That's interesting.

    If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:

    1) The UK leaving is really really bad
    2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)

    The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.

    However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
    I don't think it's at ll obvious that the UK leaving would be really, really bad for the EU, for much the same reasons that it wouldn't be really, really bad for the UK: They could come up with a non-EU arrangement that would have a lot of the same practical benefits for both sides. The EU would lose a little bit of money, and decision-making would get a little bit easier.
    That's what I think. After a Leave vote the winning side will be looking out for betrayal and an attempt to join the EEA will be dynamite. The new Tory leader would find that they needed opposition support (possibly unavailable) to carry it. They wouldn't try to, and probably couldn't, deliver it.
    But it's only because all the major players in Europe, including the likes of Cameron, are so totally convinced that come what may we will vote to remain, that the renegotiated terms are so puny as to be virtually meaningless.
    Vote to leave and we'll then get down to the real business, with the real decision to be decided at Referendum Mk 2 in a couple of years' time.
    Where will the Parliamentary majority for a second referendum come from?
    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,641
    edited 2016 23
    RodCrosby said:

    RodCrosby said:

    RodCrosby said:

    Tim_B said:

    Wanderer said:

    Scott_P said:

    MTimT said:

    Indeed. Gettyburg is about 40 minutes from here.

    Well worth a visit. I drove down a couple of times when i was there
    ...
    Mountain.
    I've always have had a interest in the American civil war with a name like mine(My proper name ;-) )

    Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
    If you can't make it stateside, there's always Liverpool, at the time "the most Confederate place in the world, outside the Confederacy."

    ....

    C.K. Prioleau's house (interior decorated with paintings of Palmetto trees) is lovingly preserved
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/19-abercromby-square-a-hidden-gem/

    The "James Bond of the South", Dunwoody Bulloch, uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, is buried in Liverpool, as are several other heroes of the Confederacy who never went home.
    http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/americans-if-you-are-visiting-liverpool.53932/page-2

    And of course, there's be no skyscrapers in the States or anywhere else, if certain enterprising Americans had not been sojourning in Liverpool during the war, and taken its architectural ideas back home with them...
    http://streetsofliverpool.co.uk/the-legacy-of-peter-ellis/
    Doesn't Liverpool have the first steel framed building or some such?
    The CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool wasn't it? The great hope of the south was to foment conflict between the UK and the USA.
    Liverpool of course had made money out of the slave trade.
    Yes (the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building), Oriel Chambers, 1864
    "One of the most remarkable buildings of its date in Europe.", "almost unbelievably ahead of its time", Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design, 1949.
    "one of the most important buildings in the world" Quentin Hughes, Seaport: Architecture and Townscape of Liverpool, 1964

    CSS Alabama (the most successful battleship in history), and much of the Confederate fleet, was built on the Mersey.

    And Cotton!
    Most successful commerce raider. Hardly a battle ship more a steam frigate or light cruiser.
    OK, a "warship", a cruiser, technically.
    Alabama was sunk by USS Kearsage off Cherbourg in 1864
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Alabama

    Shendoah (ex-Sea King) was built on the Clyde in 1863, merely converted to an armed merchant cruiser on the Mersey in 1864 - she was the last CSA ship to surrender, December 1865.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Shenandoah
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,109

    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)

    Are you seriously telling me that after having a referendum and obtaining a LEAVE vote, a UK government would refuse to submit an exit application, but instead try for better terms and then hold another referendum? Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers.

  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    viewcode said:

    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)

    Are you seriously telling me that after having a referendum and obtaining a LEAVE vote, a UK government would refuse to submit an exit application, but instead try for better terms and then hold another referendum? Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers.

    They might try it if the result is 50.1% to 49.9%.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,109
    AndyJS said:

    viewcode said:

    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)

    Are you seriously telling me that after having a referendum and obtaining a LEAVE vote, a UK government would refuse to submit an exit application, but instead try for better terms and then hold another referendum? Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers.

    They might try it if the result is 50.1% to 49.9%.
    Did you miss the "Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers" bit? Heck, even I'd think he'd be taking the piss at that point.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    viewcode said:

    AndyJS said:

    viewcode said:

    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)

    Are you seriously telling me that after having a referendum and obtaining a LEAVE vote, a UK government would refuse to submit an exit application, but instead try for better terms and then hold another referendum? Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers.

    They might try it if the result is 50.1% to 49.9%.
    Did you miss the "Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers" bit? Heck, even I'd think he'd be taking the piss at that point.
    I agree it would be madness but politicians always think they know better than ordinary voters.
  • peter_from_putneypeter_from_putney Posts: 6,956
    viewcode said:

    From the same all party majority of MPs who are so keen on us voting Remain this time - in effect they will engineer a second vote to ensure that we finally get it right! (Rather like the follow-up referendum held in Ireland .... remember that?)

    Are you seriously telling me that after having a referendum and obtaining a LEAVE vote, a UK government would refuse to submit an exit application, but instead try for better terms and then hold another referendum? Cameron would be eviscerated by his backbenchers.

    I don't see it panning out in the way you suggest - yes of course the UK Gov't would go through the various initial steps towards arranging our withdrawal, but I feel confident there would be tremendous pressure from other EU states to see if some sort of compromise couldn't be agreed - after all our withdrawal would severely damage the entire community.
    Yes I do see a situation whereby significantly more generous concessions would be made and that these might well lead to a second referendum. After all there's surely only a small minority of British voters who want to leave the EU, come what may.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    "Germany may not be "fun" or "sexy", but it's still considered the best country in the world, according to a worldwide public opinion poll.

    Germany was ranked the overall best country in the world, according to the rankings released by US News & World Report on Wednesday.
    The rankings report praised Germany for its support of entrepreneurs, growing role as a global leader and high quality of life, among other factors."


    http://www.thelocal.de/20160120/germany-rated-best-overall-country-in-the-world
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Alistair said:

    Roger said:

    Cyclefree

    If the film 'The big Short' is accurate which I suspect it is then governments unless they had a crystal ball had very little reason to foretell the events that caused the economic collapse of 07/08. The mortgage bundles that brought down the US banks were all given 'triple A' ratings by the rating agencies and the rules had been in place for about 30 years so it's difficult to see what Brown or Bush should have been aware of?

    By 2006 there was already heavy criticism of the rating agencies treatment of CDOs in the public domain from non fringe sources. The fragility of the US economy and it's reliance on a housing bubble was clear enough that I was expounding on the risks to an overly smug American office mate.
    It all goes back to Clinton's period and effectively forcing banks and mortgage lenders to give sub prime mortgages. I don't know what if any pressure was put on ratings agencies.
    They did not forcebthe banks to do anything, anyone trying to push that narrative is talking a crock of nonsense. All the banks were 'forced' to do was sop illegally blacklisting whole areas as unlendable to and instead treat each application on its own merit.
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