indiepanda

I think what will govern prices here is as much to do with emotional reactions to what has happened as the availability of funds for mortgages. If people think there is a good chance prices will fall, at least some will stay out of the market, making such falls inevitable. We can talk about demand exceeding supply till the cows come home, but the truth is the demand is for somewhere to live - not necessarily somewhere to own. I moved to East Dulwich a couple of months ago. I could afford to buy here, though not yet the kind of place I'd really like to own, but I've no intention of gambling with my deposit and potentially seeing my equity vanish when I could wait a while and buy somewhere nicer later on. So I'm renting for now, and I'm sure I am not the only one who could afford to buy who is doing this. I think prices have got a way to go before they become reasonable again. The whole economy has been existing on extensive levesl of credit, and the housing market is one of the worst examples. People have been borrowing multiples of salary that are dangerously high meaning as soon as interest rates rise, the mortgages become unaffordable. I don't imagine banks will be willing to behave like that anymore - back to the days of 3 times salary or thereabouts I expect.

I think pk is right - isn't it the Star Trek example they usually quote to illustrate split infinitives "to boldly go"? - i.e. "to go" is the infinitive.

I have to get to Gatwick for 6 am tomorrow. Looks like best option for me is getting 197 down to East Croydon and then train thereafter - but would a car be quicker that time of morning - every extra minute in bed is valued at the moment!

AcedOut Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > macker - No mention of JP Morgan, Citigroup, > Barclays? They all have large IB operations too. > > As for size - it depends on how you measure it. > Capitalisation, employees, revenue, profit? From what I have read I think they are considered to be much more sound than the pure investment banks because they have a solid base of retail deposits too. Goldmans and Morgan Stanley seem to be considered to have been more cautious than Lehmans, so may yet survive.

Do I think homophobia exists - yes, and yes, I believe a large number of people face prejudice as a result of it, including violence in some cases. Do I think that society finds homosexuality more acceptable than racism... now we're getting onto sticky ground. I am not sure if it is constructive to compare the two. I think we all think neither are acceptable any more than sexism is, perhaps we should judge relative to how it is acceptable to behave towards a straight, white, middle class male... Though I am sure someone will come up with a circumstance under which people are prejudiced against them too! (treatment of men as fools on some adverts comes to mind) But thinking about the case in question, given the reaction on Big Brother the other year when someone was ejected for calling another girl a n****r, it does seem off that the unfunny Chris Moyles is allowed to call someone gay as a term of abuse. Mind you, I can't understand why has air time in the first place. Think I stopped listening to breakfast on radio 1 altogether after Mark and Lard stopped doing it. (nad was him being called Lard also prejudice.... where does this stop!) Thinking about it, at work my department is very multiculteral, as well as people from all over the UK we have people from a few different countries in Africa (mainly South but not all), Argentina, China, Vietnam, French Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, eastern Europe, Turkey, Holland, Lebanon, probagly some others I've missed, everyone seems to mix happily enough. But in a department of over 90 individuals I can't think of one who is gay, and statistically that seems very unlikely so perhaps some people do still feel a need to cover up their sexuality at work. Imagine it would be quite isolating if one did feel like that.

Another thing I'd add on segregating schools for faith reasons. Having been raised as a catholic but quit going to church as soon as the brain washing wore off and I felt like telling my mum what to do with religion (aged 16 in my case), I have real reservations about parents inflicting their choice of faith on their children and sending them to faith schools. (bit Dawkins I know) I remember objecting to being made to study RE GCSE which the whole of our school had no choice about. I think the teachers told me "you chose to come to a catholic school" as if that was a good excuse for wasting my time on something totally useless. And of course it was my mum that chose, not me. I begged to be allowed to leave and go to the comp but she was worried my academic performance would suffer from being distracted by boys. Like any boy would have bothered distracting a swot with terrible national health glasses, unusually bad braces and a flat chest *rolls eyes*. But seriously, I think faith schools just encourage people in different religions to separate themselves from the rest of society and that can't be a good thing. I can't claim my school actually preached intolerance against other faiths, and they did teach us about other faiths and not in a prejudicial way, but it's no the same as mixing with others. I don't think the school system should be about religion, people should be able to choose for themselves when they are old enough to form their own judgements. Not that I have much hope of that ever happening...

Yes, I like having avatars, makes it much easier to remember people. Though it does wind me up when some folk change theirs every 5 minutes! Defeats the object of remembering people

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > People (and I'm really not looking at you moos) > correcting other people's spelling or grammar. In > an essay or work email, okay. On here or the like, > no no no, please don't! It's smug at best, and > frankly cruel IMO. I couldn't agree more. One of the girls on another forum I post on is forever getting ribbed by some people about her spelling and grammar and it's totally unnecessary. Everyone knows what she means. It's not witty or clever it's just patronizing.

Well, I went to an all girls Catholic school from the age of 11-16. It was billed as having a grammar stream - meaning the people who passed the 11+ were in the top two sets and the people who failed were in the bottom 3. It was a bit of a con to get the parents of the brighter kids not to send us to the local single sex grammar schools - in reality the school's results were no better overall than the local comprehensive in my home town. I didn't enjoy single sex education at all - I was shy & lacking in confidence, dreadful at sport and smart enough to come top of the year on average (which says a lot about the standards because I'm not that smart), and the bitchiness I was exposed to as a result was really upsetting - I didn't feel I could trust anyone very much, friends included. I engineered an excuse not to go into the school sixth form but to go to the local comprehensive 6th form college which all the comps in the area used to feed into, and I was so happy there, whether it was having the boys around to stop the girls from being bitchy or whether it was just being that bit older, but it was a totally different culture. I would never dream of sending a child of mine to a single sex school. Even now, my chosen career means I am in a male dominated profession (less so as time goes by but was very much so when I entered) and I'm sure there is no coincidence in that. Don't get me wrong, most of my close friends are female, but given the choice between working with a team of 10 women or 10 men I would probably choose the men every time, and I suspect it is mainly because of the memories of school. I have nightmares about being made to go back still and it's over 19 years since I left. Do I think black schools are a good idea. No way... as people have already said, sounds too much like South Africa and the days of apartheid. Unusually for me (as I don't generally have a problem with private sector things) I would quite like to see an end to private education. I feel like no matter what someone's background they should have a good chance at school to get beyond their parents economic background and discover their innate talents, and having the kids from the wealthiest backgrounds out of the state schools able to get better education doesn't seem to support that. I was lucky, despite my school experience not being good personally, academically it was good, I was the first in my family to stay on beyond 16 and ended up not just going to university but doing a tough professional qualification after. My mum was smart enough to do all that, but generally in the 50s working class girls didn't. By the late 80s opportunities were really there for people from a working class background. Don't get me started on the hash they have made of the university system in more recent years though!

Oh I am well aware you can end up a lot better off. That's pretty much the game I am playing, leaving my equity in the bank, renting somewhere a bit more modest than I will buy (I want it to feel special buying my own place which it won't feel so much if it's no better than I rented) and saving money towards the new place for when the market seems to have bottomed out. All I meant was I wasn't convinced people were getting out primarily because they wanted to do this, assumed more people were having a reason to sell (divorce, relocating for work etc) and then choosing to rent though they could afford to buy and waiting until the market has corrected itself to re-buy

My petty annoyance would have to be those automated phone lines where none of the menu options matcches what you need and then half the time you get cut off before you get through to a human being. They can reduce me to impotent rage within seconds.

innteresed, but looks like I am goin to be working out of town for a while, so I'll be restricted to weekends over the rest of the year,

smith Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well, has it? I've just reduced my 3 bedroom house > in St Aidan's Road to ?375k - that's from the > initial valuation and market price of ?525k. One > could argue that it's all relative... I make a > loss on the sale of my house but I recoup that on > the house I'm buying. There are plenty of bargains > out there at the moment but if people can't get > mortgages then the market remains stagnant. Where > are all those people who bailed out at the height > of the market in a bid to make a killing when it > hit rock bottom? Do many people really do that? I happened to get out of the market early last year when I moved to London, was intending to have bought again by now, but obviously put it on hold, so I may well benefit. But I wouldn't have sold my home and gone into rented if I wasn't moving to a different area, I like having my own home too much - rented, no matter how nice, never feels the same.

pk Wrote: > i also don't believe that religions are necessary > chosen (or that in all cases homosexuality isn't - > but i don't want to get into that one at the mo) I'd be inclined to agree that religions are not necessarily chosen - too many children are brainwashed into their parents religion from such a young age it's hard to say if they ever really make an informed choice in the matter. Dawkins is particularly outspoken on the notion of children having a certain religion and I agree with him on that. I do struggle with the notion that people might have a choice about whether to be homosexual or not. Some may choose (not entirely irrationally given the amount of prejudice against homosexuals) to suppress their sexuality to avoid censure, and some people may not be either totally straight or gay in their preferences. But I don't imagine there is much choice in the underlying preference, only in what is done with it. I could be wrong of course..

The east dulwich social club (on facebook here http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17097705951) organizes various events too. Not that I have made it to one yet, but I only moved here just over a month ago myself. But Ihave been to a couple of forum drinks and everyone was very friendly. I tried the running group too and people were nice there too, but I've had to conclude I'm just not the running type (fancy way of saying I'm a bit lazy). There is a salsa classs mentioned on another thread that I mean to check out - think it's on a Wednesday. Though I get the impression they struggle to get enough men coming along...

macroban Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > One reason for a high income tax threshold and a > commensurate change in means-tested benefit > qualifying levels is to stop the waste and cost of > bureaucracy of one arm of government taking away > money from and individual and another arm of > government giving it back to the individual again, > sometimes in a hypothecated manner which denies > freedom of choice. Agreed. And this disconnect between the two systems can create a disincentive to work because for every ?1 earned, people on low income find themselves losing more than ?1 in benefits, making it better to stay on benefits.

Not sure I agree. The electorate doesn't really get that much say anyway - there's nothing to ensure that any politician you vote for even follows what they've said in their party manifesto. It's not like the Swiss system where you get to vote locally regularly on issues rather than for a certain party in the hope that on balance they will best respresent your beliefs and interests over the next 4-5 years.

From what I've read before they are government chartered banks and formerly government owned and they provide funding for about 50% of the home loans market. No matter how libertarian their views, no government could stand by and let them fail - the impact on the economy would be devestating, and of course they'd be booted straight out at the next election. (Perhaps cynically, I think what most government care about the most, whatever their policies, is staying in power.)

Wish I'd turned up... just was overcome with laziness after a day of hefting bookshelves upstairs and sorting out books. Oh well, next month...

I will if I can. There was talk at work yesterday about sending me out of town on a job for a few months so if that comes off I may just have to store them up for the new year when I am back.

ebooks seem like a nice idea, but I don't suppose they would like being laid on or thrown on the floor which is what usually happens to my books when I fall asleep reading in bed. Anyway, I like to have books in my home, they make it look homey. And I can't resist being nosy and looking at what other people have on their bookshelves when I visit. Having said that, I do still need to get rid of some books.... I've bought way too many and need to be more ruthless about which ones I keep to read again! :-$

I would vote for Italy too, and if you want to laze around reading and relaxing, then the Amalfi coast, as Will recommends above, is perfect. Food is lovely round there too. Though I guess if you are worried about stretching your money out, I would expect it to go further in Greece or Turkey than Italy....

Depends how long you've been seeing them for, why you want to dump them and if you ever want to have a hope of being friends. Only kind way if it's been a serious relationship is in person and in private. And don't feel tempted to do anything silly like tell the truth about why. No good can come of disecting the end of a relationship to death. The only thing people need to know is you don't want to be in it anymore. But if they have done something seriously rotten to deserve to be dumped.... maybe less kindness is called for!

I agree. I keep my car for the odd local trip or for driving out of town, use public transport as much as possible in town, much less stressful. I can con myself I am trying to be environmentally friendly by keeping my carbon footprint down, but it's just nicer being able to relax with a book while travelling than having to brave the traffic and confusion! And sat navs aren't much help - mine has tried to send me the wrong way down one way streets.

Well, if you are driving a stolen car, any tickets for that car won't go to your home address.... If criminals didn't sometimes get away with it they wouldn't do it in the first place. I have some sympathy for what ???? is saying. When I was driving over here on moving in day I got to a junction where I needed to go left and there was a bus lane on the left. I thought it was one of those ones where only the left hand lane goes left and the bus lane ends just before the end so others can turn, which I did. No bus in sight that I was getting in the way of as it was well outside rush hour and I can't be said to have been endangering anyone because if a bus could have gone through there, no car is going to do more damage to someone than a bus. It was literally just a few yards where only a bus should have been. Third time I went through the intersection I realized cars were meant to go left on the middle lane which I did thereafter. So I got two fines for ?60 and my dad got one for following me the second time. We paid up like good law abiding citizens - I knew I couldn't argue I wasn't in the wrong, but it was a genuine mistake. But I had a car deliberately run into the side of me on the motorway once doing a lot of damage, obviously didn't stop and give me their details and I was too shaken to get the whole plate, just year and model. Lost my no claims discount which cost me hundreds over a few years, and the police couldn't even muster a bit of sympathy when I saw them, certainly weren't interested in checking the camera on the junction where I first saw the car to see if they could get their details. (and I'm sure there would have been cameras on a major motorway intersection) Their main concern was to find out where it happened to see if they could fob me off on a different police force to send me a letter saying they weren't going to do anything about it. So do I get a sense they aren't so bothered about catching the real car criminals... yes, a little!