pap

I use two. One for current, and another for savings. Hate the game, not the players that have no choice but to play it.

I don't believe that usury is a good thing either, so I don't give a f**k what the banking system thinks of it. My entire point is that the creation and distribution of money is arbitrary and artificial. Yet we'll let our own people starve in deference to it. You are using fiction to support fiction. You may as well be talking about the potential rise of orcs in Middle Earth if the elves decide to do the offs. It's about as relevant.

Says the man that believes in the fiction of the banking system.

You can, you should and as I said earlier, all those mortgages are IOUs. If that penny isn't dropping for you, the pounds of the argument are never going to make sense.

That post specifically mentions writing off debt to prevent homeowners from being smashed. Learn to read, and then we'll talk.

Debt is wiped out all the time. It's completely artificial, and it pains me to see that people take it as some immutable system. The latest iteration, not tied to any specific commodity, is less than 100 years old. Fractional reserve lending is barely 300 years old, and was actually an illegal practice at the time.

And it'll be a good thing for him too. Those mail order bride fees must be taxing. Hypo couldn't even afford the "will take own surname" option

"Causing repulsion or horror" Gruesome. Process of elimination, really. Cannot be our sparkling content

The big fear amongst property owners is that any sort of price controls are going to eat into the artificial value of their homes. If that happens, again my sympathy would be with the homeowners, not the banks that issued the loans. So if we have to write a bit of bank debt off to achieve an equitable result for most, I'm all for it. As I said in my post to Verbal, we can't continue on our current course. I say this with a wee bit of hyperbole, but barring instances where people have just been rolled over (Mongols, etc), most civiilisations have unravelled due to the difference in rich and poor, and in many cases, have deteriorated to the point where they actually make attractive targets for would be aggressors. See the Roman Empire for that. People need basics, and unfortunately, nearly all the basics are now in private hands, in a system which gives primacy to private interests. Pendulum has to swing the other way at some point, because it is costing us all.

Can I just point out that price controls (not what Labour is suggesting, I know) would benefit nearly all of us, even the Tories? Are we really happy paying the levels of Housing Benefit we do? Every taxpayer is lining a landlord's pockets. The Conservative answer was to simply not pay over a certain amount, putting the tenant in jeopardy. That has only really affected the capital (the cap is £400 pw), but a privately-rented former council house on my old estate still costs £1000 a month. The only people that price controls would hit are the landlords and the banks. I reckon they've had enough out of us over the years.

Heh. My avatar is a picture of me these days, and I know what Lou looks like. She's a long way from gruesome. Let's see your glorious visage, hypo. I mean, you must be fit as fúck to feel comfy bunging that label about

Even so, I'd welcome this. Governments have a history of introducing a policy and then making that policy worse over time. Student loans, tuition fees, etc. My hope is that this would be similar foot-in-the-door legislation, only made better over time, because we simply cannot continue on our current course.

We enforced price controls in this country from 1915-1980. Rent regulation covered the whole of the UK private sector rental market from 1915 to 1980. However, from the Housing Act 1980, it became the Conservative Party's policy to deregulate the housing market, starting with abolition of all price controls, leaving a basic regulatory framework of freedom of contract. Rent regulations survive among a small number of council houses, and often the rates set by local authorities mirror escalating prices in the non-regulated private market. When would you say the housing crisis began, if you had to pick a time? You're also forgetting that all unpaid mortgages are IOUs. Fiscal madness is the system, and is nothing to be upheld. Lower the rents and cancel the IOUs.

You're going around in circles, mate. Part of the reason that there isn't enough supply is because properties, including many former council properties, are in the hands of private landlords looking to re-pitch that accommodation to a more lucrative market. Brixton is a recent example, but see also places like Notting Hill. The whole point of rent controls is to prevent market forces from being the only factor, so to blindly accept that the issues have to be controlled by the market, or indeed that the market can't be influenced by policy, is somewhat missing the point.

The ever impartial BBC, eh? I think I'd rather hear from people that benefit from the policy (and can explain it better than Jamie via the BBC). Ex-Lion-Tamer, fill your boots. Jamie; get someone to read the contents of this link out to you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control

Ha, you're kidding right? Substantiation is not for him.

I've been speaking of rent controls for years. They've been implemented elsewhere in the world without bringing society crashing down. Dunno why you think this can't be controlled. If we can use our law and legal system to send people around to enforce the debt system, then I'm sure those same legislative levers can be employed to enforce rent controls. Detection not exactly going to be hard, is it? "Hey! The law says I should only pay this rent, and I'm getting charged more" Now I know you may well be worried by the fallout. Landlords might have to (ulp) sell part or all of their property portfolio. Prices (ulp) might go down to reflect the availability of supply. People who are currently priced outside the city they work in might actually be able to have a decent standard of living in the city itself. All terrible communist stuff, of course, but it's a fúckload better than what's going on in Brixton atm.

There's still hope for you. (with a new user account, no baggage and a total personality change)

No you're not, but if I needed some low-hanging fruit picked, you'd be first on my list. That's about as offensive as I'm going to get on the subject, because I do actually think SOG has overreached here. But if all this is pointless, makes you wonder why you so pointedly try to destroy other people. For matters of fúck all consequence. Lou is correct. Pick your battles. Pains me to say it, but you're an excellent poster when you can be arsed. Casting this exchange as some sort of Machiavellian masterstroke says more about your state of mind than it does SOG's.

Goodfellas is 25 this year. Is there a better gangster movie? http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150422-better-than-the-godfather

I'm not really sure you're in a position to give advice. Debate is about give and take. If your takeaway from my numerous posts on the subject is that I hate America, it's just another example of your lack of comprehension. I have been staunchly opposed to many of the actions of the US government. Hardly in a club of one on that front, and I can promise you that it has many American members. Which makes me wonder. I've met plenty of US citizens that are capable of being deeply introspective about many of the problems we're discussing here. It's different, of course. Left and right "norms" aren't nearly as applicable, and I've met entirely decent people be worn down by the unending repetition of poverty in all its forms. In fact, if you wanted to attack me on my content, you could easily have a go at lefty pap for not giving money to homeless people after years of being inured to it. I'm not proud of that, but then I'm here to work, not act as an independent source of welfare for everyone the system is failing. What you've actually come back with is something I heard frequently from low-intelligence Sotonians in the 1990s when I said that Liverpool pubs were cool because they illegally stayed open until six o clock. "Why don't you f**k off back to Liverpool?". That's apt, because I suspect that's what you are. A low intelligence Sotonian. You must have married a Canadian to get in, because judging from your input on this thread, you'd be entirely fúcked in a points system. You don't have any points.

When I was in my twenties, I used to drink with an obviously lapsed Muslim called Hassan, from Libya, in the Edge Lane pubs in Liverpool. You'd be hard pushed to find another bloke as nice as he was. His old man was connected to the regime, acted as a local sheriff or whatever the equivalent is. I don't know whether that factored into him being able to leave to study in the UK, but clearly, this was no Iron Curtain type setup. It's all about perspective. He knew that we didn't like Gadaffi altogether much, and wouldn't defend him on matters Lockerbie. But here's the thing. The frosty relationship between Libya and the UK was thawing, and British companies were investing in the country during the New Labour government. With hindsight, it's easy to say that Labour's approach was better, even though it was bloody controversial and caused us to lose some respect at the time. I personally did not agree with the release of the Lockerbie bomber, but could understand why the decision was made. Switching gears a little, if my three years in Northern Ireland taught me anything, it's that dogma and even historical enmity play second fiddle to prosperity. Hard-liners remain, but in general, the population over there is just enjoying the prosperity associated with a normal life. I'd argue, just as I do with Iran, that bringing rogue states in from the cold, is a better long-term solution than killing everyone to death.

I think Cameron deserves some of the blame for the migrant crisis. He was happy enough to take the plaudits when seen as a man of action at the time. At the beginning of Cameron's tenure, Libya was a relatively stable country, irrespective of how it was governed. After the bi-lateral action from the British and French, it became the incoherent playground of murderous warlords. Could well be that Libya would have got there with or without our "help", but that's just navel-gazing after the fact. We'll never know. The facts are that Cameron decided that military action was appropriate, yet gave considerably less thought to the consequences of his actions. Is he responsible for all migrants wanting to get over? No, but every time a Libyan decides to risk life and limb in flight to Europe, Cameron's failure to follow-up the strikes in Libya with any post-conflict planning is fair game. Rough. Smooth. etc.

http://www.itv.com/news/2015-04-25/david-cameron-forgets-he-is-aston-villa-fan-and-tells-audience-to-support-west-ham/ What a wánker.

Maybe you're just not friendly enough. My dad and I took the Stokie shuttle bus to the game when we went to the cup game. They sang "we eat off the floor". Humble lot, really. Suppose you'd have to be, living there. Supposed to be the worst place to live in the country.