Why I am buying gold

[jaywalker]

1. Trump has many routes to actually win the US election. 'Peace through strength' (& etc).

2. May seems to be way further right-wing that anticipated - liberal justice reforms scrapped, eu workers under threat, the stupid return to grammar schools, brexit is brexit, insane adherence to nuclear weapons (& etc).

3. Almost imperceptible cracks now opening as a result of brexit (even though not yet implemented) - these will get much wider rapidly and unexpectedly.

4. Putin

5. With very low interest rates (misconceived B of E policy) people are way over-extended in risk bearing assets like high yield commercial bonds and shares with next to no dividend cover

6. Pension funds are about to go bust due to near zero interest rates

7. Trade wars will intensify with punitive fines of UK based accountancy firms by the US (even though we are not really EU). And this at a time when we are dreaming of 'free trade' - dear god.

Disclaimer: I AM actually buying gold.

[Loz]

jaywalker Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> 2. May seems to be way further right-wing that

> anticipated - liberal justice reforms scrapped, eu

> workers under threat, the stupid return to grammar

> schools, brexit is brexit, insane adherence to

> nuclear weapons (& etc).

Erm... did you not follow her career as home secretary?

And, being born and bought up in another country, I've never quite understood the opposition to grammar schools.

[malumbu]

In my first job a manager told me that you needed stupid people to do the low quality and manual work. A two tier schooling system is ideal for this. Totally ideologically opposed. Used to tell my late father that his generation had done so much after second world war to improve fairness and equality and a fairer society. Yet subsequent generations were reversing this. And that was 20 years ago.

[Earl Aelfheah]

5 reasons why a return to grammar schools is a bad idea: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/media-centre/blogs/category/item/5-reasons-why-a-return-to-grammar-schools-is-a-bad-idea

And some analysis from the FT: http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2013/01/28/grammar-school-myths/

And Full Fact's summary: https://fullfact.org/education/grammar-schools-and-social-mobility-whats-evidence/

[????]

people are a bit addicted to crisis - we were going to implode 8 years ago, we certainly were during most of the 60s/70s/80s. I think these things will work themselves out - it's the current hysteria combined with the internet that worries me most. Post factual world and all that - mistrust of experts, continual bashing on about 'elites', widespread and growing belief in absolute nutball conspiracy theories..this leads to demagogues and I'm more worried about that than the fundamentals.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Trump certainly scares the hell out of me.

[JohnL]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> In my first job a manager told me that you needed

> stupid people to do the low quality and manual

> work. A two tier schooling system is ideal for

> this. Totally ideologically opposed. Used to tell

> my late father that his generation had done so

> much after second world war to improve fairness

> and equality and a fairer society. Yet subsequent

> generations were reversing this. And that was 20

> years ago.

Well if we are excluding migrants somebody's got to :)

[*Bob*]

How do you buy gold?

Do you have to store it at home in a safe? Or hire a safety deposit box in a vault?

Or are we talking portable and visible, like Mr T?

[????]

Mine's all in my teeth *Bob* - always with me and practical rather than unused in a bank vault in Zurich

[*Bob*]

Personally, I'm going for wine. Foolproof.

[titch juicy]

Jaywalker- do you think interest rates are artificially low and perhaps won't stay as low for as long as the market thinks?

[malumbu]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> malumbu Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > In my first job a manager told me that you

> needed

> > stupid people to do the low quality and manual

> > work. A two tier schooling system is ideal for

> > this. Totally ideologically opposed. Used to

> tell

> > my late father that his generation had done so

> > much after second world war to improve fairness

> > and equality and a fairer society. Yet

> subsequent

> > generations were reversing this. And that was

> 20

> > years ago.

>

>

> Well if we are excluding migrants somebody's got

> to :)

So we should decide this when kids are 10 years old? Why don't we not bother to educate them at all? It worked in the past. Much better when people knew their place in society....

[jaywalker]

the Tories are always inclined to sign up to selection - it resonates with their infantile social Darwinist fantasies ('natural' differences in 'ability' need to be given a helping hand at an early age to find full expression - for the social is otherwise seen as likely to suffocate the development of the 'gifted'). The result of such policies is to stabilise social reproduction in exactly the way 'conservatives' want (that probabilistically you will do very much better if you are of the offspring of privilege).

Grammar schools are an exercise in the most terrible bad faith here: they promise an 'escape' for a tiny number of children from very disadvantaged families (whereas, as with both my parents, they actually tend to be populated by people from the middle class who cant quite manage private school fees) so 'prove' that 'natural' selection is working and we don't have to worry about social reproduction (or the iniquities of private education). The tests are at an arbitrary age of the child and create a monstrous division between those who pass and those who fail (think of the person who just fails) on an image of 'intelligence' that is hocus pocus (i.e. one-dimensional, asserted to be validly measured by 'IQ' tests etc etc).

You can get gold at the royal mint I think (guaranteed quality) and they will store it for you for a small fee. Gold might of course halve in value tomorrow.

Titch Juicy: well, interest rates are certainly low by policy choice. But I've been trained to think that I cannot predict the future. One can devise scenarios either way of course. Buying gold is not for me about a forecast: it is about insuring against a spectrum of probabilities (I would count myself a king of infinite economic rationality if I did not have bad black swan dreams). And insurance is expensive (although less so with zero interest rates!)

In a way I'm much more worried about the polarisation of people on immigration post referendum. It does seem to have unleashed a great torrent of abuse. The bbc news website yesterday hosted a 'discussion' on the crazy idea of fencing off Calais which was dominated 10 to 1 by xenophobia. People now seem to think its appropriate to say the most dreadful things about migrants.

[rendelharris]

I grew up in Kingston, where they still have grammar schools (to which I went), and it was well accepted that house prices were inflated due to the middle classes buying properties to be in the catchment area - indeed some of my classmates' parents (not mine) had specifically moved to the area when their kids were approaching secondary age to give them a chance of getting in - and who spent a fair bit on private tutors to ensure their kids were very well prepared for the exam. Certainly in that area it was a way of middle class parents getting a private/public school level education (I hated it but that's just me) without paying for it - it certainly wasn't the democratic give-everyone-an-equal-chance scenario which it's now being sold as. The secondary moderns (are they still called that?) to which one was sent if one failed the 11+ were, at that time at least, underfunded, had poor quality teaching and, crucially, had to deal with disaffected pupils who'd basically been told they weren't fit for the top tier at the age of eleven.

[malumbu]

IS Kingston like West Wickham? Incredibly dull and parochial. I am sure that some of you are considering moving out there due to the 'schools'. Clearly I have a bias and I am showing it.

When I do speak to peole out that way originally from South London some of the the older generation whisper that they had to move out because of 'them moving in' (immigrants) expecting me to nod. The younder lot say it is due to the schools and then ask me where I live which always amuses me.

The best one that I had was Darrick Wood or one of the other places on the London/Kent border where the parents told me how the shcool was going down hill due to all the kids coming in from out of borough (I think they may even had said Southwark).

Mine was an ex-secondary modern, and it was the first year of it being a comp, ie the first six formers (who has all failed the 11-plus). Not that it was a particularly great school and I don't have a lot of fondness of it.

Anyway I have my agendas and what I post doesn't reflect all people who 'better themselves' nor do I have the monopoly of wisdom. But a march on Whitehall with flaming torches would be great.

[rendelharris]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> IS Kingston like West Wickham? Incredibly dull

> and parochial.

I don't know West Wickham but that certainly applies to Kingston - moved up to this neck of the woods as soon as I got my first proper job!

[uncleglen]

I went to grammar school in a very poor area of London where they had never returned anything other than a Labour MP. My mates were the offspring of jailbirds, drunks, dentists, university lecturers, doctors, etc. Grammar schools were everywhere and if you were a borderline fail you had an interview and got to go to a technical college or the grammar. There was a second opportunity at 13 to sit the 13+ and enter the grammar school (probably with a teacher's recommendation).

Our parents had to sign to say we would stay on and do the 'O' levels as the leaving age was 15 at the time.

The expectation was 'A' levels and university....most of our teachers were Welsh.

Today there is an inflation of house prices near grammar schools- but if they were ubiquitous- which they should be- after all there are schools that select for Music, Sport etc...why not academic prowess- the whole country would benefit from it and we probably would not have had to strip the developing world of its brightest in order to fill our skills gap at the higher levels. I will NEVER be convinced that grammar schools were bad

[rendelharris]

I suspect, uncle, that you will NEVER be convinced that anything other than your own viewpoint is correct. However, leaving ideological differences aside, you're talking of a completely different era where, (very) broadly speaking, those going to grammar school moved on to university and a job like doctor, solicitor, teacher, civil servant etc; for those who didn't there were solid jobs in solid manual industries, with apprenticeships and a certain dignity in labour. Now Britain's economy is 80% based on service industries, the entire complexion of educational needs has changed. The reintroduction of grammar schools is simply a ploy to provide the middle classes - the Tories' natural constituency - with a superior education to the working class whilst trying to claim it's exactly the opposite.

[rendelharris]

Great quote from Sir William of Bragg today:

"The difference between state education and private schooling is the same as that between public transport and a taxi service. While the taxi will take you to where you want to be, the subway system will take you to a predetermined stop, leaving you to get to where you want to be under your own steam.

"The Tories' plan to re-introduce grammar schools will only serve to make the journey harder for 80% of pupils by forcing them to get off the subway several stops before their destination."

Sums it up: if grammar schools will provide a superior education, it follows logically that those who don't go to them will receive an inferior education.

[JohnL]

Maybe the Secondary Modern could get sponsorship of say a carpet manufacturer

and compete with the Grammar.

It would only take a few to show the way and throw the system into chaos.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

*Bob*, I'm concerned about you. I feel obliged to offer you my tasting services to make sure your investments are sound.

[????]

*sigh*

They won't be like before

Choice

Demand

etc

.....or let's bung it all back to a one shop LEA dictatorship...say the Grammar and private school alumni of Corbyn's Labour party

[Robert Poste's Child]

I'm amazed they didn't think to give it a bit of spin with a rebrand. 'Social mobility accelerator schools', perhaps. Too late now, Treez.

[rendelharris]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> *sigh*

>

> They won't be like before

> Choice

> Demand

> etc

> .....or let's bung it all back to a one shop LEA

> dictatorship...say the Grammar and private school

> alumni of Corbyn's Labour party

Actually got an argument in favour quids, or just the usual easier knock down everyone else shtick?

[Loz]

I really don't see why grouping children into schools that are more educationally comparable is such a bad idea. Teaching a widely differing group of kids must be really difficult. The smart kids get bored; the kids that need extra help don't get it.

Just because it's been poorly implemented before, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

If only the UK was as pragmatic as the Germans - their school system would make your anti-grammer person's head explode.