Anyone read "Fantasy Island"?

[alreadypacked]

wendigo100 you slacker, get a new one

[Charles Foster Kane]

Here we go again...

Oh, has that been done then?

[NoddY]

You're right. Wealth is relative.
I would consider myself rich if I could retire tomorrow and live comfortably for the rest of my life.
I would suggest that a country which has a large and growing trade deficit is poor.

I believe any measure of wealth should always include a metric of 'uncontrolled time'. This is time upon which there are no demands. You may choose to use it for your hobby, for your family or simply to do nothing - but it belongs to you and you only. Time is the truest most scarce resource.

[Charles Foster Kane]

Yes I've read it.

It talks about the illusions we have about our country - employment, growth, the environment, public services... and especially the "stable economy".

It's a bit depressing in a way because all those chickens have got to come home to roost one day.

Don't worry about it:

“Generally speaking, reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Albert Einstein

Is your avatar a picture of you Wendigo?

[mrdonuts]

and what will happen when it does go ).). up , the state has been funded to look after people in the event of such a downturn, now with the huge influxes i suspect there will be a lot more people looking for handouts than actually contributed in the first place

[Clippy]

Yes I've read it.

It talks about the illusions we have about our country - employment, growth, the environment, public services... and especially the "stable economy".

It's a bit depressing in a way because all those chickens have got to come home to roost one day.

I thought chicken roosting had now been outsourced to India.

[wendigo100]

Yes I've read it.

It talks about the illusions we have about our country - employment, growth, the environment, public services... and especially the "stable economy".

It's a bit depressing in a way because all those chickens have got to come home to roost one day.

[sasguru]

Wealth is an illusion anyway. Create the illusion and you create the wealth. A rich man is only rich if we all agree he is - such things can be extrapolated to the level of the state.

You're right. Wealth is relative.
I would consider myself rich if I could retire tomorrow and live comfortably for the rest of my life.
I would suggest that a country which has a large and growing trade deficit is poor.

[NoddY]

Wealth is an illusion anyway. Create the illusion and you create the wealth. A rich man is only rich if we all agree he is - such things can be extrapolated to the level of the state.

[RightLaugh]

Bring back the 80's. What a great decade.
This one is pants.

[sasguru]

I thought it was about a bloke in a white suit and dwarf living on a tropical island?

There is a "state of the nation" book of the same name just been published.

[Diver]

The plane The plane

[DimPrawn]

I thought it was about a bloke in a white suit and dwarf living on a tropical island?

[sasguru]

Skimmed it in bookshop yesterday (being a cheapskate speedreader has its advantages ). Written by the economics editors of the Grauniad and the Daily Mail.
When those 2 come together you know things are serious

Synopsis:

"We live in a country fantasising about its ability to run up debts seemingly without end, to enjoy high-paid employment for which it is not qualified, to project military power that it does not possess and in general to assume, in defiance of the evidence, a superior economic and political position in relation to most of the rest of the world.

Then there is the apparent conviction that limitless growth can co-exist with environmental protection, that the over-borrowed and abundantly staffed state machine is actually being courageously pruned even while its payroll rises and, finally, that the just-around-the-corner radiant future is one in which will work in the 'creative economy'.

Welcome to Fantasy Island. He may be the most spectacular election winner in modern British political history but Blair leaves behind him a seedy dreamworld mired in debt and bankruptcy, drifting into a crisis of employment and employability, hallucinating into existence a diplomatic and military role that it cannot possibly afford. It's time to take stock of the future he and Brown have mapped out for us while there's still time to do something about it. "

Nuff said...