El Pibe

The only thing i remember about the vic 20 was a game so advanced that things actually moved on the screen sometimes http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/ptrooper.htm and i can't believe one of the levels was called ganja farmer...how naive was i back then?!?!?

The point being, my italic text was referring to all of us who fuelled the boom by geting into debt we couldn't necessarily afford if either a)if things stopped being rosy, or b)at all. You then follow that up with a straw man backed up by an irrelevant analogy. Yes there were sub prime mortgages sold in the us by dodgy salesmen with unsound practices. What it seems to me is that you want to jail bankers the world over for dealing in structured products that were tied into the risk management of these mortgages by some remove. Effectively (if you want to analogise, this is iffy rather than incorrect) you want to jail everyone who buys a cotton shirt because 7% of the cotton used in the manufacture is grown by indentured labour in India. There is no 'mounting evidence' there is merely hindsight. I was calculating VaR against mortgage backed securities in the early 00s and I said at the time "err doesn't this rather go against the small print about prices going down as well as up" and people shrugged their shoulders because prices kept going up and it was always a niche part of any portfolio anyway. This wasn't fraud, this was large scale optimism. For fucks sake we voted in a chancellor who promised us the end to boom and bust, and you think its just the bankers who were idiots?! Get a grip and admit you weren't screaming about the sub-prime market until it had all gone tits up!

You can't claim to agree with me and then contradict that immediately. You have to understand that few laws were broken. Where regulations were broken this was done with the tacit approval of the regulators leant on by politicians keen to appease the voters who wanted everything to carry on. Everything that was being fuelled by the success of the financial sector and the apparently inexorable rise in the prices of their houses. Where you see criminal intent, I see mass delusional optimism. That's not criminal, its just very, very human. I'd love to have seen you at the height of the boom as prime minister, go slapping the handcuffs and killing the golden goose (though obviously in retrospect that might have been a wise move). You are a paragon of the lynch mob, baying thoughtlessly for blood because it's easy and vents anger and it looks cool. Without the financial services this entire country is down the pan. The economy needs rebalancing for sure, but do it badly and too quickly and the whole country will look like barrow-in-furness [bus depot raaawwwwwrrr]. As regards the font, nope it's because it's big.

2 things UDT. One, Damian was taking the reasoned and nuanced point of view that 'things aren't simple', that more people need to hold their hand up and admit they were part of the problem than is currently the case, what with everyone pointing at the nearest hate figure. And two, ease up on the font tag, it's really ugly. Bold will suffice.

tell a lie. my phone does bauhaus; not the band though, thats mostly wedding present.

My phone turns everything into futura so it's hard to appreciate this thread

Ooh yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about!

Ooh ooh damian godwinned it.

Parkdrive, if you quote that message in reply I am going to throw my toys out of the pram!

And she would have been right to do so, you could have broken programming for everyone with such irresponsible behaviour. I guess we all do some pretty crazy things in our teenage years though.

"I'm pretty good as most things from plastering to playing football" From plas* to play* There's not an awful lot in between is there. Plate spinning? Plax gargling?

Football violence may be a fact of life in Egypt, but the shocking levels have little to do with tribalism and everything to do with the political situation. Noone is quite sure how to interpret last nights events until the dust begins to settle, but a couple of theories are doing the rounds. Despite wider opposition, many ultra leaders are quite cosy with the military leadership who have used them previously to foment civil unrest. It's possible last night was orchestrated to give SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - basically the junta that took over when Mubarak stepped down) an excuse to cling on to power, but far more likely is that the violence was a sign that the Ultra leadership have lost control. If the latter then this was a poke in the eye of the authorities (and a literal stab in the gut of the police deemed to have been Mubarak's poodles and a target of particular hatred) to say get the hell out of power and to move democratic reform on more quickly. Could it happen here? In short no. Could it happen somewhere like Spain with 50% youth unemployment and clubs who have long tolerated and colluded with their Ultra support (think Barca and Real particularly)? At a pinch I suppose, but there simply isn't the groundswell of anger at the political situation there to do so. After the collapse of the Euro and the Spanish economy.....maybe.....

I'm just gutted he's discovered the font tag!! Not a geek eh?

SHOUTING is usually an indicator that the post/er is a bit bonkers. I imagine moderators end up deleting out of habit. The moment you start putting sub clauses about the quality or intention of the post then they'll be crucified for inconsistency or favouritism. I imagine...., not having ever been one, ever, anywhere, you understand.

One for another thread I'm sure, but noooooo, stick with the lords. Very few hereditary peers any more, mostly life peerages gained through merit (or political patronage, but nothings perfect). By definition older folk who are naturally rather than politically conservative. It serves as a counterweight to the knee jerk, populist nature of much proposed legislation. Elect it and we'll end up with an upper chamber composed of David Beckham, One Direction and Sue Pollard who do whatever the prime minister tells them too.

And talking of appalling, what the hell have they done to the BBC sport site?!? It's unreadable.

From Hell has a nice picture of the Half Moon and the railway viaduct in the victorian era. Someone has done a sort of mash'em'up between the picture and a photo... http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3344/3345542460_f10a2086f5_o.jpg

Agree with him or not, you have to admit Adam Curtis is always makes his pitches entertaining. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/01/were_all_in_the_same_boat_-_ar.html "And today the world of the modern cruise liners also mirrors the present structure of our global society. Millions of people live in a world where they expect the luxuries which were previously only offered to the few. At the same time millions of others around the world struggle daily to create the platform that holds that fake luxury world together. Meanwhile the small elite who are genuinely rich and powerful float off into the distance on their own boat - and kick anyone off who dares to get drunk and call it a cruise."

Because the lynch mob haven't read about them in the Sun, not do they have catchy nick names (although prosser is quite funny thinking about it). Generally when producing scapegoats its standard practice to use as few as possible and avoid the ones that may be useful to you in future. A scapegoat is always (necessarily) going to feel thrown to the wolves whilst muttering to themselves that they were only doing what everyone wanted them to (quite justifiably in Goodwin's case), it's in the nature of scapegoating. *edited for paratheses, caps, the usual*

Wot BrandNewGuy said

Mind you I worked at ABN for many years and could have saved him the bother of bringing RBS to his knees if he'd just asked me. It never made any money, had woeful internal structures and communications, astronomical operational costs and risk management that bordered on the fraudulent.

I was trying to make two points. One that at least some people thought high risk strategy was unwise (Lloyds) but agreeing that they were pilloried for the decision, probbly by those jumping on the 'what were they thinking' bandwagon who doubtless lauded Fred's achievements at the time. Hypocrites in 100% perfect hindsight shock basically.

In fairness Lloyds came under a lot of criticism from the industry, financial media and politicans for running a fairly low risk model and not taking advantage of the boom times. Their reward was to be pushed into bailing out a bunch of high risk banks, suffer from the toxic debt and witness their share price plummet. My mate's mum, lifelong lloyds employee has more or less watched her retirement savings be wiped out as a result. That said, everyone at the time said the ABN purchase was insane and his lack of due diligence beggared belief. It had become an ego match between him and John Varley, one I can't help feeling was a trap that Varley led him into to take him down a peg or two. Agree with SJ that this two minute hate thing is a bit pathetic and that this was an act of shameless populism. The man's already a pariah and his reputation in tatters, this will make little difference.

Mostly in the square mile ;)

very odd. I can't remember there being a limit to the number of devices on the router, but perhaps that's the issue. I might have a look when I get home as i have a virgin router too. You can kick devices off from the advanced bit of the control panel. To get to it I think you just go http://192.168.0.1 or was it http://192.168.0.2 ? then 'admin' and your password