wasnt he 'undead'...? what a slimey odious toad of a creature...horrible cadaverous little gutter snipe..
yes good old Italy..the birth place of the catholic church, or as its better known, fascist far right.. how can it be that a country that invented fascism, catholisism and the mafia, also make ferraris, Lambos and Dukes?? Shame is, the former seems to go around the world even faster than the latter.
Grillo snubs bersani and calls Him a dead man talking! The Germans call the right Berlusconi and Grillo clowns.. Oh what a peaceful euroland we live in.
I've just read this whole thread and it was very entertaining (although it goes off a bit at the end). The only thing I think I have to add to it is that no one mentioned what interest rates are supposed to buy. The answer is, to compensate for uncertainty and risk. If you ask me to lend you £100, and I don't know you, why would I? I might not get it back. So you say, well, if you do, I'll give you £110 back. Lured by greed, I then accept the risk that I might be waving goodbye to my £100 in order to make £10 without actually doing anything. Or to put it another way, you are hiring my money for a bit. The higher the risk of losing the cash, the more money I need as an incentive to lend it. That's pretty much how interest rates work. I can't see anyone lending you cash for zero interest. What's in it for them? I suppose a couple of other things might be mentioned. One is that it seems to me that globalisation is a bit like a water table. The water will flow until it reaches the same level everywhere. If you have crushingly poor people somewhere, they will work cheaply, because it's still better for them than looking after the family pig. This will put people out of work in richer countries and they will become poorer. On a global level, it's all fairer. On a local level, if you were one of the haves, it's not so rosy. People in Greece and Spain without jobs and living with their parents, are probably still better off than immigrants in Dubai living 10 to a room and working 100 hour weeks. By that, I mean their lives are still materially more comfortable. The other thing to mention is that Britain (like most developed countries) has an ageing population which is thus increasingly unproductive. Modern medicine means that people can now be unproductive for longer and it also costs an increasing amount in drugs and treatments to keep them alive through the simple reason that those drugs and treatments now exist and people expect to have them. Who wants to just curl up and die? So you have a problem: decreasing wealth being produced per head of population (though productivity may be increasing thanks to mechanisation) and that reduced wealth having to keep alive a load of old retired spongers. Bit of a conundrum eh? No great surprise if the country imports a load of younger people to produce the wealth to keep the old in zimmer frames. But then of course, you end up with different societal problems. Ho Hum.
Glid, you are an offensive twat at times. My parents worked all their days and paid into the system. My mother, in her 90's, isn't sponging off anyone. She lives in her own home and has a pension she contributed to. The payments might now come from the current workers, but she contributed too. Now fuck off and put your brain in gear.
I think you've had a sense of humour failure there Royum! I was using the word "spongers" ironically, as it seems these days that anyone who is actually having the system pay out, rather than paying in (and irrespective of how much they have paid in) is considered a "sponger". I deliberately used the word so that people can see how they might easily become a "burden on society". That is the essential problem of an ageing population. It's not as if it's the population's fault. I can't believe you could have misinterpreted me so badly. It's not as if I was making any value judgements at all. Now go back and read it again! At once, do you hear?!
OK have read it again, if it was meant in humour and I misread it, I'd say it was an easy thing to do and a smiley would've helped. If that was the intent fair enough and I apologise. If it's not the case then it's a poor attempt at justification.
I rarely (very rarely) use smileys. To quote John Wyndham, they are "an abomination in the eyes of the Lord". You don't find smileys in newspapers or books. I rest my case.
Everyone who is retired and no longer productive is in a sense necessarily a "sponger" off those who are working productively. It makes no difference if you have worked hard all your life, accumulated savings, gained pension entitlements, etc - the point is that the food you eat and the energy you burn now are produced by people who are working now. Obviously that applies to me as a retired person just as much as to everybody else; and no it was not at all offensive to make the point, Glidd.
But you don't get the food or the energy for free so how are you a sponger? You pay what others are paying, indeed even if you are getting a pension it's taxed. Have to disagree, it's offensive in the extreme to anyone who has contributed and in their older years. A sponger would take out without having contributed. And Pete, it's an interesting opinion that Glidd wasn't offensive, but I can assure you he was imho. Just as I'm sure my retort was offensive, mine was intended to be.
Indeed. The absolute necessity of interest rates is so blindingly obvious that it is pretty astonishing to find that it (apparently) needs explaining to an adult. The lack of interest rates in strict muslim countries is one of the things which has held them back economically so seriously. But they have found a devious way round it; instead of borrowing money at interest to invest, a fiction is contrived whereby the lender nominally "buys" the investment assets and the borrower pays "rent" for the use of them. The level of the "rent" is adjusted the equate to the virtual interest rate. It would be so much more honest to charge interest in the ordinary way!
As a retired person I was not offended at all. If you want to take offense on somebody else's behalf, fine - good luck with that.
But Pete I'm also a pensioner, I choose to still work as well as take a pension so I can take offense in my own right.
25% of the buggers voted for a 60+ year old "comedian" in the recent election. Who should we put up for the next p.m.?...... Brucie, Tarby, Corbett. My vote would go to Connolly.
