People power................ the beauty of it !

I have been once again trying to digest the reams of information and rubbish talked about the "credit crunch" and have got to saturation point............. finally I have to ask myself what has it changed............ who is suffering and who is to blame for the pain..... or is it just one big smoke ball for politicians to show they are managing and governing. I seriously get the impression that there is total panic and political knee jerking going on and that finally all the action will in fact, if anything make things worse for the most vulnerable.
I read with interest a quarter of a million people pushing and shoving to buy 4GB flash chips over the weekend and wide screen TV sets and monitors..... this is something like 3% of the population of HK. I picked up early on that this whole mortgage crisis in the USA is because around 5% of the mortgage paying population is defaulting on their obligations. I am guessing that in the whole world slump in demand real oil consumption is down about 5 or 6% ! This is enough for the oil price to go down from 140$ to 40$ a barrel ! It is true that demand for autos big ticket items is down maybe a staggering 50% right now..... but this is possibly since it is such a big ticket item it is postponeable.... although can be that all peoples credit worthyness has declined enormously.
This whole thing seems to have been because of trying to get consumption growth from a relatively small part of the total population....the whole world is volatile on average to a very small change in total consumption. This means that the whole leverage game to inflate asset values pushed the system to be vulnerable to a relatively small downturn in actual consumption...then the thing spirals downwards. Pushed expansion of factories and companies to operate at close to break even on high volume output at low margins. So can it not be that we have all decided enough is enough to be continually pushed to consume..... and the population at large has decided to cut it off ! This is real people power and is a slap in the face of growth at any price. Seems to me we are in a survival mode and the politicians would be best to stay out of it !!
The market will tell us how to correct the aberation by simply turning back to value for money !
I feel comfortable that a surviving strategy for people , communities and enterprise will be found quickly as long as politicians stop playing politics ....................... a happy thought and nothing has changed.

Epicurus where is your garden now..........?

It occurred to me that the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction is still inseperable from pain since without one we will not feel the other. The idea of the balance between positive and negatives is in itself pleasing ..order to disorder and vice versa is a universal concept. Equilibria and balance is harmonious and therefor not neutral. Perhaps pleasure itself is not the opposite of pain as an extreme it is that point at which the balance of extremes is pleasing.... stability, harmony, tranquility. So then what is the oppositive of pain in the extreme? Perhaps pleasure itself and equilbrium is in fact another paradigm a different state, a shift...........hmmm.
I had an awful feeling I was close to knowledge and then got lost......... I once thought that when you know everything there was this dreadful irony that you died instantly before you could pass this knowledge on. So here is to living another day still in the paradigm where pain exists so that I can have a lot more pleasure.......before nothing? ...thought for the day.

Did you know..................Abba film Mama Mia was watched by more people in UK than Harry Potter

It is incredible how some people can make comparisons that at first seem to be quite senseless but can mean so much if you think about it.... both these films have great stories and life experiences behind them... the amazing popularity of both and the human stories told behind them. So full of very lovely emotions and memories of the past. I think mention of the gorgeous wonderful life story of Joanne Rowling and how she started from such a humble single mother in a coffee shop to a mega rich but still great natural personality is so wonderful. The Abba group was a mega phenomena in the greatest pop era and while it didn't seem to bring all happy stories for them personally has left its trace so deeply in the minds that it can be rejuvinated 50 years later....what enormous pleasure that must be for them as it is for us.
This is the pleasure power of the mind and can bring a smile to the face and great feelings of satisfaction and contentment. As the great philosopher Gwen used to say "be thankful for small mercys" Your mind is so powerful that if you want to you can have beautiful thoughts about almost anything...... such enormous pleasure...thought for the day

Well it has to be pleasure to see traditions carried on for 400 years plus

I couldn't let the November 5th go by for many reasons without blogging a little.....but apart from the sweep to power of Barack Obama as President of the world's greatest nation we must remember remember the 5th of November , gunpowder treason and plot ...
1605 the dear old king of England James 1st and all his lords were about to be the subject of a terrorist aggression when luckily the local london bobbies (policemen) were alerted by the strange dress (long cloak and spurs) on someone who was meant to be visiting the House ! The subsequent discovery of a big load of gunpowder under the house was then made. This was all about religion too with the Spanish Catholics not happy at all about the English regime and its politics.
Can anyone see any parallels or as my dear philospher Gwen used to say "what goes around comes around" ..."nothing new under the sun my boy". What is mankind all about really when religion can have such devastating effects on mankind in the name of God. Shouldn't we be having a good look at the power of politics and making sure the power is channeled towards purposeful ends....religion has this strange power over people that allows them to kill and mame people in HIS name. Equally politicians have powers to send armed forces in the defence of nations and to fight aggression. Power is to blame and the thirst for power in both religion and politics. Maybe some time to look again at a school of diplomacy and common sense and why not for thinking.................. education and the sharing of knowledge and thought through philosophy was always the subject of persecution by leaders and politicians........... thought and debate was just far to powerful for them to tolerate. I will always be convinced in the gentle forces overcoming the violent ones................... we will get there one day. In the meantime we still encourage our children to hoist a dummy on top of the fire, let of a bunch of fireworks but never tell them the true history of what happened and why it happened so that it might not happen again.

Well its big election day and guess I should try to have some thought for the day......am I interested who is president of the USA I guess I have to say no.....do I have some thoughts on either of them about what might happen after the result is announced ...I say yes. Will either of them make it a more pleasurable world I think possibly yes. So thats why I go for Obama. Already the city of Obama will celebrate in Japan. Already Kenyans and Nigerians will feel that someone is close to them at the top of the world's house. I do feel Obama will change things as far as the outside world is concerned and will possibly attempt to relate more to other cultures and civilisations. Let's hope he is a good listener and can somehow repair a lot of the damage caused by the war mongering and now proven damaging free market greed caused by the radical and self serving right wing politicians and socialites of the USA. Socialism of a kind may finally come to the USA by way of the biggest money campaign there has ever been......so full of irony. This is the real power of the Obama camp to mobilise the masses to pay up and mount the essential impressive campagn for change. So where is my essential feeling of pleasure.........................have to wait and see. Do I care ..yes I do ..because I sincerely hope we can have a lot less aggression and hatred in the world and somehow I believe Obama may be the right signal to start the process..... thought for the day

epicaricacy-shadenfreude

It is said the weak person with low self esteem will find pleasure in other's misfortune...... seems I have morose delectation a dreadful sin ! However, the more I think about it I am possibly getting pleasure out of my own bad luck ! Anyway, thanks to a good buddy I found two new words to add to my pleasure of finding out more about myself..... Humor is just Schadenfreude with a clear conscience 幸災樂禍 enjoying (other's) calamity (and) laughing at (other's) misfortune" 他人の不幸は蜜の味 (tanin no fukō wa mitsu no aji, 他人の不幸は蜜の味^?), translates literally as "others' misfortunes are the taste of honey." Well going back to the great philosopher Gwen would say "you got what you deserved" "you got your comeupence".................and why not our great English word to gloat !
Thank you Wikipedea ...as I said before I have no original thinking just try to put the jigsaw puzzle together from any sources I can.....In any case gloating is a sort of superieur state of knowledge or experience and is often quickly replaced by compassion and care for those that are really in pain !
So today I find that being a person of low self esteem can still transform into one of superiour knowldege gaining pleasure from both humour and care ! Probably the two most important elements of happiness in life !
Thought for the day

There has to be some pleasure and satisfaction from these events

Actually now I come to think of it, it is already about 6 months ago when oil prices and other commodity prices started to fuel inflation that I first noticed that I was deliberately cutting back on some spending...... the shock to pay so much to fill the car with petrol or to pay energy bills was certainly enough to trigger my "enough is enough" reaction and just say I am not going to pay it. Surely in all this we have to get some satisfaction out of seeing a correction to consumerism! The outcome is of course that some poor companies who are over indebted or running at very slim margins will catch a hard cold when their business volume dips. There is a certain pleasure in the work ethic and the need to survive in difficult times, it will mean that some pleasureable values might return of customer care and attention, higher value added and quality. We can then feel that this "bust" was long overdue and will be beneficial for the consumer. It will also transfer some of the problem back to the cost of labour countries like China and India who have seen their wealth grow exponentially as a result of consumerism and the availability of credit.
Our recent Nobel prize winner for Economics had the theory that trade was linked with economy of scale and surely the chinese managed this well to produce huge quantities of product for a hungry consumer...... when the consumer is not so hungry many of the companies producing goods with "economy of scale" will see their meagre margins eroded rapidly.
This correction was inevitable ....always good to have hinesight !
This has brought a smile to my face and a sort of inner satisfaction so I prove there is pleasure in pain as long as the pain is felt by those to blame ! Now is the time to start saving money by not consuming and buying equity in great companies with great value and good margins.

Taking so much time to digest this............ why is there no pleasure?

Well 10 days have gone by and no blog ....it really is taking me time to try to understand what is going on..............seems the blame is now squarely placed on incompetent bankers for lending and betting on the future up up and away trend. Apparantly it was just a meager 6% of the mortgages that needed to go bad to topple the whole pile since not only was there bad loans but bad insurance for them too without any funds to back up the insurance! This is like leverage of 3 times !
But seems to me we have gone and saved a banking system that is simply greedy and non productive ! Wouldn't it have been better for the government to have taken on all the good mortgages and not just the bad. Wouldn't it have been a fairer system to reward debt repayment by lower interest rates to those committed to reducing their debt !
While the greedy bankers have taken irresponsible risks it would seem to me that the bill will still be paid essentially by the 90% plus of the people that service their debt and pay their bills and their unacceptable taxes !

Does anyone really know what all this means ?

What does it really mean when all the governments in the western world pick up great slices of equity in the banking system and cover the debt obligations? Will it mean that these organisations will be run more efficiently and that sensible credit management will be restored. Could it possibly mean that these organisations will generate great profits in the future as asset values improve again and we will all benefit as shareholders in banking and insurance? Seems maybe the governments just might be picking up valuable equity at the crisis time. Should we believe it is very smart government or does it mean the problem is massively out of control? Is it all about pushing off the pain til after the next election?
Will it mean that banking will get back to financing enterprise at reasonable cost now that the continually inflated property asset has lost its sparkle?
Does anyone really know what all this means?
I sincerely hope so..................................... but lets not rely on bankers have to find someone who thinks probably!

Same mistakes again....someone thinks we have not learnt lessons

It was with great surprise that I read that Nomura the great japanese investment house that has just picked up Lehman Bros Asia and European divisions immediately confirmed to all employees the guarantee of their bonuses for the coming two years !! Assuming therefore that these two parts of the old Lehman brothers business are still happily stuffing someone with more toxic assets and getting their commissions for it. Hopelly Nomura would have learnt from the last japanese property bust that property asset/morgage bundles are still going to be bought by someone !! Or are they saying the Lehman Asia and European fund products are so good that these people can earn great incomes because the products are so fantastic.....watch this space and my recommendation is to beware of the Nomura products coz to me it looks like business as usual....someone will pay.

What can we make of the week..... any new pleasure?

Seems after my first flurry of blogs there was a calm and lethargy in my willingness to seek clarity in my thinking............. I read all the news as usual and took some pride in seeing the future unfold well in line with how I had seen it..... I still believe we have more pain to come for sure. The bill for the extravagant exploitation of the property mortgage business is going to have to be paid. Of course, those that profitted directly from the development and sale of "TOXIC" assets should be accountable. But what about the foolish lemmings who paid the high property prices and conned into borrowing money that they could never repay!! It seems to be that all the socialists in the world will love to put all the blame on fat cats and now our politicians are seeking out the fat cats as the "real" enemy and scapegoats ! But in the whole scheme of things it has to be people's own stupidity and foolishness that made this happen. In my whole scheme of things it seems the blame can only fall on ourselves, even though we pay a high sum for those that govern to do so in our own interest. How come with all the brain power and money spent no one can see it coming !!!
I am thinking that many of the fat cats have lost one big part of their fortunes with the stock they held or were given as part of their remuneration. I guess many other people in the financial field have lost huge slices of the equity they probably thought was really safe. of course by far the lion's share of loses will be in all our pension schemes, but since that gave so small a return maybe some of it will still survive.

WOW - no wonder Epicureanism centres on good taste

A whole weekend of fantastic food and great wines.................. it really is the way to feel better and forget all the crisis and pain in the world.... but as usual think about it a little deeper..............!
Great food and wine needs an environment, atmosphere and someone to share with. Like a great painting or a perfect view it is the total that counts.......

Need some pleasure today to see such pain !

Well it is happening and the ripples have started...... now we shall see a whole bunch of banks have to write off the money they lent to Lehman's something like $4.8 billion of debt...... this is going to shake a few other banks such as Citicorp and others and this will dry up credit further .... look for the property sales now to cover short term holes with no buyers. The real pleasure is going to be a massive reduction in property prices that will release real income over time for us all who have paid reasonable prices for our property and not the speculators.

Rents will come down as office space becomes available and there is a scramble to try to fill them. The number of non productive finance jobs are going to shrink fast and hopefully permanantly now that this self serving business is damaged completely in its credibility and reputation. Some people say the skilled people released which will top 250,000 world wide may seek jobs in Russia and China, and hopefully this can weaken the pain for some. But really hopefully now the fund and wealth managers will have to work hard for a living and analyse grass roots companies with great assets capable of good cash generation. Steering away from growth that is just leveraged based and not revenue based.

I would not be investing in Chateau Petrus this year or the famous Roederer for Crystal Champagne. They are likey to be the first hit from the yuppies missing there huge take on sales of valueless instruments. Have to feel sorry for the small delis in New York with so many of the yuppies not taking their quick snack. However.if their fundamentals are right of great value and service they will keep their clients happy!

Pleasure in other peoples pain or foolishness?

The financial crisis - we are not done yet by any means with the pain

What a Sunday - Lehman Brothers struggling to find a suitor or the doors probably close on Monday their annual report in 2007 recording its book value at 24 billion dollars 28,000 plus employees worldwide. They proudly announced returns of 25% plus over the last years while doubling assets and increasing borrowings 4 fold. Now all the retained earnings wiped out and sitting on the doors of bancruptcy......................so interesting that their property portfolio is meant to be the saving grace. Watch now as no one wants it at the really knocked down prices. The cascade on property prices has only just started all this stuff coming on the market with few people capable or wanting to raise the money to buy them. Leverage is now really the dirty word - Leverage means also buy today and pay tomorrow. Well the first to pay are 28,000 employees then the rest of us will pick up the tab over time !

"The strength of Lehman Brothers’ culture has helped us to achieve wonderful success. Both our culture and our success depend on the quality and breadth of the people who are part of our Firm. It is critical that our organization continue the momentum to broaden the representation of our employees — to ensure that diversity of thought and perspective is brought to our clients. At Lehman Brothers, we see diversity as good business practice."

Richard S. Fuld, Jr. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

See what corporate gobbly gook this guy can come up with a few months ago....... if you read more on the Lehman Brothers web site it is enough to make you realise how lacking in credibility these peope are so proud of doing business with themselves, taking huge salaries and watching the world go by out of their office windows with no idea of what is around the corner when you can't support the debt you have ! They have won prizes and accolades from all the right places so what qualification have the judges got??

UBS the Swiss banking giant also used Sunday to announce yet another big slice of write off....enough rumours in switzerland of account holders quitting them in droves. Could it be another Swissair taking all its shareholders for a ride from bad management?
Meanwhile the travel industry starts its first wave of bankruptcies stranding the cheap ticket holidaymakers in the wake.........
I have a feeling we will see some major corporations that were bought and leveraged by the Private Equity companies being extremely vulnerable soon ...not able to support the huge debt they were saddled with while the Private Equity merchants tried to squeeze some more value out of them ! Not easy with the economic downturn already started and demand falling off. Without their cash flow and no funding from their parents from one day to the next they can shut the doors too. The pack of cards is wobbling........

I miss you.................who is to blame for smiling at this?

Epicureans the world over love the nice thoughts that go with "I miss you" ..it occurred to me that this is because its the sharing of pain...... someone said to me once (anonymous as usual) a problem shared is a problem halved....is the pleasure we get from hearing I miss you something to do with caring? Thought for the day !

A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down....

You really do have to laugh at this UK government launching a heat your granny initiative by forcing energy companies to give poor granny a loft insulation or shooting foam in her poor cavaties...... I can see everyone wheeling granny around to all the families houses to get a bit of glass fibre put in the roof. Whoever would have thought that there are so many poor grannies in the uk who can't keep their houses warm that will cost $2 billion !!! Of course as usual coz of overspending and poor management this money is not coming from the Exchequer its coming from a "socialist" tax on the easy political target and common enemy of energy companies who may well have been managed extremely well !!

So lets all have warm a granny week in mid Novemberand lament that they can't sell their old cold houses now in this economic depression and move in with their loving families....just a quick calculation would show that if they got organised and charged a good rate for insultation there are 10,000,000 cold grannies in UK.

Politics !!! You can fool half the people half the time but never all the people for long !!! Something like that .....

In the meantime, the extra tax dollars mount up from the high price of fuel !! I am sure Brown is trying to get his hands on some for his next election war chest !

Not a lot of laughs today...... I will have to get some pleasure out of a good glass of Argentine wine.

Pleasure is where you find it

The theme for tonight follows my provocation of who took the pleasure out of life.......the answer no one. It is sometimes we just need to find the pleasurable aspects that are everyday in our lives. Friendship, a glass of superbly made wine, a smile for and from the girl in the shop (very rare) a magnificent sunset ......so many things ! My mother the great philosopher Gwen said......it's in the good book "be thankful for small mercys"! As I have been writing a few blogging thoughts now, it seems to me we can find pleasure in almost anything when we want to. We can decide to look for it or not. It really still is a fantastic world with great opportunities in all the difficulties and it seems a very useful anecdotal phrase that "we get out what we put in".

Epicurus saying of "pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily" is linking the sense with a concept, the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction defines the boundaries of the happiness concept. It would suggest that if you have to search and find pleasure then you will be happy.

I read recently, I can't tell you where but its not from me, that the happiest people are people who care for someone. Caring is really a great concept. If you care what happens you seek pleasure. When you don't care you create pain.

So here is to caring what happens to our family and friends and the planet coz its the greatest pleasure we can have. Here is to caring about who manages our assets and our countries and making sure they do a good job. Getting to care about things has to be a great pleasure. Here is to caring about all the tiny details that create pleasure and making sure we miss no opportunity to care more.
Nice thought for the day.

It is really a great pleasure to hear a politician tell the truth

It was with extreme pleasure that I heard the black browed Darling UK Minister for the Economy start to point the finger at the hugely overpaid, non productive, commission driven bankers who fueled this tempest with cheap credit and risk on the markets. Although, as all good politicians, particularly socialists, it was full of rhetoric and patronising emptyness without any clear proposals. In particular, to combat the illness of the financial service industry dressing up a pigs ear into a silk purse for un-educated investors, doing business with themselves at the expense of the small pension holders with impunity. Darling is always labelled as the blunder maker by simply telling the truth ! Is it really true that the foolish masses just can not handle the truth of the matter? To reiterate for those that have not understood, we are in a major financial crisis of confidence with a system full of extremely bad practices managed and regulated by itself. Time to clean out the mess and self serving industries that can not be trusted while we have the pain of paying the bill !

10 billion dollars of pure pleasure

It has started, 10 billion dollars of visionary spending to create miniature black holes below the land at the swiss-french border. Absolute delight from technicians that have spent decennies planning and thinking about these minute "God" like particles responsible for our existence.
Many people will not understand the joy and pleasure of having such a toy called a Large Hadon Collider looking for a Bosun and his mate ! It is hats off to humanity that we can all be proud to support such ventures that can provide us with more of the knowledge of the universe which is in each and every one of us but we can't get to it and unlock the clue.

Big smiles and share your pleasure brave scientists..... adorable

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.

Epicurus coined this beautiful quote when he talked about love. So who is really to blame for taking the pleasure out of life? My mother said "pleasure is where you find it" so maybe we are all to blame for not looking hard enough. It can simply be that sometimes we really do need pain to force us to look ! This has to be the theme for tomorrow !!

In the meantime have to use another quote from Epicurus "The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live". Is there any relationship between foolishness and pleasure ? Thought for the day....

"When you know nothing anything is possible......." (It is not original I stole it from one of those great influencers in my life who I have forgotten) I have to confess I have never had one original thought in my life but somewhere I manage to put the thoughts of others into a new context that can be very satisfying.

It's late, time for dreams and smile in the night of pleasurable things !

Some pleasure about the world today

Well Epicureans can have pleasure in finding who is to blame ! Epicureans believe a moment of pleasure can kill days or even weeks of pain. It is a philosophy that is so much fun but how much pleasure can one get out of someone else's pain? Seems we humans have a real thing about others who are in pain; maybe it is this that drives a world where in fact it seems that some people can only move forward at the expense of someone else ! As long as they are faceless we can all accept it.
But right now I am thinking of a friend who fell in the street twice in succession and I had to laugh for days about it....... Epicureans are human ! Laughter is one of the greatest pleasures for man and we forget to do it. Men who make women laugh are the most successful lovers. It is about time our governments and our politicians gave us laughter and not just bland rhetoric based on patronism and patriotism.
Hopefully voters you can have the last laugh !

The big bail out

Well another day of interesting news on the world economy with now the USA government prepared to hold up the inflated cost of housing supporting property developers and banks at the taxpayers expense. At least we see the top Executives of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae losing their jobs these six figure merchants have at least paid the price ( hopefully) of dreadful management and for ruining so many peoples lives by lending them more money than they could possibly pay back ! Irresponsible bankers should be sued for professional negligence and I hope some of them are !!

But not finished yet......many people think it is just the very poor that are getting their houses repossessed in fact they are ones that got the furniture paid for with the 125% mortgages they were sold. Hopefully they have been able to take the furniture away and use it in their new rented houses at lower cost. It will now be the big houses 5 , 10 million dollar places bought by the yuppies that earnt so much money trading the criminal financial instruments. Passing on the bad debts to the small investors and pension holders. I really hope this housing crisis grows world wide and people realize that saving and investment in real producing assets has value for them and their country. Holding a house should be just like a car. Nothing more and nothing less. Any local jurisdiction that deliberatley is limiting land availability to permit reasonable priced housing is criminal in my opinion.

And good luck yuppies that the gravy train comes to an end and people look for really productive work and not just mixing up the same debt basket and selling it on.... hopefully now we will see a major shift to those that save will earn the most.
In the meantime get ready banks for the next phase when people really accept to lose the money on housing and another 30 or 40 percent of the loans are supported by negative equity. Watch now that the individual mounts class action suits to not pay the debt if you start to make deals with some mortgage holders and not others.

I am so interested to see one day that a whole raft of mortgage holders ask for their debt to be reduced by half ! It can happen.

More economic woes - inflation and strike action

Who is to blame for inflation???

Inflation is also an illness of debt and over spending and consumption. Can always blame the chinese for consuming now, can blame the arabs and russians for exploiting their resources but the real blame still lies with people who can not resist to consume above their means and demanding that their governments do the same. Any country with debts and a poor balance of payments will have inflation since the currency will devalue and it costs more and more for imported goods. Who is responsible for borrowing more and more and spending more than they can earn? Then expecting the government to help them out? The ignorant masses of people who spend like there was no tomorrow!!! Who pays the bill? The same people all the time....those that have saved and pay taxes and work their butt off only to see the socially needy and their government waste it. Then who goes on strike...the public service workers who are all paid by taxpayers !!! No wonder taxpayers just up and leave the country! Vicious circle and spiral downwards?? There is a lot to start thinking that one man one vote is an out of date system that just puts the power into the hands of ignorant people who can not understand what a budget is and who can not control consumption. Least of all those that think that the government is there just to give hand outs and not to plan an economical environment that makes and generates real wealth and expertise in a competitive world. 60% of the wealth in the UK is in totally non productive property inflated by politics of rarity and assumed by the ignorant to be a valuable asset. It is indispensible to have somewhere to live and thats what it is worth. No more no less. Better push some of the asset values back into making things and being competitive ! Where is real management of a country ..... ?? Surely it is the worst kind of conflict of interest when the voters (shareholders) put in a government that just pays out and collects taxes with no idea on what to do about making a country pay for what it wants!

Economic Woes

Who is to blame for our economic downturn now? Who is to blame for the mortgage and credit crisis and who will pay the bill?

In short men are to blame for being too weak to say no to women who have no idea of the value of anything they want ! What is the amount people should pay for a home? It shouldn't be difficult to work out - building costs per sq ft plus the land? Who makes the land costs? Who is responsible for making a shortage or influencing the price? For so many other things we look around and find out what things really should cost and what is the value and we look carefully and before we buy anything we should know who and what is influencing the price we have to pay!
For sure if we don't buy at the stupid prices then the price will go down !
Clearly if man was man he should say NO when a price is too high ...but what do we do, we try to please our (moaning and bleating) woman who just says everyone is paying that price so we must pay it ! Furthermore because jo bloggs can afford it we can. Totally illogical.
Worst of all of course is the financial system that allows joe bloggs and everyone else to borrow money they can't afford earn incredible commissions then pass the whole thing on as a valuable investment to YOUR own pension fund. You pay friends for ignorance and not finding out the true real value and price for thngs before you buy! It is political will to make you feel rich from the value of your house - a piece of land and bricks should be cheap. Don't be fooled by politicians, property developers, banks and your wife. Your house should never cost you more than 25% of your disposable income. If it does .......live with your parents til the price comes down.

In the beginning.....

Right in the beginning I was taught there has to be a reason for things, later it was for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, now there are so many variables at play we have to go back to basics. Gut feel !
Say it as it is......be provocative and test the theory. Thats my basic idea here. The only rules should be that the logic and rationale hold together. Please comment and tell me when I am irrationale and then the philosophical debate can start.