Looks like Gideon has got it wrong and they are working on a plan B.

I think the point is "relative" is the word we're using a lot here. And being "relatively poor" is difficult. There are almost always people worse off than you. Yes This is the "flak" Meg was talking about.
Grow up guys. Stop belittling each other's very real and sometimes painful experiences. There are some on here who have been in, or near the gutter but have incredible dignity and manage to raise families with class and respect. There are others who may have grown up or earned or 'won' pots and pots but who have no class and no respect for others at all. Fortunately there are still a few people on this group who can exchange opinions without the "know it all" attitude. I have to say many more leave because of this behaviour. Such a shame.

Sorry. I didn't notice we were back to the thread. Still I'll leave the above in because I think it needed to be said.

If the world slips into a second recession which looks increasingly possible, we could be in deeper trouble than anyone realizes, regardless of what plan we choose from A to Z.
It seems that Gordon let things slip far too far and we are like a stalled aircraft falling rapidly to the ground with insufficient time and height to be able to recover.
The only thing for sure is that the present Govt is in a no win situation and obviously has been ever since it took office, by which I mean whatever unpopular measures are necessary will see it doomed at the next election.
Much the same applies in the States where whoever got in last time was also obviously on a hiding to nothing from day one.
Maybe Obama would have been a decent Pres. given half a chance, who knows.

The problem didn't start with Gordon. It runs much deeper and at the heart was Margaret Thatchers decision that service industries added value and were the best way for our economy to go. She wasn't much fond of traditional industry (and it's traditional unions). That's when the money shuffling started and the house of cards had it's foundations laid. Although you could go back to biblical usury and even further. As soon as people lose the concept of win-win and go all out to ride financial bubbles the foundations of a successful community go out of the window. The only thing which has real value is hard graft.. whether that be physical or mental. Anything else is just parasitic.
Now the situation is all the parasites are running around trying to extract blood from each other. I believe society is in meltdown and it could get very nasty indeed. Spain however does still have it's traditional food industry and a wealth of sunshine (if it gets it's finger out re-solar power) , and as long as it keeps from borrowing from the new rich (The east) it will be able to rebalance itself. Everyone needs food and warmth.

It's tempting to blame Margaret Thatcher or Gordon Brown. but neither of them were in charge of all the other countries of the world who are all in the shit just the same as we are. The Germans have got fat Kohl, Spain has got the little fellow who looks like Hitler, the Yanks have got Clinton and his moist cigars, but none of them were responsible either; the world slipped into this awful recession because of human greed, just as it always has done.

And not just greedy bankers, I know a guy here in Spain who came over with only some kind of disability benefit from the UK, bought a house with a forged mortgage application, and still works here as a tradesman on the black. He rents out half of his house and will survive long after the honest people who have to go home because they're skint.

I cannot see how you can blame Maggie Thatcher in this, first of all she hasnt been in office for 21 years, whilst John Major did the best he could with a majority of 3, for 5 years. Its the spendthrift ways of the Blair Brown 13 years when the damage was done, pandering to the unions. You might as well blame Queen Victoria for the expansion of the British Empire. Which one came up with the idea of PFI where £11bn of hospital building is now going to cost £70bn - at current rates - over the next 25 years.

Heath asked the Great British Public a very basic question "who runs this country - me or the unions?" and the Great British Public told thim quite emphatically "The Unions". Maggie learnt a big lesson then and was determined that the question would never be asked again - instead of allowing "the enemy" to run around she was determined to chop them off at the legs. The union leaders are bloodsuckers, sending the lemmings out on strike, setting up pickets whilst they run around in their chauffered limo's, living in union owned houses, existing off lavish expenses. (and I was brought up in a strict union household, and was a member for 6 years).

Financial bubbles have been around for centuries, it would appear to in the makeup of all of us to go for something for nothing, make a profit out of someone elses misfortune, take advantage of that BOGOFF, etc etc.

We thought the banks et al had learnt their lessons (that we are still paying for) and had regulatory processes in place but now we find that a bloodsucker from UBS, who is employed to make profit out of marginal differences in daily currency movements has been operating out of control for perhaps up to 4 years without coming up on the regulatory radar. (like Nick Leeson he had "back office" experience so knew how to use back doors). How many more are there out there, going for the gain rather than the pain ??

Yes I think Spain has a lot going for it, settling back into its more rural lifestyle as manufacturing etc is decreasing, to some extent being part of the small group of countries that provide food for the world.
I heard the solar power initiative is now stalled or on hold - is that so ??

According to Darling, every single day of the Brown govt.was crisis and confusion.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/hea..._UK_crisis___/

Brown simply ignored all the advice he was given that he was rapidly taking the country deeper into trouble when instead he should have been steadying the ship and concentrating on damage limitation.
He kept bungling along on his merry way totally clueless and oblivious to all the obvious danger signs around him.
Had he followed good advice and taken sensible remedial action at the appropriate time the present situation need not have been anything like as bad as it turned out.

so if Brown suddenly became a liability on becoming PM how effective was he as Chancellor ???

Anyone who sold off our gold reserves the way he did is, in my book, an imbecile.

Graham

Doesn't bear thinking about, though to what extent he got a free hand and all his own way is difficult to say, as most of the time he was at loggerheads with Blair.

Even amongst his own present party, be it left,right or centre, he is virtually treated like a leper or someone with a terrible contagious disease to be best avoided or kept at a distance whenever possible.

AAHHH !!
he was made redundant then

and at a discount for quantity


it really doesn't bear thinking about

Well there was talk of him being put forward as head of the IMF.
That doesn't bear thinking about either.
He'd likely have brought the whole World to its knees in a short space of time.
Oh sorry I forgot, was he not the one who claimed to have saved the World ?