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Hahaha, I'll leave it there for the humor of it

You are missing one important point, gold is money, it is traded on the currency desks of the various exchanges. When the Zimbabwe Dollar collapsed people started using other currency, including gold. They did not exchange it for the Zimbabwe Dollar, which is simply no longer used.

Well said. Price controls have always failed and would only result in a shortage of supply. Prices are a result of supply and demand, and as you me ruin the supply of doctors is kept low artificially. This of course suits the GPs who are usually the ones most outspoken about reducing the points...

A couple of points to make. 1) The Reinhart Rogoff study is not an economic model it is simply a study of past economic data pointing out what has happened in the past to countries with certain levels of debt. 2) the corrected data still shows a huge decrease in economic growth when the 90%...

I agree, the taxation of private pensions was just the start. Personally I've started moving some assets out of Europe to the Caribbean. The further away I can get my assets from Irish and EU politicians the better.

Good points made there, and I agree that nothing has been done to address the financial crisis. It started with the realisation that private citizens, private organisations and sovereign governments had taken on way too much debt. And the "solution" has been to transfer those debts to...

I think I posted here before about council workers that came to fix a water mains leak outside our house. I think it was a total of six people and the driver never once got out of the truck. Just sat there reading the paper and smoking fags.

I agree that the entire financial industry has nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism is about profit AND loss, and when you take away the loss the cost to the taxpayer becomes ever larger. So you have a situation where banks behave in a certain way because they do have the same fear of...

I believe it is inevitable. The ECB has an inflation target of 2%, which used to be like a ceiling. This has now become the floor. Also, the effects of the massive inflation of the mo eh supply have not come into affect yet, and once that results in very high price inflation there will be no...

+1 With almost everything else people do research. Before buying TVs or computers people search online reviews and expert opinion; before buying a car they do the same and even go for a test drive or pay a mechanic to check it out. But when it comes to banking pretty much nobody does...

Sunny, saw you mentioned the German system of apprenticeships and checked out what the income is for an apprentice. A friend of mine works for one if Germany's largest Mercedes dealers so I sent him a quick mail to get some details: - car mechanic apprenticeship lasts for 4 years - first year...

The welfare young people receive us only one part if the problem. The bigger problem is that an 18 year old does not have enough experience in pretty much anything to allow employers to pay them €8.65 per hour. While there are some rules that reduce that minimum dependent on first and second...

+1 Well said, I for one am going back to an unapologetic non-voter stance; since I don't agree with anything the politicians are doing or suggesting to do, I am certainly not going to give them my permission. And fortunately I am very well positioned to leave if or when things start going...

According to Wikipedia 2.91 million people were born in Singapore, keeping in mind that it has existed as an independent state only since 1965: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore That's still plenty of people breeding potential criminals. Yes, Malaysia has probably a lot more to offer...

I am in agreement with Bronco Lane that government has become extremely vocal with threats to the public. Yes, all taxes come with an underlying threat, but when is the last time you heard politicians harp on about how they will force or punish people for not declaring their correct income tax...

Yes it is a small island, country and state with a larger population than Ireland, with 5.3 million people. It is 100% urban, and crime rates throughout the world are highest in urban environments, so from that point of view they have a much tougher task at hand than other countries...

Sorry Kaiser, I must have missed the "current" in your post. Regarding the second point, I know I harp on about this, but I think it is important to point out that while there have been cuts in certain areas these have been more than negatively offset in other areas resulting in no net decrease...

Question: Why do the majority of criminals come from a small number of deprived areas? My answer: 1) The Welfare System 2) Education 3) Minimum Wage We have an education system that fails to educate kids to a level that allows them to get a minimum wage job. When someone is employed for...

I was talking to a friend about this very topic a whe ago and I think that a very important distinction needs to be made. If large groups of people decide to "break the law" by not paying a TV licence or the household charge then they should not be labeled with the same "lawless" tag as people...

Seamus, I agree that the number one problem is the deficit, but the level of debt we are talking about will not be serviceable and I wouldn't blame future generation to stick up two fingers and say "we're not going to pay more tax, we'll cut your (pensioner's) entitlements first." The very fact...