I wish we had big Don in charge over here !

The GOP won’t be in power for ever. The Don should be worried about the prosecutions coming his way in four years time.
 
It's not rocket science.

Most people who feel they have a gun being held to their heads will look for escape options.

Trump is playing into the hands of China and Russia.

And people on here still defend him and praise him even.

The man is dangerous to the west !

That’s what Mandelson and Lammy said ounce
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
The GOP won’t be in power for ever. The Don should be worried about the prosecutions coming his way in four years time.

He will do a Biden on pardons

Back date / future date them ;)
 
When I worked there in the 1980s, that is what I thought it would be like. But I was shocked by how dirty and run down it seemed and by levels of poverty and inequality you just don't see here. And that was when the US was a much happier country at the zenith of its power. It is much worse now.

It's obviously a ver big place. Some cities/areas fall out of favour or aren't needed for what they were originally used for. Somewhere like Detroit may fit this description or other areas in rust belt. San Francisco is turning into a toilet now because of extreme liberal policies and tolerance of crime. However, as said it's a big place. To think the whole of The US is like this is wrong - especially small town away from large conerbations. I've always found them particularly welcoming and well mannered further south.
 
Back a bit to the subject of where UK is heading, I've caught a couple of BBC radio progs on "The prophets of profit". They should be on callup from BBC sounds or whatevertheycallit.
Bit technical, I'd need to hear them again, worth streaming.
I don't understand quite a lot of it, need to read a book.
The nub of at least one and a bit of them was that pension funds - which hold a huge amount of the nation's money, decades back used to invest in companies.
But that's changed. Reeves has been saying something about releasing the pension funds' money.

If you want to invest, you have a choice - top level - of companies or bonds. Bonds come in tutti frutti flavors. In essence, they're money produced from loans. Government (treasury) loans, company ("corporate" ) loans, , Institutional, and on and on. A lot of people are paying a high interest rates, for credit cards, car loans, mortagages and whatnot. Bonds which you can invest in, hold some of that money. If the loans are crappy quality, eg for mortgages to people who can't afford them, those are "Junk" or "sub prime" bonds. So there are grades of bonds AAA, AA,,A, down through B's and C's.

To illustrate,
Government bonds are issued when they want money. They say "here's a thing you can buy, and we'll give you 5% return", or whatever. They won't go bust hence A grade.
A car loan company might issue a 10% bond, because they can use the money to buy cars, and charge the car buyer 15%, so they make a margin (the carry, which Rache increased CGT on). They might go bust, so C grade.

Especially since the banks were tightened up (Basel 2 & 3 ) particularly after the mess of 2008, there aren't so many really bad loan schemes out there.
So to grow their money, pension funds put their money into bonds. They can get returns from "the bank rate" from government ones which are top grade for safety, lowest for return%, , to 20% + for lower grade bonds.
Here's a table of a few rates - see what I mean:
The grey line is Government bonds = the bank rate = inflation, approx. Then there are two higher straightish lines for different types of bond.
Even the orange , most risky one is pretty steady. Blue is the S&P500 = US biggest/best companies, Green is the FTSE100, = biggest UK companies. The brown one is a "fund", a selection of good US companies at the moment. If I put NVIDIA on there it would be off the top of the chart by March'24. In 2022 it would have been Energy exceling(50%) while the S&P500 went minus 18%, and so on.

So what the BBC are saying makes sense. Pension cos and other mega money holders don't need to risk anything, they don't need to put money into companies = industry = the place which produces growth.
So they don't, so we don't get much growth in our industries because they can't afford the risk because they don't have wads of spare cash, like some US companies do..
(Pension company payouts traditionally, bowler hat era, were awful rates, and even now they're not great, unless you can pick your own investment. (SIPP) .
If you're retired and leave it to them, they'll put your money somewhere "SAFE" and maybe give you 2%. It's called fraud, imho.)

1738457905239.png

That orange bond, was running at 28% pa simple. Now about 17%. Acceptable...
 
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Patriotism isn't a swear word
Patriotism? You would not know what it was even if was shaped as a flag pole and rammed up yer ass. You think wrapping yourself in a flag and attacking people, makes you a patriot? You are a deluded racist moron boyo, make no mistake about it.
 
It's obviously a ver big place. Some cities/areas fall out of favour or aren't needed for what they were originally used for. Somewhere like Detroit may fit this description or other areas in rust belt. San Francisco is turning into a toilet now because of extreme liberal policies and tolerance of crime. However, as said it's a big place. To think the whole of The US is like this is wrong - especially small town away from large conerbations. I've always found them particularly welcoming and well mannered further south.
Red neck areas ?

Figures
 
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