Interesting article
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From: Ulaanbaatar
Originally Posted by Nick Graves' date='Jan 22 2009, 10:41 AM
I want to see a modern version of this:
Looking like these:
We need visionaries, not focus groups, to conceive, develop and produce these vehicles.
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From: omnipresent
All of this..It's capitalist economics - nothing will change of it's own accord.
As such it cannot be "blamed" on one subset of the population-it's all of us who are to blame given the system that we are in. Simplisticly we all want more of something that is scarce and often the distribution of the scarcity can/could have been done better.
Maybe the Chinese way is better at avoiding shocks?
Interesting figures provided by Moff-there's clearly a lot of value in those 3 letters.
As such it cannot be "blamed" on one subset of the population-it's all of us who are to blame given the system that we are in. Simplisticly we all want more of something that is scarce and often the distribution of the scarcity can/could have been done better.
Maybe the Chinese way is better at avoiding shocks?
Interesting figures provided by Moff-there's clearly a lot of value in those 3 letters.
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From: Hertford
Originally Posted by Polemicist' date='Jan 22 2009, 11:21 AM
I have a feeling you'll be correct.
I want to see a modern version of this:
Looking like these:
We need visionaries, not focus groups, to conceive, develop and produce these vehicles.
I want to see a modern version of this:
Looking like these:
We need visionaries, not focus groups, to conceive, develop and produce these vehicles.
They'd need four wheels (the Isetta had four in Germany) and even that may not be enough to overcome buyer prejudice, I fear.
I remember LJKS proposing something similar, with flat-six Goldwing power, back in the 1980s!
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From: North Yorks
Originally Posted by Nick Graves' date='Jan 22 2009, 03:30 PM
They'd need four wheels (the Isetta had four in Germany) and even that may not be enough to overcome buyer prejudice, I fear.
Unless they managed to greenwash the DoT like the G-Wazz (sic) manufacturers did and call it a quadricyle, neatly sidestepping the need for occupant protection.
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From: Nottingham
Originally Posted by Useful' date='Jan 22 2009, 09:47 AM
Originally Posted by moff
The government needs to help, and fast. They are pouring funds into the key banks and it is not filtering down to:
- the small and medium sized lenders
- even their own vehicle finance lending divisions
- the small and medium sized lenders
- even their own vehicle finance lending divisions
There's no way I'm suddenly going to buy a car just to prop up the economy. There has to be a damned good reason to do so (e.g., my old one's died; the governments increasing road tax ten-fold; petrol is more expensive than LPG).
The short-termist views of shareholders and investors IMO harks back to the Thatcher years. Joe Public wants to be better off. First, I'll own my own home, then make money as its price rises without doing anything. Oh, that all went pear shaped in 1990. Ok, so how else did people make money in the 80s? Investing. I'll try the stockmarket then... And then the people who should've known better (high flying Merkin bankers) mess it all up for a quick buck, and because the risk pot isn't big enough any more.
There's been too many amateur investors trying to make a lot of money who don't know what they're doing. Joe Public taking on risk for potential rewards without fully appreciating the potential penalties.
I'm going to restate my theory: Either it'll all go "Star Trek", and money will no longer exist and "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force; we work to better humanity." (perhaps some kind of religious renaissance is due?!) or it'll return to the same invidivualistic market driven forces and boom and bust again.
Greed is good, according to Gordon Gecko...
Now, how do I make a buck out of that?
The problem is that most companies can survive with bridging loans during the bad times, but this time no-one is helping.
I think the government needs to help ensure that the companies with a valid need, get the funds.
Clearly the government is required to do the necessary due diligence, something that has been distinctly lacking up to now.
I really worry about the person or people of have been responsible for banking capitalisation project. Some Labour ejits with no business acumen?
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From: North Yorks
Originally Posted by moff' date='Jan 22 2009, 07:57 PM
I really worry about the person or people of have been responsible for banking capitalisation project. Some Labour ejits with no business acumen?
When the NR crisis first came to light, the treasury ran in circles and did nothing, then rumour spread to the general public and a run started. Money was then pumped in and grand statements along the lines of "We cannot allow a British bank to fail" were made.
So when other banks start to discover a mess of their own making, they knew someone who might be able to give them money, if they paint a bad enough picture.
And again, there is 'no option'* than to throw more of our money at them.
Only the mess that the banks talked up is actually worse than they thought, and worse than they told the treasury it was. And now some of them need more money to stay afloat. Our money.
What should be happening is that the banks should be being forced to disclose the extent of their toxic debt before that debt is written off - throwing money at them allows them to recapitalize, but doesn't cut out the rot. Use the same money to write off the bad debts and at least the cancer is removed.
* There is another option, allow the banks to fail. Unlike many I don't see this being the end of the capitalist system - we need banks, and we would still have banks even if some failed. Their collapse would bankrupt many companies and affect a lot of people, but the current solution is simply doing the same thing, only slower and at more cost to the taxpayer.