We now enter the 'grey dismal' years says Robert Peston

Sir_Humphrey

Having proper public services in what is still one of the richest economies in the world is not living beyond your means.

Public health provision is the best way to provide this at reasonable cost. The American model is far more inefficient. Any charity based system is far less efficient still, as taxing people cost far less than sending out armies of "chuggers"/funding TV adverts etc etc. I forget the exact % of charity funding that goes into securing further funding, I think it may be 40% or thereabouts.

So once we are out of the la-la-land that the NHS etc are not essential, what is living beyond your means? Living beyond your means is driving a BMW when you can only afford of a Ford, going on holiday to Bali when you can only afford the Costa Notta Lot, and living in a five-bed detached house when your salary will only stretch to a semi.

The 1940s lesson is salutary. After WW2, people were not stupid, which is why they voted for Attlee as the peacetime Prime Minister. Considering how bad a PM Churchill was in the 1950s (he was incapacited for most of the time - a fact hidden from the public at the time) they made the right decision.

WTF?_2

ad9898 wrote: »

I think the denial phase has ended for him, its full throttle into anger stage now.

To be fair, I checked his past posts on DFW and he's in a large amount of debt which he is paying off - but faces another 2 years before it's cleared.

Therefore, talk of recession isn't really going to cheer him up.

It is however, merely being realistic to point out the facts. Putting your head in the sand won't help and is in fact how many on the DFW board got into the jam that they are in....

Conrad

Matbe

I get where you're comming from on the doom monsters thang.
In general pessimists over egg the pudding, as happened with Y2K, Bird Flu and so on.

The truth is nearly always somewhere in the middle, well away from the uber pessimistic and uber optimistic camps.

As an example EVERY generation has it's share of pessimists that claim society is off to hell in a hand cart - way back to biblical times. In Edwardian times people harked back to the well ordered Victorian period, yet during the Victorian period the pessimists told us we were off to hell (too much gin drinking and all) as society was at the point of no return.

The uber pessimist according to some pychological studies I've read, has a heightened fear of loss.

WTF?_2

Conrad wrote: »

Matbe

I get where you're comming from on the doom monsters thang.
In general pessimists over egg the pudding, as happened with Y2K, Bird Flu and so on.

The truth is nearly always somewhere in the middle, well away from the uber pessimistic and uber optimistic camps.

As an example EVERY generation has it's share of pessimists that claim society is off to hell in a hand cart - way back to biblical times. In Edwardian times people harked back to the well ordered Victorian period, yet during the Victorian period the pessimists told us we were off to hell (too much gin drinking and all) as society was at the point of no return.

The uber pessimist according to some pychological studies I've read, has a heightened fear of loss.

AFAIK there aren't any uber-pessimists here.

Saying that the financial system is wrecked and this is all going to get a lot worse is a lot different than saying that this time next year we'll be sporting mohicans and racing around in improvised offroad buggies firing crossbows at each other.

There is no easy way out. A painful recession would realistically be the 'best case' scenario right now.