John Cruddas..Labour's only hope

[Guilbert]

>such an expert on global financal markets chose to write on a porn
>forum about a crisis very few others could predict.

While I realise your comment was written in ironic tones, I think it was fairly easy to predict that the "bubble was going to burst" in the financial markets at some point.

For years this country (and others) had been living on borrowed time.

Higher and higher house prices, more and more personal debt, bigger and bigger mortgages. It could not go on.

This was almost like one of those pyramid selling scams, and it was obvious the whole thing would collapse at some time.

For that reason I took early retirement about 5 years ago, took my decent pension and paid off my mortgage. I never have credit card or other debts.

While many of those who took out huge mortgages, or had massive credit card debts, are now struggling, I now have no debts and am going along quite nicely.

I know it does not make me a financial expert, but I think I have enough experience of the world to spot when things are going to go tits up.

[Guilbert]

One other thing on my financial knowledge.

About 35 years ago I got divorced, had no money, and needed a mortgage to buy a house.

I asked around, and people were falling over themselves to sell me endowment mortgages.

Offers of paying off my mortgage and huge bonuses at the end.

Of course it all depended on the stock market going up and up, and I had concerns it may not.

I also thought to myself if these people are so keen to sell me this type of mortgage they must be making something out of it.

So I hunted round and eventually got a repayment mortgage.

Of course endowment mortgages are now in all sorts of mess, and people are finding it will not even pay off their mortgage, let alone give them any sort of bonus.

Whereas I have managed to pay off my mortgage already.

Does this make me a financial expert, No.

But it does prove it pays to have a bit of common sense when dealing with money.

And that common sense led me to see that the "bubble" in the financial world was going to burst, and it has.

[max_tranmere]

I saw Andrew Neil (now a TV presenter, previously editor of The Sunday Times - a Murdoch paper) say a while ago that Murdoch's empire dies when Murdoch dies. Even though his kids now run bits of it and will presumably continue to do so even after Murdoch has shuffled off and descended into the dungeons of hell to be tortured by Lucifer every day for eternity. So the empire will still be run by members of the family but Andrew Neil said it will be so fragmented by then that it wont be one empire as such.

I think it is shocking how unelected people, who like I say can't vote here, dont live here and pay no tax here, are so incredibly powerful within the country. He is foreign and that is terrible! There was an interesting, and disturbing, programme on BBC4 a little while ago called "Prime Ministers And Press Barons" and was all about this. It was very troubling to see. It gave examples of how some PM's actually gave knighthoods to some press barons to stop them trying to bring down their government, not because the government deserved bringing down but just because this arrogant c**t newspaper owner fancied doing it as he had a grudge or because his politics didn't chime with that of the government of the day. How did our society ever get like this?!!

[davey]

lets hope and pray labour are out for at least 10 years.and as for crudass turning things round you must be joking.look what he has done to Barking and Dagenham.filled it with every piece of third world trash he can find so that these once lovely areas resemble downtown Mogadishu or Lahore.thank god the BNP are strong there to stop him completely destroying it

[randyandy]

Guilbert wrote:

> While I realise your comment was written in ironic tones, I
> think it was fairly easy to predict that the "bubble was going
> to burst" in the financial markets at some point.
>
> For years this country (and others) had been living on borrowed
> time.
>

That's the point I just don't get Guilbert.

Firstly how can Brown be responsible for these other countries?

Like you I've never had and never will have a credit card and the only loan is a very small mortgage.

I have the very small mortgage because I was brought up on if you can't afford don't buy.

Mortage method was buy what you can afford with some flat basic pay not all of it. The remainder for car, bills, food, etc with nice bonuses like holidays coming from overtime, if what was left over from basic and savings didn't get them.

These methods were given to me by my family not by the Government.

The only fincial anything I've taken from 'Brown's Government' advice being isa.

I was young when I bought my house and while not skilled in life and the real world it wasn't rocket science to know that paying more than I could on loans would cause me real difficulties, even without the advice from my family.

If I'd have gone for the big loan and consequently struggled it would not have been the lovely Mrs T's fault, it would have been my own, so why is Brown being blamed for the greed of others are they not responsible for their own actions?

Things started going tits up when banks started being more than banks and that isn't Browns fault either.

[randyandy]

max_tranmere wrote:

> How did our society ever get like this?!!

Because people allowed it to max.

Green Dave very media friendly. His politics don't mean a thing it's what he looks like on camera that matters most - he comes across as a nice man.

Until some miracle and I do mean miracle happens that changes joe-publics perception of the media we are going to be fucked for decades to come.

Lets face it if the lovely Jade was still here and had stood for Mayor of London next time backed by the rags even Boris would be out.