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@JohnO
Mr/Ms. Moderator,
I write as tim's pb carer. My only concern is his welfare. Please don't be too harsh on the lad. Things are pretty tough for him at the moment and they're only likely to get even worse in the months ahead.
Your sympathetic and sensitive treatment will win you many many friends.
I thank you.
JohnO
As tim's registered carer, have you considered applying for a subsidised spare room in which to house him?
It may reduce intra-family disputes although I fear sustained banging of head against the wall if he is left to his own devices.
I understand the government is very accommodating towards such applications,
Wallace and Grommit best kept for Treasury Bond Certificates.
The Eat Less Protein man would make for interesting bank notes:
http://www.inlondonguide.co.uk/images/stories/2_MainMenu/LondonByLondoners/Blog/2011/Eccentrics/stanleygreenoxfordstup.jpg
Could you imagine how smug someone like Tony Blair would be to be staring out of your wallet? You heard it here first folks.
Fans of her work (few of whom are more enthusiastic than I) who wish to know more about her and her work might be interested in this recent interview.
http://www.cassart.co.uk/interview-cartoonist-marf/
The one that sprung to mind was about fundraising - some not-quite illegal rule bending about campaign funding that exploded around Labour (about 2005-2006) and then as it brewed, you had half a dozen people trying to drag Cameron into it as well.
At the time I remember being awfully het up about it, this will be the end of Blair etc etc
Now? I can barely remember it.
I can't even remember what took the sting out of the Latvian SS thing. I know the 'debate' went "they'll never form their own group", "they'll form it with nutters", "the green group is bigger" and only the last one really still stands (and there's not much in it).
I guess that's the 'bubble' effect for you.
Not worth the paper it's not written on
Surely, Tpfkar, there would have to be a discount on any note bearing St Tony's mugshot?
What's the latest on the election front? The nation is gripped by the Wantage S by-election.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/25/santiago-de-compostela-train-crash-cctv-video
I think it safe to say that turnout will be on the low side. Is Wantage South close to Bournemouth West? And are either/both/neither in reasonable proximity to Weybridge South. It's all slightly bewildering.
But the fair maidens and matriarches of the parish will be skipping to the polls once I've knocked them up, starting at 6.00pm. It could be a long evening.
It is nice to see construction showing a positive contribution for a change. The next key steps in the recovery of UK plc should be a rise in investment and an improvement in the balance of trade. A rise in investment requires confidence, which is improving; capital, which our private sector has in abundance; credit which is still restricted by the failure to address the thorny issue of banking reform and demand which still remains problematic given the international situation but is improving. If investment grows construction will show this most quickly so it is worth watching that sector.
The moans on here about consumption boomlets and housing bubbles are absurd as any reference to the real, as opposed to the nominal, figures show. It also shows a complete lack of understanding about the absolutely critical role played by housing capital in providing finance to small businesses. The vast majority of our small businesses have their credit facilities backed up by personal guarantees secured over directors/partners houses. House prices have fallen substantially in real terms. This itself has limited the security available to small businesses and their ability to get credit. A recovery in house prices is also critical if our smaller businesses are to get credit to invest and grow.
Balance of trade is proving more difficult, again because of the lack of international demand. I also struggle to think of any country (except Japan) which manages to run a balance of trade surplus with a large public sector deficit pumping demand into the domestic system. I think we will see an improvement in the balance of payments when the deficit falls but these are unusual times. It is fortunate that we have the helmsman we do to steer us through them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23446056
Oh, I think George Osborne is a certainty, Pulpstar, and pretty soon too.
I imagine he will be appearing on the soon to be printed six pound note.
Rest assured it will all be covered in the Harry Hayfield analysis coming up later.
Only marginally less daft than Julian Assange appearing on the next Ecuadorean 10 Sucres note imho...!
Although I'm not an Anglican, I think the Welby idea looks good. Rather than just shouting about the "vulnerable" being exploited, they will do something about it.
Compare and contrast ... The left-wing agitators "expose" inequality and demand that other people they don't like do something about it. Job done for them. We even have charities whose main function is to demand that somebody else does something.
I may be doing Owen Jones, Polly Toynbee and Ed Miliband et al an injustice, of course. They may be secretly toiling in London soup kitchens or working with down-and-outs at a hostel. Ralph Miliband may have spent his spare time helping "Help the Aged". If so, well done to them.
But what I do know is that the Sally Army and many other Christian organisations will be doing these things - organisations many of these shouty people dislike and insult.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon
% of 11-15 yrs old who have taken drugs in last month down from 29% in 2001 to 17% in 2012. pic.twitter.com/IIdeg64AcD
and alcohol
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon
few kids drinking a lot. pic.twitter.com/MWir9B1gKQ
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQBXDa6CMAIk4Df.jpg:large
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon
Big difference between mean and median average of underage consumption (in units) suggests that there are a... pic.twitter.com/Mr0AqrOm5f
- New Labour wanted a source of funding independent of the unions.
- The City wanted non-regulation.
Any missing link between those two things would be quite a big deal in historical terms because the non-regulation in London was such a big part of the global credit boom and crunch and all the bad stuff still to come because of it.
The experts must be able to estimate how fast the train was going from this footage:
http://news.sky.com/story/1120288/spain-train-crash-footage-of-disaster-emerges
I don't think there was a station it was stopping at, it just seems to be that it took the curve in the track way too fast. The explosion noticed by Avery was probably just the electrical connection as the carriage separated from the track/rest of train.
Going to Chicago today with the family. All 5 of us have been upgraded to Biz.
I love BA!
That's what it looked like to me too. Horrific for those on board or who were first on the scene to try and rescue survivors.
Chicago is a great city - have fun.
The easiest way to deal with it would be to target one of these employers and on conviction very publicly seize all their assets as proceeds of crime. You'd only need to do a dozen or so - if that many - before the rest would stop.
Result
+ employment - especially youth
+ housing
+ tax
- benefit fraud
etc
"Crosby will be the story between now and polling day" says Watson. If Labour actually think that then slash the odds on a Tory majority...
.@GrantShapps writes to @Ed_Miliband calling for Labour's review into the Falkirk row to be published. http://polho.me/13HbLOm
Funny ;-)
The Church of England’s plan to drive payday lenders like Wonga out of business by competing with them is wonderful. After years of politicians demanding ‘action’ on the payday loan industry, an organization has finally decided to tackle this perceived social evil by giving people a better alternative, not trying to legislate problems away.
Critics of payday lenders quote the loans’ astronomical APRs — Wonga’s representative APR is 5853%. But this is extremely misleading. Representative APR is designed to show interest-on-interest compounding over a year, and is an inappropriate measure to use for a loan whose term is a month or so. A Wonga loan does not and cannot compound for longer than 60 days beyond the initially agreed loan period (which can be between 1 and 46 days).
Borrowing £200 over 46 days accrues £100.03 in interest and fees, an effective interest rate of 50% over this period. After this point, interest only continues to accrue for 60 days, after which point it stops. It simply does not make sense to look at representative APR for a short-term product that does not keep compounding for long enough for anything like that APR to ever apply.
No Wonga borrower can end up with a 5853% interest rate – the existence of this rate is just an quirk of our financial regulations which require all lenders to express their rates in annualized terms. Journalists and politicians who report this 5853% APR figure as the ‘standard’ Wonga rate are mistaken and are misleading the public.
The real problem is that people are poor enough to have to rely on these sorts of lenders. Wonga et al only exist because their customers have no better alternative. Before the emergence of the formal payday loan sector, people had to rely on tattooed guys with a Rottweiler who’d happily break your legs to recover their investment. Nobody wants to borrow from a firm like Wonga, but they're a damn sight better than the existing alternatives.
The Archbishop of Canterbury appears to recognise this. Giving people more choices by offering a cheaper alternative is the sensible way to help payday borrowers.
Treat that prediction with the humour it deserves.
More than 300,000 youngsters took “hippy crack” last year as it became a craze at festivals and concerts, according to official drug figures published today.
The craze for inhaling nitrous oxide — also known as laughing gas, N2O and sweet air — provides users with feelings of intense euphoria that some have likened to the effects of heroin and crack cocaine.
Often sold to youngsters in balloons for £2 or less, it is now, according to the figures, second only to cannabis as the most popular drug among 16 to 24-year-olds. Nitrous oxide can be bought online by buying “whipped cream canisters” .
Overall, drug use continues to fall in England and Wales with just under three million 16 to 59-year-olds saying that they took drugs in the last year. Cannabis remains the most popular drug, followed by powder cocaine and Ecstasy. Young adults aged 16-24 were most likely to have used drugs, according to the findings from the Crime Survey of England and Wales for 2012-13.
About one young person in six took illegal drugs in the 12 months, down from almost one in five the year before. The long-term trend in use of Class A drugs among 16 to 24-year-olds, including heroin and cocaine, fell, largely because of a reduction in the use of Ecstasy, LSD and magic mushrooms.
Cannabis use among all adults is now at the lowest level since measurement began 16 years ago. More than 13 per cent of youngster aged 16-24 used cannabis, down from its peak of of 28 per cent in 1998.
Alanbrooke said:
The BoT is in the poo because of imports - we're still not making enough of what we use and the weak currency means it's more expensive to import it.
No, I think the major problem is still on the demand side. A government pumping the thick end of £10bn a month into our economy that it is not taking out in taxes inevitably means demand and consumption are too high. Unless that is off set by an increase in production of at least the same amount (probably more due to multiplier effects) we will inevitably suck in imports.
Reducing government borrowing will therefore reduce the trade deficit. If we want to be better off and consume even more in the future then you are clearly right that we need to make and sell more.
...Asked to paint a picture of the demographic, he offered something close to a textbook definition of Middle England. It would be a place with “relatively high owner-occupiers but relatively average house price”, he said.
There would be a “fair proportion” of self-employed people and “probably” plenty of bungalows. “It would all be people paying their own way in life,” he said. “Drawing a pension, yes, that they’d paid in for. But absolutely self-supporting, self-reliant.” Hinting that he might pick one of the coastal regions where UKIP has performed well, he continued: “What’s become really interesting is the phenomenon that no one has really noticed, which is that by accident we’re becoming the seaside party.”
A likely candidate for Mr Farage’s own battle is Boston & Skegness, held by Mark Simmonds, the Conservative Foreign Office Minister. Others include the coastal seats of North Thanet and South Thanet, or Great Yarmouth. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3824595.ece
Which of the following images should Dave be weeding out (if any)? They are all the works of well known artists and a photographer. Do any Tories on here know what he has in his mind?
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4112/4843353721_7d2e07905b_b.jpg
MODERATED
http://m2.paperblog.com/i/120/1200611/giuseppe-veneziano-_-intervista-con-lartista-L-yh1cyX.jpeg
http://anatomika.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LidiaKochetkovaOlesyaYarokhinabyDavidHamiltonSistersSoonInternational2011-ANATOMIKA-15.jpg
As an uninformed observer,it does look to be very fast,and there was clearly a disruption from one of the carriages behind the main cab.
The Film footage of the diastrous shuttle launch,eventually led the investigators to the O ring failure on one of the solid boosters,I am sure they will find the cause of this derailment,hopefully not terror related.
Archbishop Wonga may well have difficulties establishing a sustainable credit lending scheme.
When consumer loans carry an interest rate which exceeds prevailing market rates by a wide margin this more often indicates that the lender has a high cost base rather than that he is making excessive profits.
Revolving credit cards are intermediate examples. Interest rates are not set as a margin above interbank or base rates (even though they may be advertised as such). The core cost drivers are fraud losses (say 0.5% to 1.5% of outstandings), write offs for bad debt (say 1.5% - 4.5%), and cross subsidies between cardholders.
Cross subsidies work as follows. In an average credit card portfolio, one third of customers will 'never borrow'. They take advantage of the max 45-60 day credit free period between transaction date and payment due date, but pay off the full monthly amount due each month. Another third only pays off the statutory minimum of 5% of their outstanding loan balance each month. And the final third pays somewhere between 5% and the total amount outstanding. Interest is only paid at the full APR rate by the third who 5% of the outstanding credit balance. This group is therefore 'subsidising' the other two thirds. The group which benefits most are those who pay off the entire balance each month: they are effectively getting 'free' credit paid for by the 'borrowers'.
The 'brick and mortar' costs of mainstream consumer credit lending are minimal. Most schemes are operated independently of a bank's branch network from a single national computer centre and offshore call centre. There is very little face to face human interaction between lender and borrower.
[to be continued]
[...continued]
When lending at the credit risk margin - i.e. very short term loans to high risk borrowers - then not only are bad debt losses likely to be much higher but the collection process will also require a much more distributed, local and face to face (i.e. expensive) network. So 'payday loans' have to operate with a much higher cost base and the repayers have to cross subsidise a much larger proportion of non-repayers.
There may well be a role for the Church to play in this market. They have a fully funded local distribution network in place. Additionally the Church's existing pastoral role may make it easier for a Church affiliated staff to collect or renegotiate payment terms than would be the case for an impersonal company perceived as hostile. However this assumption needs to be well tested by research and piloting before it can be accepted as valid.
The Church may also claim it can reduce interest rates because it does not need to turn a profit on its operations. Again this assumption will need careful testing. The counter arguments are that non-profit organisations tend to be less hard headed with costs and still need to generate surpluses to remain sustainable.
For the above reasons, I doubt whether the Church's involvement will lead to lower interest rates for borrowers. The business model for lending short to high risk borrowers is well established and there won't be much room for radical remodelling of the dynamics.
What the Church's involvement may achieve is a lessening of the stigma attached to payday loans and an increase in pressure on commercial operators who are abusing their customers. I suspect though this is more a PR initiative by Welby than a real business proposal: unless a major bank steps in to back the operation.
The BoT is in the poo because of imports - we're still not making enough of what we use and the weak currency means it's more expensive to import it.
No, I think the major problem is still on the demand side. A government pumping the thick end of £10bn a month into our economy that it is not taking out in taxes inevitably means demand and consumption are too high. Unless that is off set by an increase in production of at least the same amount (probably more due to multiplier effects) we will inevitably suck in imports.
Reducing government borrowing will therefore reduce the trade deficit. If we want to be better off and consume even more in the future then you are clearly right that we need to make and sell more.
It's a fine balance. If he sucks too much demand out he crashes the economy till it finds its new floor, maybe that's the right thing to do as it gets the pain over fast, but he'll never get re-elected in a month of Sundays. So it's walk down the hill rather than jump off a cliff. And since we're taking that path we need more domestic production to counter balance imports. It's infrastructure and capital investment rather than house price inflation, and why I argue for reform rather than GO's box of gimmicks.
Perhaps they'll give those in arrears a disapproving look, maybe combined with a raised eyebrow for serious cases.
In my inexpert view, I'd say that train was going way too fast for that radius of curve. That's the easy bit. The next question is why. Driver brain-fade or technical failure.
Apparently that stretch of line was not fitted with ETRMS which may have stopped driver error. It may not have helped if the cause was a technical failure on the train.
A horrific tragedy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Rail_Traffic_Management_System
New UKPR polling average:
Lab 38%
Con 32%
LD 10%
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
Gives Labour a projected majority of 76 which is obviously 38 seats over the winning post — not an enormous number of seats to play with at this stage.
Easily testable.
I can't wait to see what Welby comes up with.
I'm particularly looking forward to reading the reports of strongarm deacons crowbarring cash out of the inevitable welter of defaults.
Why do people think Wonga's rates are so high FFS?
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick 42m
TheCityUK, group which promotes City of London + financial services, confirm they still employ Lynton Crosby's firm on "consumer research"
All you say about the balance of trade is true. But..don't think of the BoT as all about manufactures.
The biggest thing we can relatively easily do to increase exports is through tourism - and here the new governor at the BoE is helping through weakening the pound, which helps manufactured export compettitveness too.
On imports our biggest gap is in energy. This is not easy to resolve quickly and the main cuplrit is whoever was minister fro energy over the last 15 years. Shale will help alot as will maintaining efficiency drives for vehicles, homes, commercial industrial use. I'm afraid a high tax take on fuel also helps suppress demand - so that's a hot potato for cost of living reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Mafia
Calculating pension contributions on an actuarial assessment of everlasting life would be challenging.
" On 24 February 2008, the News of the World newspaper reported that Crick had a six month affair with Jeanette Eccles, a former BBC researcher. The paper ridiculed Crick for presenting himself as a moral crusader when his own behaviour was unethical. He was also criticised for trying to prevent the publication of the story on the grounds of privacy while he was making a living from exposing the wrongdoings of others. "
A clown . To be laughed at.
"Your salvation is at risk if you do not keep up payments on a loan or loans secured thereon....."
7 COUNCIL BY ELECTIONS TODAY
Click the links below to find the information for the council by election you are interested in.
Each link gives you the list of candidates, Past results, ward map and ONS data.
BRAINTREE - BRAINTREE EAST COUNCIL BY ELECTION
EAST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE - THRAPSTON MARKET COUNCIL BY ELECTION
ELMBRIDGE - Weybridge South COUNCIL BY ELECTION
KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES - Beverley COUNCIL BY ELECTION
LAMBETH - TULSE HILL COUNCIL BY ELECTION
NORTH SOMERSET - Weston-Super-Mare North Worle COUNCIL BY ELECTION
UTTLESFORD - FELSTED COUNCIL BY ELECTION
CANDIDATES CONSIST OF.
7 CONSERVATIVES
7 UKIP
6 LABOUR
5 LIB DEM
4 INDYS
3 GREENS
1 TUSC
1 SOCIALIST
Also if you wish to take part in a online poll that election is on today
http://voteyourgoat.com/election
http://www.whitstableoystercompany.com/
Fine lobster, oysters and conversation. And not a kipper in sight.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21581995-western-worries-about-money-laundering-are-threatening-economic-lifeline?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/let_them_remit
Or something?
Perhaps Charles could advise on the Basel II implications of this.
I think you're right. Buy British!
Loans 4 believers?
Cash 2 Cassock?
Crick's biography according to Wikipedia ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crick#cite_note-10
Dennis Pennis was a funnier clown.
On a more relevant point, perhaps this might be a way of filling the pews. If people were well known within the community, the church would probably be more willing to give them loans.
Ah, yes but ... Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!
Cash 2 Cassock?
' The Finance Font?'
http://www.espn.co.uk/sauber/motorsport/story/117829.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/matthewholehouse/100228127/the-liberal-democrat-student-base-has-evaporated/
" if only those 24 and under were allowed to vote, we forecast David Cameron would be PM with a healthy majority of 46 and 44 per cent of the vote – a greater share of the general vote than Thatcher or Blair ever enjoyed.
Labour would gain 18 seats off 36 per cent of the vote, but remain in opposition. And all that would remain of the Liberal Democrats, with 4 per cent of the vote, would be Alistair Carmichael, Member for Orkney and Shetland. "
I've noticed a few articles on the strange re-emergence of the lesser spotted young conservative.
Is it real and/or significant in any way?