StraferJack

"Conversely, 'social justice' is also heavily reliant on redistribution of wealth and property, something rarely pursued by successful communities as it disempowers the individual in favour of the state. This has a failure rate so high that it's frankly surprising that any remotely educated adult would espouse it. " Man, you are on FIRE lately. The happiest and in many cases most successful communities (your Scandinavians, Germans etc) have all leaned more towards that model than us, uk or Singapore. Is not impossible

Outside the new opticians, opposite health matters

Looks like qpr's Ferdinand is making an official complaint. Game on. Now let's see what the fa do

Thank you PCG - bugging me too. It's labelled, as if it serves a purpose, but I've never seen it used

"It's such a dainty track to tread" agreed " the populist approach is to simply burn the house down." less so. There is unfocused anger, but a clear idea of a path forward would sort that out overnight. For "the greedy population" read "the markets" - volatile, prone to cutting noses off to spite the face, but ultimately easily placated eventually

I don't think house prices going up is a good thing - I'm saying I don't understand why so many people seem to think it is. Objectively I mean

ibilly - please don't quote the pope as a measure of truth in anything. It scares me as for house prices.. well ... do people want them higher or lower. Do markets want them higher or lower? Do banks want them higher or lower? Everything else is deemed better if the price is lower... but houses...?

"It's take its time because its difficult, not because there's no lack of will." I want to believe that - I do... Unfortunately all i ever see when regulation is mentioned, are banks and bankers saying it will cripple them/ send their best bankers abroad/ some other excuse So what I'm inclined to think is the will is not there. I admit I could be wrong There is a public show of will - all the while knowing that if market x or y proposes something, market z will say "come here, base yourself here, don't worry about those regulations" And of course legally, those companies are required to do that - legally they HAVE to return the best dividend they can (in the short term.. long term thinking is neither possible or desirable in this space)

complaining about xfactor-watching is missing the point. the next youthquake will happen but it won't happen in music My prediction is that something colossal will happen in online computer games within the next 10-15 years. and by colossal I mean society-wide, not just gamers scoring points in bedrooms

Let's take a trip back to 5 years* ago with ibilly when he/she first joined the forum uncanny prediction it is odd isn't it, walking up a Lordship Lane devoid of estate agents * well 4 and a bit years

well if Huguenot can tar a whole nation as greedy, I guess people can tar all bankers in the same fashion I get grief from people for working at a bank, but never real grief - it's always the dumb "oh yeah ? you owe me money mate" type of nonsense No-one actually thinks I'm rich, get huge bonuses or caused any crisis. I'm sure those people do exist but then they probably believe in all kinds of other nonsense

dulwichfox, otta and others are surely correct about evenings being child-free But isn't that already the case? I don't know anywhere with kids kncoking around of an evening (or I'm not noticing anyway..) which leaves the days - you take the kids and parents (not just mums foxy) out of pubs during the day and you can kiss goodbye to those pubs altogether at the moment it's about right isn't it?

well a few decades later you could wiggle your hips in a TV studio and REALLY upset people

" Saying that, people have to realise that a lot of people working in banking (both "bankers" and the majority who work in support roles) have lost their jobs too. Most of which are no more responsible for this crisis than the proverbial man-on-the-street." absolutely true. But I don't think when "people" give out about "the banks" they are being so personal - I believe they are complaining about the system

"Perhaps in the future we'll all be eating in-vitro > meat, and real meat will be the domain of a > wealthy few, or secretive speakeasy-style > establishments..." Given what passes for meat in some places I can't see this will be a problem for most people

see, with hyperbole like "a whole nation" you overplay the hand There are millions of people who have spent decades being careful with money. If quids was reading he would take issue with my stance but on this at least we would agree That so many people got greedy is inarguable. But let's not forget they were encouraged to do so And even now, years into the mire, we have the basic message that to raise an eybrow at wealth is just being "jealous". So do people do what they think they can get away with to get wealthy or not? Are they "right" or "wrong". Of course it was all unearned income and yadda yadda - but once again, the checks and balances in place to prevent such idiocy were overridden by the gatekeepers. The people who earn the big money - the big money they earn to prevent such calamity For that alone, they are the main culprits. "I don't think greed is the same as addiction." I like this.. it's snappy. Is it true tho'...

all true Jeremy - but back then MTV played music videos and people were looking for stuff 10 years later a video goes ballistic - say Hey Ya by Outkast - but does it lead to them becoming huge? Not really. to take the Pistols argument from the OP - that was surely only possible because of the rules in place at the time. these days pretty much anything goes - if not on TV then on a billion internet sites. Something in the shape of the pistols would be laughed out of town now (or at the very least they would have lots of forumites solemnly asking them "what their point was" or "im sorry but if you can't articulate your message better than that then I'm afraid I don't have to listen")

As for Amoeba's point - people obstructing access to a place of worship - there was no problem getting access to St Pauls at any point

Huguenot - whilst I agree on the shared responsibility thing (and have argued many times about , you do know that generally we prioritise the pushers rather than the addicts right? Anyway, a bank's main priority when lending money is to ASSESS the propriety of a loan, not just give it to whover is dumb enough to ask. That's their job. And they failed. And that failure had serious consequences What we do with that info is arguable, but let's not get too defensive about banks please

As I'm in here I have to wax about Dark Souls Simply stunning - most intense video game sessions I've had in years and years Brutally hard - way beyond anything you might have experienced since the 80s It's so brutally hard, just reading this post just might have injured you in some way

Otta - I've got one knocking around if you drop in.

Well Nirvana signed to Geffen for that record, so you may or may not remember a push but it was there. And it was (as we can't escape) 20 years ago anyway But comparing Glenn Miller to, say, the 1990s is false. Advances like cassettes and cds changed little of the landscape. Since mid 90s and even mid 2000s, after decades of pretty much a few tv channels and radio and music albums, the landscape is significantly more fractured and varied I don't thing that makes me gloomy or cynical btw - whatver the next "big thing" is it just won't involve keyboards or guitars. "young people's music" as a vehicle for "something big" lasted a few decades. Not bad but the world changed before it and it'll change after it

doubt it will happen anyway - it's not a generational thing to look at the music business in 2011 and see that it's highly unlikely an artist can have the same impact again.

is this everytime or was the PR trip at the end of a day? Perhaps it charged less because you had reached your daily cap?

I don't know about forcing st Paul's to close. St Paul's, along with several of its board, have made a decision and claimed health and safety but that is disputed I don't much care for the protest and disagree with many of the placards I've seen. But its a broad church, and some of the anger directed towards them seems out of proportion to me. I remain interested in how the whole thing plays out Coherent messages are rare anyway. Listening to orthodox financial experts and institutions I'm not hearing a coherent view.