PowerSwitch

I watched the program about Victorian Britain again last night and I thought that that is where we are going back to again; a country of poor workers lorded over by a very rich Kleptocracy (Bloody hell! I wrote "elite" first off. Shows how we have been brainwashed that I could so easily w...

The corporations will get all they want passed by whatever government we have and then there might be another election. There won't be much in it for you and I! So so true. Aren't we fixed to a five year term now or was that a one-off? Five years of stalemate.... Mind you it happened in Belgium a w...

A sign of reality biting perhaps? There are plenty of spare 747s and other airliners stored all over the place so there will be plenty available even if the last new one is built. The 777 (I think) can do most of a 747 at a lot lower cost, it could simply be that it's reaching obsolescence. Personal...

I expected this election campaign to be one of the 'nastiest' in a long time... it's turned out not nearly as exciting, and just the stupidest campaign I can remember. Every interview I heard from a senior Tory, Labour or LibDem has mostly been ridiculous. Silver lining is how amusing it'll be to s...

I've been very impressed by the Japanese Kotsatsu heated tables. Japanese houses seem to be kept cooler than in the UK but gadgets like the heated table make it seem a lot warmer. I noticed that Japanese people tend to wear more clothing especially natural fibres. Generally seems to make perfect sen...

Does Joe Bloggs really think that hard about his vote ? I know I sound incredibly pretentious as I write this, but I'm serious, does the average voter really think much about his vote ? A quick chat about politics around the table at lunch break reveals that most people don't really give a stuff ab...

To take one example of the truth: we no longer have the wealth to have an NHS that provides all of the care we have hitherto come to expect. There's the size of the cake and there's how the cake gets divided. I guess we 'choose' what proportion of GDP we spend on health and social services and what...

Good points above especially where they touch on 'personalised' bias against certain types of citizen. IIRC Independent Scotland would be the 16th richest country with the UK as a whole two or three places lower. The position of a Scotless UK was repeatedly ignored by the speaker on the radio. It ma...

Is it just me or have the UK (and US) Police forces changed into paramilitary Civil Guards rather than crime solvers? Both seem to be heading down the military equipment/water cannon/surveillence route at the expense of dealing with crimes committed against anyone outside the Golden Circle. Release ...

Declining wealth for the majority of the world population Is that really true? I thought the last decade had been characterised by most people (China, India, Africa, Indonesia, Brazil etc) getting richer at the fastest rate ever. It's only really, Europe, Japan and the majority of Americans that ha...

I don't even think it's that. Imagine how much it would *cost* (somebody who "matters", like an airline or an hotel chain) if all that globetrotting were suddenly prevented! As opposed to the millions they'll make when the outbreak spreads and starts killing the globetrotters in their hot...

The really worring thing IMHO is that so little is known about Ebola. Transmission, vectors and infection rates are all relatively vague. The film Twelve Monkeys is a rather good plot and all too believeable. Substitute a group of infected but symptomless people rather than a globe trotting madman a...

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/subprime-deja-vu-auto-loans-echo-mortgage-crisis-Hq2S33t5Q7C~wxMOWB0xEg.html Another financial crash in the making? :roll: See also: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101850885#. Utter madness! No This is BAU now that we're all out of recession (apparently). It may be a problem ...

the USA still has vast mineral and fossil fuel resources as well as potential for considerable renewable energy sources. Add that into the fact that the US could cut consumption dramatically with little net harm and they will be in pretty good shape compared to almost any other country you can ment...

Can't they just print money to solve the pension problem? The sums involved are vast. If the money was printed then hyper-inflation would become a reality as the worth of the currency shrank. Individual companies are looking at tens of millions today and that figure is steadily growing. As the fund...