大象传媒

AN APPEAL FOR PERSPECTIVE

People are not buying cars. People are losing their homes.

What exactly does it mean that people are losing their homes? Does it mean that they are on the streets, or does it mean that many people are losing their second and thirdhomes, whilst others, essentially property developers, are losing their Buy To Let portfolios? Can Paul Mason get a break-down of how this works out?

Next to property, people were buying cars on finance, so obviously that's going to be hit like property, and those businesses which supported these growth industries.

Can we have it all put into perspective please?

We've had 65 consecutive quarters of growth averaging 2.5% a year, and much of that was based on credit, some of which was used for investment in the markets. Much of the immigration was justified in the context of the boom in the property market and Service Sector associated with the Financial Services. What now?

For credit read debt.

People have been buying houses and cars on debt - most of it on debt that could never be repaid in their lifetimes.

Only an idiot would not realise that eventually it was all going to come crashing down and take the economy with it.

The billions that the banks had and which have disappeared have mostly gone on silly house prices - people getting mortgages on houses that were only truly worth a fraction of what people were paying for them.

At the same time people who thought that they were rich because of their house stopped buying Fords and Vauxhalls and went out and bought BMWs, Mercedes and other expensive makes. Walking into a car dealership in recent years and wanting to spend 20,000 Pounds on a car made you feel like a pauper compared to the ridiculous sums being paid by many people for their cars.

Yet now we have a Union boss claiming that a major car factory is about to close - well, why don't they have a 40 or 50 percent sale off their cars then? I would buy one. I bet thousands would.

I am in the market for a new car but I have yet to see one of the UK built car makes offer anything more than a mere 拢500 off their list price! What a joke! Everyone else in the UK is suffering in this depression, losing jobs, having salaries cut and cutting prices but the car makers won't cut their prices at all and, in some cases, have put their prices up!

The economics of madness! Let them go bust the greedy so and sos!

Kirsty,

"We'll be speaking to the bloggers who WERE ahead of the curve".

Plenty of bloggers still ARE ahead of the curve. Why wait till after the event?

One of the advantages of the affluent society we have created is that it will be sometime before we see the Absolute Poverty levels of the 1930's.If,like me,people sold most of the garbage they have accumulated throughout the past 2 decades,they will be able to eat for a good while yet!

J GORDON DRONE

Is it me - or is J Gordon turning into a bagpipe? His voice has become low, soft and monotonous (more so).
Is he on beta-blockers to quell the anxiety of pursuit by baying wannabes or - worse - the terror of being defended by Hazel?
If he comes out with 'Once more unto the breach dear friends once more, or close the account with our banker dead', I doubt he will be heard above the sounds of rioting.

How did we get this man as a 'leader'? If he is the best we have . . .

LOL fair comment last post 5

(in a squeKEY voice) we'll keep the red flag flying high. OH yeah who's blood will be on it to make that colour? not theirs(ie nu labour) anybody else's yes.

KANUTISM

Barrie (#5)

"When I first took office they showed me a chart. On it was a line which showed the apparently inexorable rise in crime over the previous 50 years.

They said to me:-

鈥淭his is what has happened to crime over the last 50 years.

It is going to carry on rising. And the first thing you must understand, Home Secretary, is that there is nothing you can do about it.鈥�
鈥淵our job,鈥� they said, 鈥渋s to manage public expectations in the face of this inevitable rise in crime.鈥�



Now, he says he didn't take the advice - but those advising him were very experienced Civil Servants - so what were they esssentially saying to him in our times? As our dysgenic population grows.......

So what is J Gordon Brown to do? Why do people keep expecting an anarchistic government which has devolved everything to the markets etc to be able to do anything more than manage our expectations (this, for the non-cognoscenti, is just another term for spin) - to do otherwise would be, err.... statist...err.... Nazi even!

J Goody's bloke the correct thing to do yes, whens the election? R Biggs with a few of his friends nicked a few quid donkeys years ago, A real threat to who? anoRACK wearing nulabour (brown take note)

Rape and Kill a few children and under nu lab freedom awaits ten times faster than R Biggs will get.

The ex plumber who nicked 30 mill of vat, 9 years in an open jail, didnt fancy it so he just walked out and now lives in the swiss alps. oh oh oh

10 + years of nuLab 2 + TRILLION disapears up in the smoke. A Lordship OH OH OH

ye gota laugh

Just caught Sir David on civilisation I remember it but forget. I would like to see that again and or a remake, Sir Simon S perhaps.

Instead of inviting Christine Odone & David Aaronovitch to comment on the change in the terms of Jade Goody's fianc茅's curfew, couldn't Newsnight have found someone who actually knew something about the criminal justice system, e.g., a magistrate? Decisions are often made on compassionate grounds, e.g., temporary prison release to attend a relative's funeral, yet neither of the two interviewees seemed to be aware of this. Odone's assertion that the government had changed the law just demonstrated her ignorance of the subject.

Very uncharitable comments by Christina on about Jade Goody. Switched off the program in disgust - she seemed divorced from reality herself. I don't watch any reality shows and hate the usually worthless celebrity culture, but Jade deserves sympathy here.

I CONCLUDE: YOUR STANCE MAY BE FLAWED JADED JEAN.

It is my observation that those who engage, single-mindedly, zealously, in proving some 'life-hypothesis', can often have an inner need for their world to conform to tenets being asserted. (This may also apply to me.)

They find the world that most of us live in, a very uncomfortable place because it is vague, messy, out of their CONTROL. If they have 'scholarship', they apply themselves to giant works of rationality, that can last a lifetime; that have such weight of authority, few dare gainsay.
Those without scholarship, perform safety rituals, and are termed 'OCD', but their aim is the same: CONTROL.

I contend that the establishment-espousal of scholarly hypotheses may arise more from the makeup of our society (one also rife with religions) than any intrinsic truth therein. After all, we have many adherents to Bulimia and Anorexia; all desperately attempting to CONTROL their environment, but clearly without validity, as a way of life.

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obekant (#10) "Instead of inviting Christine Odone & David Aaronovitch to comment on the change in the terms of Jade Goody's fiance's curfew, couldn't Newsnight have found someone who actually knew something about the criminal justice system..."

Newsnight likes the ad hominem (argument form authority in this case) in all its myriad guises - but especially celebritism - see Newsnight Review. It's endemic in the media. If someone is high profile (aka 'a celebrity' in predominantly female these days media think), they wheel them out for their 'views' on an issue even when said people are really no better informed than anyone else. These people theereby get even more false celebrity credibility bestowed upon them, and so the modern aburdity of false credit assignment and nurturing goes on and on - it's all insidious product endorsement and image reinforcement. The absurdity of this was highlighted when the PM was asked his views on the Jade Goody story etc...

In doing this, the Newsnight team really tells us what they think of viewers.

Rap is very hard to do well. Shakespeare is very hard to do well. Fusing them is... well, nice try mate.

WE'RE ALL FLAWED

barrie (#12) That's been standard psychology for at least a century Barrie. Freud called it sublimation (cf. Civilization and its Discontents) and everyone else has put some slant on the fact that we have to get control or we become the victims of the otherwise unpredictable here and now - i.e we suddenly find ourselves hungry, thirsty, too hot, too cold, exposed etc. In fact, Quine summed up his contribution to Philosophy of Science (in my view aka epistemology/learning) in Pursuit of Truth and From Stimulus To Science (clever titles if you think about it) that our scientific laws (Observation Categoricals) are 'just' elaborated, operantly conditioned, behaviours, regimented by collectively derived extensional artificial language (mathematical logic), at root 'designed' by natural selection to allow us to better predict stimulation of our sensory surfaces.

Sometimes I tell myself that, late in life, he (no doubt unwittingly) plagiarised me - such is the cost of having a penchant for anonymity.... and being flawed ;-)

ARE YOU A GOD JADED JEAN? I FEEL MADNESS COMING ON. (#16)

It could not be more clear, JJ, that you are as well placed as I, to write MY 'return' to your measured statement at #16 - hence it warrants no writing. Do gods play tennis, with themselves, by accessing the fourth dimension?

I shall now retreat to 'facetious safety' in pondering which, of Skinner and Quine, was the displaced anorexic, and which the sublimated bulimic.

Perhaps, when truly centred, synchronicity is absolute, and plagiarism a meaningless concept? However, with perfection implicit, 'flawed' would also have no place.

Brain Gym is as nothing to the work-out one can get on the Newsnight blog! Thanks.

Barrie, forget 'Brain Gym, SureStart, HeadStart, SEAL, AIMING HIGH, etc) the problem is that isn't reasoning at all ?

There are so many examples of these problems with belief and other intensional states, we know what tey are, they are easily demonstrated and instantiated, yet people generally keep defending them as admirable, as inescapable. Why?

If it isn't someone like Madoff, it's someone else , at least, not according to the traditional rules.

Think of the 'Snakes In Suits' links (Bob Hare). It's criminal, it's endemic, and sadly, like narcissism, it's untreatable.

Am I a God? No, I'm just Jaded.

the new currency "AMERO", a poem.......

along came a man called barack

whos job is to keep the secret agenda on track

Bush jr signed the north american partnership in 2005

now its obama's turn to bring the UNION alive

the US/canada/mexico dollar is to sink and go

to bring in the new currency the "AMERO"

kind regards
nomorefakenews

"What exactly does it mean that people are losing their homes? Does it mean that they are on the streets, or does it mean that many people are losing their second and thirdhomes, whilst others, essentially property developers, are losing their Buy To Let portfolios? Can Paul Mason get a break-down of how this works out?"


I think things are in such flux that it may be difficult for Paul to get a firm handle on that. From my own experience when relatives found themselves in trouble just after Christmas they asked to stay at my place, some were more deserving than others, it certainly caused unwanted tensions and anxiety. the ones who are having to wait a long time to get benefits having been made redundant have my sympathy, but the stress and tensions upon me was/is not less compared to the middle class ones who *invested* without due diligence, Ponzi schemes work because of greed, people understand *if its too good to be true it probably is* what they dont understand is where their greed will take them. Which writer said *money tends to bleach out all other values* I cant remember now but we are seeing that big time.

I'll leave you gods to get on with 4th dimensional tennis.

streetphotobeing (#20) As you probably know, all tennis is played in four dimensions as the fourth dimension is just time. In multi-variate statistics and Hilbert Space, dimensions are just mathematical constructs which expand as one includes more independent variables - i.e. they're just convenient fictions for modelling so long as the models improve predictability/control.

People generally know when they are living way beyond their means - and whilst there are no doubt some genuine victims who are hit as these industries contract, it's wrong that those who abstained are hit even harder (e.g. their savings, pension funds etc). Those who orchestrated this anarchistic economy know no better and now appear determined to reinstate the status quo because they know no better. The media is helping. Paul Mason/Stephanie Flanders, Robert Peston should ask thiose who collate the data to look into those repossession figures more closely.

Reading some of the links that I have provided might shape more people to think more critically about the nature of this entire culture. I've said before that there is a sex difference, and that sexual-dimorphism is a brain-gender issue which crosses the sexes and differs in prevalence between endogamous groups - Harriet Harman and friends should take note of this perhaps?

#16 JoJo

I've sometimes wondered in what it is that you specialise. Is this a clue?

"stimulation of our sensory surfaces."

13thMan (#22) As you're evidently having problems with yours, I suggest you read , paying particular attention to the explication of the second dogma.

#23 JoJo

Thanks for confirmation.

13thMan (#24) Perhaps you don't fully appreciate the scope of the problem?

I suspect should be referring to /BPD and Cluster B. Axis II in general?

Given the recent electoral result and subsequent , I fear we'll be seeing a lot more instantiations of this unusual volatility/stress response, on Newsnight and elsewhere in the near future.

What if it is down to a higher prevalence due to endogamy. This sort of thing does happen, and when anomalies confer some 'advantages' they are not selected against.

JJ Post 7 fair comment.

A couple a 3 minor points.
costings = justice?

Your average lawbreaker myself included
thinks/believes he/she is tough and or clever and more
As a reward for their effforts good/bad evil or indiffeRANT should be freedom away from the lawabiding. IE furnish them with a tent/ dossbag/survival instructions/rats and a travel warrant, take them hand in hand to a place where they can do what they bloody well like/want without hurting the young/old/ innocent (is there such a thing) no punish meant no death penalty no torture or mine.

As a man I believe the female should be excluded from this scheme. (sexist git that i am)
Tarriff = Time = crime

A so called uman right/wrong lawyer earns? 拢500.000 per anum. who pays 4 that? not me sister.
others in the trade can earn 100 times that who pays?
the judge/politician has a nice little earner with expences (ces who?)

If the politician/judge/lawyer was/were paid the same as a NURSE/Soldier?

per chance 2 dream? oops I have just soil led meself

Kirsty,
Why on earth are you patronising this incredibly low form of communication.Surely you should be asking David Attenboro(sic)about a new form of animal behaviour rather than a bunch of phonies from the R.A.who cannot make their case.
The whole idea is to leave behind those who can't be arsed trying to increase/expand their vocab.and encourage their audience to do the same?

THE 60 YEAR MODUS OPERANDI OF PRO LIBERAL-DEMOCRACY/FREE-MARKET PROPAGANDA?

9.5 million in Europe in 1933, with most of those in the USSR, Poland and Eastern Europe (estimates for Russia varied, surely many must have died as combatants/collaterals?). Surely the problem is that many trusting/naive people don't take into account how Europe's borders changed dramatically as agreed between the allies after WWII, or consider the implications of a) half of Poland becoming Russia (Russia invaded Poland in 1939 at the same time that Germany did, Britain did not declare war on the USSR note) and b) the fact that most of the rest of Eastern Europe went behind a 'curtain' after the war (not to mention the allied de-nazification [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] 'guilt' programme designed to consolidate free-market Liberal-Democracy in the West - perhaps Stalin hoped this (and the partially implemented Dexter White/Morgenthau Plan) would accelerate the collapse of capitalism?).

To spell it out, given the below replacement level TFRs (2.1 being replacement level) of Europeans and its impact on population growth (Germany was very concerned about this in the 30s, as was Britain - the concern started with The Demographic Transition), I suggest sceptics give the current Jewish world population figure of about 14 million some very careful thought given the 1933 estimate of 15.3 million.

Conspiracy is a much abused term today, groups compete, it's a law of nature, and that's not illegal - in fact, one hears competition being promoted as central to free market Liberal-Democracy and government being told not to interfere every day. Some of those groups are family' businesses or interests.

Some one can find almost anywhere.

Finally, a thought or two on emotional bluster, and pursuit of . Much of it is probably done unwittingly, and without malice. Such is emotional loyalty.

'...couldn't Newsnight have found someone who actually knew something...

Made my day.

I believe it comes under 'enhancing (or, in this case, perhaps more accurately shaping) the narrative'.

Of course, it can't hurt the ratings, either.

Who needs informed, objective news reporting and commentary anyway?

Unique.

Mdme Jaded - I've been spending my time in Rm101 catching up on your prolifery of links. I'd like to comment but the moderation process deters me. Can I contact you elsewhere? I only have an email address, which I don't want to publish. DrMissWest

doctormisswest (#30) You could try relaying via Barrie who might know someone else who might...

..although I have to say, I do find that BlogDog is usually fair, so long as what's posted is rational, evidence-based and objectively inoffensive/not malicious etc.

MOSSAD R US (#30 31)

Are we forming a secret society JJ? Where no one can reveal the identitiy of Mrs Big?

I am up for it. Being rational, stable and free from sin, I am a perfect link in the chain.

I am easily found on the web.

Hain reasonably warned that the BNP won 408 votes in a council election. Thats not going to convert into a national sensation I know.

I agree with the no platform for racists strategy but is it not an idea to find out whether these 408 people really understood what they had voted for? I will bet 75% don't.

I don't need to elaborate about what may put off voters as readers of this page will have learned that Hitler "did good and bad things" and "anarchists and Trotskyites" will "paint him as darkly as possible for party political reasons".

In other words race "realism" is a very thin veneer for what lies beneath.

Who is this jane goody? I have never heard of her so why all the fuss?

'A public inquiry has condemned the failings that led to thousands of people being infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood.'


Is this the same inquiry which Lord Owen contributed to and found that there were lots of missing papers from the Health Dept. relating to the source of the blood (US prisons)?

Is it a whitewash to cover up the failings of the bureaucracy?

wings16f7 (#35) Whereas Jane Goodall became famous for studying primates in the wild, Jade Goody became famous for the reverse.

Oh yes Barrie, chuckle, very secret!



if so, scroll down, click bannock, 6th photo down, see you at noon!

If the piece seems interesting, pass it on.

Good dogs, down boys, down!

POST OF THE DAY (#36)

"Whereas Jane Goodall became famous for studying primates in the wild, Jade Goody became famous for the reverse."


I wish I had spotted that one. (:o)

CAN'T GET AWAY TO BE SHOT BY YOU TODAY (37)

It is going to take me (at my reading speed) a long time to read your second link - but it sure looks heluva int'rest'n' read thar missy.

As for the ghost town pics - BRILLIANT!
My favourite is the one legged stove. Why have the yahoos not busted and burned everything?

Another noon perhaps (for the killin').

PS: The site spells it Bannack, but why choose Bannack?

Goooood Bloggie-doggie. Clever doggie.

I've been forsooked!!!

why BannAck? -->

doctormisswest (#40)

WAIT ALONG - WAIT ALONG (#40)

"And ah merst fayce a dawg who HATes me." (See #1)

But Denver is Colorado surely?

OH DANG MY BRITCHES (error @ 42)

I meant: see post 1 on the Monday thread.

#44 doctormisswest

Thanks for the video, never seen it, and very funny, pity the politicians don't watch them, or do they?!

And to paraphrase you

"do you like soft facts and hard sounds"

#45

spot on! i'm laughing so much I can barely write -

I've heard of PJ but I didn't really know who she was. Anyway her crooning seems

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