It's clear the US has been far more progressive and adherent to Keynesian economics while the Euro nations on the whole seem to have been far more Neo-Liberal.
www.fpif.org/articles/from_keynesianism_...radigms_in_economics

How this pans out with Cyprus will remain to be seen, I think it's a bitter medicine but worth trying instead if the enforced state austerity program and privatisation schemes prevalent in Greece.

Mike wrote:
They can't even touch their money until Wednesday now, maybe Thursday or how about Friday?

Mike wrote:
The enforced austerity swiftly follows when everyone pulls out the bank deposits...jesus fucksake

andyh wrote:
Andy I agree with this line 100% but I do wish you'd stop issuing what sounds like attacks on unemployed people just because Mike says he's on the dole. The country is currently full of people who have little choice about not working. Besides which, you proudly declare you dodge as much tax as you can. Mike avoids paying in, you avoid paying out. And people on low incomes still need life saving operations either way.

Mike wrote: Nothing is going to save this economic system. If you have savings in a British bank, sooner or later you will either (a) lose them, or (b) they will be inflated out of existence. I can't make it any clearer than I have already on numerous occasions on this forum, and it's been done by many other people who know a lot more than me in much greater depth. There really is no point in discussing the subject at this point, we should all simply be working out what we can do to help ourselves and one another. What is happening now in Cyprus was predicted many years ago, and is not remotely surprising to me, let alone people that really know about economics.

dogsmilk wrote:
I don't 'dodge' the tax I'm due to pay, I'm simply not asked to pay as much as an employee would, simple as.
This alone should wake people up but it doesn't. Oh no, companies pay taxes and distribute their wealth...lol yeah right...the only way company profits are redistributed is via the income tax of their just over broke PAYE employees who also pay VAT and dozens of other things just to make ends meet losing everything at every corner and slaving away all their lives for fuck all.

The idiots who think that buying a house is a good idea cos the price rises

The idiots who believe that a country can owe 9 or 10 times its GDP and still manage to make interest payments as the debt rises and rises and they borrow more and more and somehow its all going to be just fine and fucking dandy!
Sounds just like the fucking pricks who bought houses at 9 or 10 times their salary, cars that were twice their salary because they could just keep getting a new car swop every 3 years and carry on fucking doing it forever, people who can't get their heads around banks printing money up out of thin air to allow all this nonsense to happen.

Not that long ago I was a bloody mechanic fresh out of college working for £2 an hour and washing dishes on the side, then I was a bus driver qualifying with stagecoach, while part time paying for my own qualifications to get into IT.
Then I saw the housing collapse and got the hell out in a hurry and paid off all my debts and with a thousand quid I made a new life in a new country and never used debt again.
I pay for my own family and my own families healthcare, I pay ALL my dues 100% and I work hard to keep it that way, part of that work involves some research and common sense and doing something with my life.

It really really pisses me off that despite all my responsibility the western world remains plagued with useless tossers.
From chav scum to banker scum they are all the same, useless bastards afraid of some real hard work.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Even gold/silver is only useful if theres still some sort of calm.
Land, shelter, fuel, food and weapons. I guess that is what this is going to come to.

dogsmilk wrote: I pay in through consumption and VAT, any rises in consumption or tax duty hit people like me (who spend 100% of all income) the hardest.

Mike wrote:
You just recycle what you get that the state steals.

andyh wrote: What do you propose mein fuhrer?

People have to live like paupers because they can't get work, or work their arses off for every £1 they earn - and watch people like Eliades collect 2,000,000 euros as a bonus for his work at the BoC!

Can someone clarify for me - everyone's referring to the cash in banks as 'savings'. But am I right in thinking this is not specifically savings accounts they're talking about plundering. It's all accounts including current. People generally are forced to have their wages paid directly into banks, so most working people have no choice but to have bank accounts, and unless I've got it wrong, they're misleading by talking about this tax being taken from 'savings', as that implies surplus cash that's not needed for hand to mouth living costs.

Mike wrote:
Armed insurrection is probably the only thing that will stop this crap now.

Gilly wrote:
Yes its ALL their bank accounts and they can't even use their money at the moment. Not til Wednesday now and it might even drag on past that. And yes the wanker banker is getting his huge bonus despite everything thats happening

Gilly wrote: They will definitely go after both because there are serious investors with millions in savings accounts, but then AFAIK most bank accounts are current accounts, so they will want to freeze all these as well. Actually, I just found this:

www.cyprus-mail.com/bailout/money-will-b...day-morning/20130317

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Its funny but jesus I shouldn't be laughing!

!

feather wrote:
Billion and billions and billions and billions and his face is turning purple lol!!

Cypriot President Anastasiades claims that the entire Cypriot banking system is on the verge of collapse in national address:

www.businessinsider.com/cyprus-bailout-s...-anastasiades-2013-3

andyh wrote:
When we bought a house, we bought a small terrace with a backyard. The real draw was the mortgage was substantially less each month than we'd been paying in rent for a comparable property.
We could have bought a bigger house with a nice garden - and of course a far bigger mortgage. People would advise us to this. Professional people who were paid to know what they're talking about might advise us to do this. It's an investment, right?
Nearly every day something came through the door offering one or both of us credit. Practically begging us to take out some credit.
In fact, when we did get a mortgage it kinda went against that we didn't have a great credit rating - because we had no history of debt.

Why are ordinary people to blame because they were constantly bombarded with messages to borrow borrow borrow and then did so?


I'm sincerely glad things worked out.

You must have been a mechanic a good while ago if you were paid £2 an hour.
.
Much as I despise bankers, apparently they do tend to work very hard. Doing bullshit and fucking things up, but nevertheless putting in the hours to do so.

And what are "chav scum"? Wikipedia is surprisingly forthright regarding the definition of "chav"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav

In the old days the working class were characterised as keeping coal in their bath. This days they're mocked for a tendency to wear clothes the fashion police deem tacky and adorn themselves with bling - though achieving status through displays of gold seems to me fairly logical for people who can't afford an investment portfolio in a society that places financial wealth as the epitome we should all aspire towards. Same with having a souped up car. It's something they can realistically aspire to.

Of course there are these people who none of us would like to live next door to, but hasn't that always been the case? And wasn't this made more likely after the all the council houses were sold off and what was left were likely to be the more troubled people corralled into designated parking pays for those that failed to aspire? Not to mention the deliberate dismantling of working class identity and destruction of traditional manufacturing jobs.

But of course these days the working class are fair game. With their tacky clothes and foul mouths and appearances on Jeremy Kyle for our entertainment. Of course not all the working class are chavs. Some look down on the chavs and think thank God I'm not like them. I'm so much more decent. Their 'betters' have always feared them deep down - the unruly mob with little to lose. Thank God they're no longer political.

What should we do about the chavs Andy?