Scylla100

I will add another recomendation for Leon. He's done some work on my house for for me twice now, he's cheerful and reliable and does a good job.

How come I don't get a nice little blue link when I post a link? Shoot. Scylla

Check out what Noam Chomsky has to say about 9/11 conspiracy theories and this man is seriously no friend to anybody in authority

Posted by: Huguenot Yesterday, 12:37PM Have your conspirancy theories plumbed new depths with the claim that Keynesian Economics was a communist attack on the USA? No my dear, I'd rather have Keynes then an Ayn Rand loving Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition any day. I remember Paul Krugman ranting in the New York Times that Obama's stimulus wouldn't work because it was too small. And our Dave wouldn't even consider a version of Keynes lite. Maybe it would be a good thing - I'm inclined to look favorably on Roosevelt's economic policies in the US Depression, I'm not convinced it would work but it can't be any worse then austerity measures. You guys there is no organised conspiracy because there doesn't need a be a conspiracy. How long ago did Rome collapse and historians are still debating the question of exactly why it went down, and nobody agrees on one theory or cause. Dare I say we're in a sticky part of our collective Odyssey? Scylla ;-)

Woah, stock market is diving. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/02/market-falls-us-jobs-barack-obama-george-osborne Where's that bloody Keynes when ya need 'im? Scylla

@Mockney Hey! Conflated? I'm not conflating, maybe over simplifying but betcha by golly gosh, (sorry for the strong language) definitely not conflating, the dementia hasn't completely taken me over...yet. Or anthropomorphising the bond markets for that matter (can I turn that word into a verb, too late I've done it now.) Yet, now that you mention it, I kind of like the idea. The bond markets, where every country has to borrow money, has turned from a cute little house cat which accepts crap interest rates into big out of control tiger, grrrrrr. We're in a big cage with the tiger and its hungry, wants some dinner and the zoo keeper isn't around to feed it. The evidence appears to show the economy is contracting. Forgive me for stating the bloody obvious, but when a company or government borrows money they have to pay it back with compound interest. You pay the interest back with profits, company profits or in the case of a government increased tax revenue. So your car company borrows money but sells more cars (or more profitable cars) and makes more money and pays back the loan with interest. Or the government builds some infrastructure which makes their citizens more productive (they build a road or a public transport system) and more productive citizens pay more taxes and the government pays back the loan with interest. You can effect a temporary fix to deal with the woop and warf of ups and downs in the system, higher taxes, lower spending (or lower taxes, lower spending if you're a neo conservative.) Or you cut employees from you company and that takes you profit margin up. This isn't growth, its a temporary fix. My question is, how in the world are companies and governments like ours ever going to make enough in company profits or turn enough citizens into productive tax payers in order to pay back the loans we've taken out and more importantly the interest on the loans? I don't mean we have to pay the loans off completely, I know money is loaned into existence and government debt is not the same as personal debt but the entire system is predicated on growing enough to pay back the compound interest and we aren't growing. Or technically, if you look at government statistics, not growing enough. I get the idea the UK government is treating the economy like a stalled car with a dead battery. They're attaching jumper cables to the batteries by cutting spending and raising taxes and lowering interest rates hoping it will spark the economy into staring up again. Unfortunately it looks like car has died and it isn't going to start again. Scylla

As far as I can ascertain the End of the World as we know it (and I feellll fine..., thus far)...is: We've hit the end of growth by running out of resources like oil and natural gas. Our entire economic system is based on the essential need for growth, if growth stops, the economy collapses. We can't live without some sort of economic system, I can't grow my own food, heat my house, travel anywhere beyond Peckham Rye, employ myself or give myself a salary without some kind of working economic system so even a knitted Peruvian hat wearing lefty like myself needs a stable economic system. In 2008 the entire system almost came down like a big house of cards, everywhere. That one company's (Lehman Brothers) failure almost brought everyone down indicates a systemic problem with every economic system in the world. An entire country (Iceland) defaulted on its loans. Lucky for most of us, it was a little country. Governments pumped credit into the system which gave everyone a bit of breathing space but didn't solve the problem. No growth plus lots of new cheap credit means you just make the amount of money defaulted on down the line bigger. So countries in debt can grow out of debt (not if we've run out of resources to grow) default (A la Iceland. Not nice for people who loaned you the money like pension funds.), print up a lot of money to pay off debts (inflation and possibly hyper inflation with the proverbial wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread (And places like Greece cannot do this anyway. As long as they run with Euros, they aren't going to be allowed to print up lots of money), or borrow more money and pay off the debt later. And for the past three years, we've just borrowed more money. The worry is, bond markets, which as far as I understand it is where country's borrow money, are likely to stop loaning out money. They'll stop loaning to Eurozone countries before they stop loaning to American markets (so we in the UK are going down first). I imagine Huguenot you think governments are going to figure some clever way to limp along like this until, over time, the system somehow changes itself into something more stable. The argument would go, we've managed to keep things fairly stable in the last three years, its not been pretty but we've avoided a big nasty apoplectic collapse thus far. I would imagine the argument would be, to say the financial system would suddenly and completely collapse is unlikely and to hold such an opinion is extreme and unfounded. I can't see how the bond market will continue loaning money indefinitely and I can't see how our economic system can deal with contraction and the end of growth without blowing up but I hope you guys who think that the theory of collapse is too extreme are right. This would be a nice argument to lose. Scylla

@Huguenot - I don't think we can stumble along as usual. That's the point. I'm a big fan of Nicole Foss like NN (and people like her.) I read some of the end of the world predictions on your post and I do see your point; house prices going down 90 percent? It has gone down 90 percent or (or more even) in some places like Detroit or Cleveland but we seem to be having the opposite problem here in London. Television is centrally controlled? That prediction seems a little silly, like scaring people with central planning Communism - shock horror! False Flag? Oh dear. People who talk about 9/11 being an inside job talk about stuff like that. There is a difference between people who think our economy has gone past the point of no return and something very bad is likely to happen as a result (me) and people who think the Bilderberg Group secretly runs the world (not me and not Nicole Foss either). I feel like I should add some Latin to the end of this just to show how serious I am so here goes: Semper Ubi Sub Ubi. Scylla

Here's the problem then. I think both Huguenot and NN are right to some extent. We can't all withdraw our money from the banks, it'll bring on a collapse. I think the banks are putting measures in place in a very quiet way which is trying to prevent us doing this. I tried to transfer my money out of a bank whose name I will not mention (not withdraw, just transfer) and I had to jump through a lot of hoops to control my own money, including answering a security question about my sun sign! I can definitely class that as a new one. However, surly we can all agree that our financial system right now does not inspire a lot of confidence. In fact, it doesn't inspire any confidence whatsoever. Money is trust, we all have to agree that the pound coin in your pocket is worth something otherwise its just a random piece of metal. Essentially NN is giving lots of reasons the money system we rely on isn't trust worthy anymore. For all of us that is very bad. The question is, how bad? And what do we do about it? Scylla

@Huguenot how can financial collapse be a self fulfilling prophecy? I could be so afraid of something I make it happen for myself. I can be scared of going bankrupt and then do something that makes it happen, but financial collapse is collective. I can and do think our financial system is about to go over a cliff, but I can't make it happen by myself just by being afraid of it. Can I?

I totally agree with NN! I'm following Nicole Foss as well. For those of us following the news like this it becomes a bit of an obsession and if you aren't used to looking at concepts like peak oil or world financial collapse, the concepts sound just too unpleasant to take seriously. My only point of departure would be, the UK (and the EEC) is going to go to Hell in a Hand basket first because of sovereign debt, the USA will follow on after that. But for all of us living this nice middle clash-ish life, it comes down to: Our system (capitalist or semi capitalist, whatever you call it)is based on continual growth. Continual growth is based on having abundant and cheap energy and resources. Oil is the cheapest and most abundant form of energy, but its finite so at some point the world will run out of cheap oil (though we'll never run out entirely, we'll just run out of the cheap stuff). You can talk about other forms of energy but oil is the more important. It seems like the first thing to go, before peak energy, peak water, climate change or over population, is the financial system. That's what people like Nicole Foss, James Howard Kuntsler, and Richard Heinberg are saying. Even Noam Chompsky has agreed with this to some extent. Its difficult to say what will happen after a financial collapse, riots? Looting? High unemployment that won't come down? The rise of repressive authoritarian governments? Lower standard of living? Supposedly what is next in the immediate future is the collapse of the EEC when someone like Greece pulls out of the Euro. One would have sounded like a nutter to even suggest such a thing four years ago, but now, surly it doesn't sound that crazy? Scylla

I think there's a link between stock markets crashing and kids rioting in London. Its heard behavior. There's some sort of zeitgeisty bubble bursting. Its like a big stampede of hoodie cows, or stock market trader cows, running us off the cliff for no logical reason any of us can really get hold of. I just hope I can get out of the way.

@Sean - you got me, I've asked this b4. Now go get me an answer! ;-)

Anybody have any idea about Golden City on Whately Road behind the police station? Its just been in a state of entropy for years and years. Anybody have any information on what the story is there?

Just passed a very smoky fire on Whatley Road - I hope no one was hurt. The smoke was awful!

@ayresc I think your idea of giving to an on line charity is great! Imagine if every time someone obnoxious knocked on your door you gave money to worthy-legit-registered-with-the-charity-commission cause? With all the gosh darned Jehovah's witnesses and people trying to get us to switch my power company knocking on our doors around here we could raise money for a brand new children's hospital in East Dulwich or something equally as worthwhile no doubt. Next time the kids with the dishcloths come round I'll give a donation to a nice appropriate youth charity who I'm sure will put the donation to good use.

Hey they're baaaaaaaack. 9:00PM seems to be the time they like to knock on the door. He was intimidating and I needed to repeat 'no, no, no' and close the door on him. He was trying to say nice things but his actions amounted to harassment. If everybody closed the door on these guys and said 'no' then they wouldn't come round - but it can be really hard to do. I used to do cold calling door to door collecting for a charity so I know all the tricks, but these guys aren't doing tricky sales techniques, they're going right to intimidation. Anybody else have 'em round this evening? Scylla Scylla

Apparently Southwark has some problems with criticism of its adult care services. If you look on the council web page they go on about how they've been treated unfairly. Guys, the first step in solving the problem is accepting you got the problem in the first place (I'm just saying). Scylla http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/03/adult-social-care-services-failings

Surly there's another thread about this right? If there isn't then let me start one: Who would we put on our East Dulwich pound? I would so love it if we had one but I'm not a shop owner or anything. Scylla

I had him too last weekend. I said I was busy and couldn't talk and asked him to leave his leaflet, he said he didn't have one - which is very suspicious.

I ran into the same problem last week and called transport for London. The guy on the phone apologised for their journey planner and said they knew it wasn't working properly. I just wanted to make sure the 37 was running and it took the TfL guy awhile to find the bus and tell me, yes, it was running. Is it me or is the journey planner getting worse? I had a one hour journey yesterday timed, by the planner, as 1h 40m (so I was very early to my appointment). Scylla

I emailed the information in the crime report and told the nice police lady over the phone (Hey, you can email in to report a crime now, how 21st century). I called Cafe Nero a couple of times and they promised to look and call me back if they found anything. I think people are just too busy to bother. I would think, if you have someone committing a crime on camera it would make a nice little prosecution case. But I guess not. If anybody has any inside knowledge on this kind of thing I'd love to be enlightened. Scylla

Just to add my two cents, I got my bag nicked at Cafe Nero the other day. The police were very nice about it but there was no way any investigation was going to happen. The policewoman I reported it to she said the thieves target places people feel relaxed and I had just returned from a trip abroad where I was really careful with my stuff. I'd gone out for a coffee with a friend and thought "I'm home in East Dulwich I can relax now." Ah hah, lesson learned. I need to be as careful here as when I'm far away from home. There was a CCTV camera on but who knows if the thieves were caught on camera or what. I asked if the coffee shop could check their cameras to see if the bag snatching had been caught on film but nothing ever came of it, never heard back so I guess that's a "no." Dang, I really liked that bag! Scylla

I'm sorry, as its East Dulwich, shouldn't we be using organic sea salt? Scylla