Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

There's talk that the US and also UK and Poland would like to kick Russia out of the SWIFT banking system, which would effectively cut off Russian businesses from the rest of the world. It's been done before - to Iran. Russia is apparently working to implement a national replacement for SWIFT which goes live in May 2015 but they are presently very vulnerable.

I suspect that they will scrape through. Ultimately Swift is doomed because economic power is slowly transferring to China. They certainly will not want to be signed up to a system that could be used against themselves. So as the new dominant power they could create their own global payments system. This will take time.

GreyQueen wrote: »

There's some serious sabre-rattling coming from Putin's henchmen, such as advising the if they're locked out of SWIFT, the US ambassador in Moscow should leave the same day as they would consider it war.

To be fair to Putin I do not see any superior politicians in the West. Australia's Tony Abbot is a moron to put it nicely. Cameron is the best of a really bad bunch in the Tory party. Milliband has his own problems and his policies might not differ enough from the coalition to actually get things fixed.

Though Putin could be very dangerous because he has developed this macho image which will mean he will want to be seen as strong. This might go to a full invasion of some of his neighbours rather than risk being seen as weak.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Frightening stuff, that there are a small minority of lunkheaded politicians who can mess up so many people's lives with their idiocies.:mad:

Yes but they are all using the same plan which is to impoverish the plebs and enrich their backers and hope no one actually notices.

As for zombies. The western banks are already zombies because they are completely unwilling to lend to small businesses and they are so loaded with toxic debt that they are trying to shift onto the tax payer. Things have not improved in the banks appreciably to avoid a bail in. House prices are still massively overvalued and if the banks were forced to value them at realistic levels then they would be bankrupt. Then you add in the potential problems at Barclays and Deutsche bank with their derivative portfolios and you have a disaster in the making. In fact now that there are starting to be failures in the fracking industry then the whole high yield bond market and the credit default swaps market could be overwhelming for what is left of the banks.

mardatha

I think Putin rolls about laughing at our govt, he knows fine they're a bunch of silly spoilt wee boys playing at being men. He sends his jets over twice a week to skirt Scottish airspace just to see if we have any planes left to go up and chase, and he does the same with submarines now to test the navy. He knows we're so skint that we sold off everything we have and he enjoys playing with us.

[Deleted User]

Presenting the Nice Device Power Bank.

Dimensions are just 96 X 24 X 22mm, and 70g.

It has a capacity of 1800mAh, which should give me two full charges on my Samsung Mobile Phone.

Price is just £2-99 at Home Bargains.

siegemode

Just a reminder for anyone due to be paid next week.

https://www.gov.uk/how-to-have-your-benefits-paid

Is it just me that feels rather nervous about everything being paid on schedule on Christmas eve. If there's a hitch then an awful amount of people could face a shtf senario. It's happened before and there seems to be a huge number of transactions going through that it wouldn't surprise me if there was a system crash.

I'm trying to keep my small overdraft intact just in case as there are a couple of small items I'm hoping will be in the sales. My small emergency fund has been somewhat depleted recently by unforeseen events and that makes me even more jittery.

siegemode

Bedsit Bob, I like the look of that little gadget. Have you road tested it ? Wondering how long it will hold a charge and how long it takes to charge.

Unfortuately no Home Bargains locally, but I might ask FIL to get a couple as we are planning a visit in the new year.

[Deleted User]

Only just got it myself, so can't tell you much.

According to the instructions, the first charge should be about 10 hours, with full charge being indicted by the charge light going from red to blue.

Well, I plugged it in, and the light went blue in about an hour.

This could be down to, either it was already charged from the factory (indicating it is good at holding its charge), or my charging it from a mains-USB adapter (as opposed to a computer USB socket) means it's charging super fast.

I've just ordered a USB charging cable, for my Samsung phone, to keep with the Power Bank.

Frugalsod

This is disturbing.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-17/new-poll-finds-59-americans-support-post-911-torture-–-propaganda-cultural-sickness-

Softstuff

Frugalsod wrote: »

To be fair to Putin I do not see any superior politicians in the West. Australia's Tony Abbot is a moron to put it nicely. Cameron is the best of a really bad bunch in the Tory party. Milliband has his own problems and his policies might not differ enough from the coalition to actually get things fixed.

You are far more polite about Tony Abbott than we are in this household Frugalsod.

Latest wonderful idea of his government: he tried to push through a co-payment to see a GP (you'd have to pay a bit every time you see one, at the moment medicare mostly pays this), this was widely unpopular so has been vastly reduced since it couldn't get passed. Instead he has the bright idea of freezing indexation of medicare rebates. This isn't a change to the system, so doesn't have to go through parliament, they can just do it. It also means that we could be paying about 30 quid to see a GP by 2018, let alone how much extra we would have to pay for everything else (x-rays, specialists, anesthetists you name it). You sure as hell don't want pre-existing medical conditions in Australia (and I have a few :rotfl:).

Ryanna2599

These power banks are fantastic to have in your hand bag; I have one there permanently for charging my Smartphone if I use the Sat Nav feature...

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Presenting the Nice Device Power Bank.

Dimensions are just 96 X 24 X 22mm, and 70g.

It has a capacity of 1800mAh, which should give me two full charges on my Samsung Mobile Phone.

Price is just £2-99 at Home Bargains.

[Deleted User]

In that case Ryanna, I've got a problem.

I don't have a handbag.