Bill N Ted

America is still technically at war with the DPRK (granted it is a long cold, not a hot war), an American citizen going to the DPRK especially with their prior history of detaining US citizens should ring alarm bells. A US citizen then going to the DPRK and committing crime(s) It is not hidden knowledge what the DPRK does to its own citizens, being a US citizen committing crimes within the borders of the DPRK is screaming out to be made an example of for propaganda purposes and political leverage. As for retaliation what could really be done? DPRK is already sanctioned to the hilt, people would have to be insane to start any military adventure off the back of this - start a war for a Darwin Award Nominee who did something that was comparable in the intelligence stakes as playing with traffic. Sad and unfortunate it happened; god knows what the poor sod endured. Watch his YouTube "confessions" in court, it is totally scripted by a non English speaker and he just memorized it verbatim - you can only imagine what they did to get that confession out of him and after all of that "Here you go buddy - 15 years hard labour" and ultimately repatriated a vegetable on the verge of death. A very shitty situation, the outcome I would think is not surprising to most; hopefully he has found peace as will his loved ones. I do wonder what would have happened if he had waved some dollars at them I bet they would have let him have his pick of the posters; though I can't help but think even if he did buy them they would still have arrested him for something.

Tragic, but the prank was funny.

I wonder if it was perpetrated in the name of the religion of peace again.

JD Weatherspoons...... Just saying. Good beer, cheap price, reasonable food and most of their pubs are big enough to take a crowd without having to book, just turn up grab a table or prop up the bar. There's one on Baker Street i frequent when i am in London.

I have never tried haggis; nor ever been drunk enough to try it as it really doesn't appeal. Haggis to me is "so you get all your shitty offcuts and offal, stick some oats and other cereals into the mix, throw in a few onions and herbs, stuff it all into a animal stomach and then just boil it until it's done? Sounds yummy!" Spotted dick is fine, though I haven't had that since I left school and is nothing really to write home about, I prefer sticky toffee pudding. If you get the chance try bread and butter pudding though it is easy enough to make at home if you fancy it, make your own custard to go with it too, don't buy the premade just add water crap. Its simply but really good. And if you have never tried curry, oh my lawd try some curry whilst in london.

I love Scotland; much nicer than the hell hole of London (my own personal perception, many find my rural life boring). London is nice to visit but I cannot ever imagine living there; Scotland however, yeah I could see myself very happy in Scotland. Never been to Edinburgh or Glasgow, when I visit Scotland I enjoy the coastal places away from cities (I am not a fan of cities in general). Portree on Skye I have stayed a few times, Stornoway on Lewis and Harris also; comes with the added bonus that you can roll out of bed, get breakfast then go for an all day walk. Don't be alarmed when you get "different" money north of the wall; it's all pounds sterling but you don't often come across it south of the wall, certainly not in Wales anyway. You have "British" money good throughout the Kingdom, you also have Scottish money in circulation which is also good throughout the Kingdom however it is more difficult to "off load" due to the general unfamiliarity of those south of the wall who will often in my experience question it or look at you stupid. If you're going to get cash in Scotland be aware that you more than likely will not get the same style of notes that you will be familiar with from the rest of the UK. As for Scotland just be yourself. If you have never tried black pudding I will certainly vouch for it ( eat far too much of it myself) ; it conjures up thoughts of a congealed mass of blood but it is far from it. It is soft with a somewhat firm structure, texture is akin to a light sausage meat. Taste is not of congealed blood but is rather unique, doesn't have a metallic taste that one would expect from blood but a very soft and herbal flavour; basically don't be the douchebag tourist that goes "OMG blood ach! I ain't eating that!", give it a try, it's actually really good; much better than its ingredients list would imply and I am not someone that enjoys offal.

Hard cider is where it is at. Don't drink too much of it as it usually (80% of cases based on first hand anecdotal evidence) gives the unaccustomed the shits; a pint or two wont hurt you however, just if you were to go to 6-8+ pints level it could become a problem. Scrumpy cider (what I drink) tends to have more of an effect than the mass produced stuff. Never played Age of Empires; know Glyndwr from IRON days of old, think he recruited me actually. Ever been North of the Wall (Hadrian's) before?

London. I'm staying in Soho. SOME people have expressed a desire to get me drunk, so the meet up will need to be near where I'm staying, or I'll never find my hotel again. ATM we're looking at 1:00 pm in a public place. Do you think you can make it? I've wanted to meet you for nearly 11 years! Could in theory be done. I will check out the leave situation in work tomorrow; I would assume it will be fine though. If I do come down I will likely make a weekend of it due to train fares, hotel fees etc; there are a few things I want to do in London currently so I guess I could fit a Sister Midnight meet up in. Is Glyndwr going to be there? Would like to revisit the Imperial War Museum and HMS Belfast, maybe fit in the Victoria & Albert Museum whilst I am there. Last few times I have been to London the inner nerd has been restricted due to female company; as I am single these days I guess it could be a nerd weekend with some hard drinking in between museums. You like cider right? Not the american cider; the alcoholic version

Wales UK. I am within 30 miles of Cardiff; being vague due to cyber stalkers that want to sexually harass me. On April 2nd where will you be?

The reason the USA is able to carry such tremendous debt is because the US Dollar is the world reserve currency. If the world decided it didn't want the US dollar as the world reserve currency any longer, and switch off to maybe China... the USA would be screwed. So I have been in favor of eliminating the US debt to safeguard ourselves from that. I mean seriously, the best way to protect yourself from disaster would be to eliminate the threat. Now Trump on the other hand... will have to increase the debt to pursue his Reagan plan to stimulate the US economy... which is firmly against all Conservative platforms that call for reducing the debt. We are venturing into strange territory... I say, AUDIT THE FED! Then we can see where we all stand before taking another step. The USD is currently the worlds reserve currency due to the petrodollar standard backed up by the US military. There have been numerous (over the past decade) agreements by nations to bypass the dollar with bilateral trade agreements mainly for energy settled in their local currencies as opposed to the USD. A number of OPEC nations have attempted to stop selling their oil in USD and have had the US military deliver a shit ton of freedom to their nations, Saddam wanted gold for Iraqi oil, Iran will sell oil for anything but USD, Libya for decades of terrorist escapades regime change was only on the cards when Ghadaffi proposed a Pan African gold backed currency and sell oil for gold. The deficits cannot be eliminated due to the way fiat currency is created under the current monetary system, where every dollar (insert your local currency here) is loaned into existence there is never enough currency to repay the original debt plus interest owed, thus deficit elimination is an impossibility as things stand and deficits will only get bigger as Peter is robbed to pay Paul.

End the FED, officially tie the USD to a commodity or basket of commodities, end fractional reserve banking, reintroduce Glass-Steagall. Outside of the dream world I think the best they could get would be someone that leans towards Austrian economics. Tying the USD and ending fractional reserve banking would require a new monetary system as the current one would die rapidly without it; the powers that be and the population at large are not going to willingly give up the FIAT financial heroin. So the junkie just carries on until the day it ends up in the grave or rehab. I am expecting the US deficit to balloon under Trump, as it would have done under Hillary.

I do not understand why taxpayer money is wasted on illegal immigrants, their mere presence on your soil is itself an illegal act, if they were there legally they would be called immigrants but without the "illegal" prefix. There are means to apply for asylum and to get visas; but of course that opens the claimant up to scrutiny where as if they can get into the country via illegal means they will avoid most if not all said scrutiny often lining the pockets of organised crime in the process. I would be more pissed about people being in your/my country illegally, said illegals then coming to the attention of the police force (I wonder why they would come to the attention of the police? Committing a crime maybe?) and then the police turn a blind eye to the illegal immigration status or willfully choosing to ignore the law. If people want to help the "poor illegal immigrants" they are entitled to do what they will with their own money (charity); what really pisses me off is when the doogooders of the country demand that the taxpayer look after them with the public purse; people who are not legally entitled to be in the country should get nothing other than charity bestowed upon them by the people that wish to help them.

That's when the USA stopped being great? Yes. The creation of the Third Central Bank of the USA and its continued existence. In my opinion Woodrow Wilson, 2 days before Christmas in 1913, of course opinions will vary, why don't you have a read into it if it is not something that you are familiar with?

The UK was Great at one point in history, it no longer is; its broken financially and arguably culturally. I generally disapprove of "diversity", diversity from what I have seen is legalise/PC speak for the discrimination of heterosexual white people. When you absorb so much of foreign culture at what point does it cease to be the host culture and become a bastardised version of what it once was?

Creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Will agree with the UPS, we use them in work (a hospital). Fantastic bit of kit, when the inclement weather sets in that brings down power lines or can cause momentary brownouts where the high power draw equipment would otherwise power off; these babies keep them running. By "keep them running" it provides enough time to keep the hospital equipment from failing prior to the backup diesel generators kicking in which takes around 10-20 seconds or for the national electric grid to sort itself out. In a home environment they will not keep your equipment running forever but will give you enough time (say 15-20 minutes depending on the size of the UPS and the power draw upon it) to correctly power down and shut off the equipment. UPS's don't last forever and they do occasionally fail, though my experiences with them is that they will start failing after 5 years, never had one last more than 8 years (there are 11 UPS's of varying size and power that I have in my area), at which point I have always been able to get the batteries reconditioned/ replaced for around 35-40% of the original unit cost. In all cases that I have dealt with UPS failure has been down to the batteries going bad and you find this out when you need the UPS the most and it fails or incorrect installation after it having been moved or re-sited and subsequently set up wrong.

What makes the US such a 'great example of democracy', if the previous installment of power is getting put into jail by the next one? Sounds like a dictatorship if you ask me. This + your sign suggest that you want people put to 'justice', because your side won the election and their interest weren't being satisfied the years before so it has to be corrupt. Justice should be unsparing. Reaching from one decade to the next, one scientific forensic analysis to the next; when guilt is found the rules are to be applied equally regardless of class or creed. Equality is one of those fluffy words. I have no doubt, that if Hillary had been anyone else other than Hillary she would already be serving a 20-30 year stretch. Ironic watching the left who are usually screaming for inclusion, peace, acceptance out rioting and burning the US flag, Oakland is no doubt one of many. Your society (USA) appears to be fracturing balkan style; sad to watch though not unexpected. I wish you all well, and I hope President Trump can sail you through the troubled waters that I envision lie ahead, though my head tells me that a $20 trillion deficit and a house of economic cards that doubled during the Obama administration (and will increase further under a Trump administration) is a powder keg that is just looking for a spark. The political right has been called many things for a number of years; healthy disagreement is often shouted down with some -ist or -phobe or other. Had the right been calling for secession movements similar to that in California they would have been called all sorts and have been drowned in tears; the shoe is now on the other foot, best assume a brace for impact position.

Was tempted to gamble here, collected my £1500 from the bookies instead. £10 put on Trump around 16 months ago, 150/1 Thanks Hillary, she is dirty, beyond dirty; utterly corrupted. No one is above the law, time to drain the swamp as they say, time to let the establishment (and the unelected enablers who provide millions to her cause) know that no one is above the law. If that involves putting Mom in prison for the rest of her life or hanging her from the neck until she is dead or a last minute Presidential Pardon (I really hope not), I wish you and your country well. Let justice prevail, let hillary hang, rot or live out her days free but tarred and feathered for all to see; whatever happens she is done. Personally I say bring on the rope.

Been thinking of getting myself a tattoo on the arm/shoulder or back. Would need to be covered by a short sleeve shirt (I could wear long sleeves though 30+ years of having to wear a long sleeve shirt to cover a tattoo is unviable). Work doesn't care about tattoo's; I care. To me getting inked is a personal and somewhat private affair - the tattoo is for my own selfish pleasure, no one else gets to see it unless they get to see me stripping for bed. So thinking of getting it on the upper arm +/- across the shoulder or a full on tattoo across my back. It would be a dragon or a bull; I have my reasons Any tattooed amongst us that can give any tips/advice?

I don't look into this; when "money" is simply printed or added to an account at a few keystrokes its funny money; you cant print your way to prosperity, if so Zimbabwe would be the third richest nation on the planet behind Hungary (Hungarian Pengo) and Wiemar Germany. It to me money creation is simply deficit spending and deficit spending has never ended well nor is there anything for me to think that this should otherwise change. If you had said that the EU, the Euro and by extension EU member states are backed up with nearly 10,000 tons of gold and that is a great back up plan I would agree with you. The UK is sat on a pathetic 300 tons thanks to "The Iron Chancellor" Gordon Brown (Labour) selling half of the UK gold reserves in a bear market, letting the market know in advance when, the volume to be sold and the price it was to be sold at was horrific and arguably criminally negligent. I view your post as a red herring; my view being for instance if Bank X got into trouble tomorrow the Central Bank of Country A simply deposits the capital required into the Bank X with a few keystrokes. Central Bank of Country A could let the bank rightly go bankrupt (as should be the fate of all failed enterprises) but the risk to the rest of the banking industry would be too great so the (any) government in my opinion would simply take the easy option and hand over the digital "money" again. I would be interested to know how much of the "capital requirements" that banks have to carry these days are made up of its customers money, to me the writing was on the wall when they had the bail in in Cypress and bank nationalisations in the late 2000's. As I said the ins and outs of capital requirements for the banks is something I have not looked into or to be honest care enough about to do so. I have already taken the opinion that it is likely to be multiple nuances built upon a bed rock of fiat currency. I question the fiat monetary system itself, my apologies if I come across as being dismissive here in my post; but I take the Greenspan view that there will always be enough money (fiat), we can guarantee any sum for as far out as you would like, but we (FED) cannot guarantee its purchasing power. BnT what I said has nothing to do with 'printing money'. We can have a separate discussion on whether or not QE or QQE or whatever you might wish to call it. Corrigenda: Weimar, Cyprus I wouldn't be so sure BnT, Gold is a fickle mistress... there are other reserves that are perfectly 'trustworthy'. Your 3rd paragraph has little to nothing to do with reality. The resolution process of failed or likely to fail credit institution or precautionary measures for, shall we call it, an ailing credit institution. Do not confuse "capital requirements" with "reserve requirements". The first are there to 'guard' against a credit institutions 'appetite for risk' and thus against over leveraging. The latter address the issue of customers' deposits that a credit institution must keep on hand or with the Central Bank. You are not dismissive BnT tbh I merely addressing the "rather unhealthy" link Of course, you do have a point in the last sentence... the Central Bank cannot guarantee purchasing power of fiat money. That is certainly true. I would argue that what you have said has everything to do with "money printing" and would be impossible without it. I view my third paragraph as being firmly planted in reality and in the realpolitik that encompasses our governments limited attention span and the monetary system as it exists. When the smell of a bank run on Northern Rock came about the UK Government wasted no time in nationalising the bank, when the contagion spread it wasted no time in injecting billions of liquidity (ie funny money) into those banks affected, Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stand out. Barclays if I recall received billions in private investments from the Middle East so that it wouldn't have to co-tail the demands made of it by the UK government of the time for extra liquidity. The UK government was posting a budget deficit that year, the money came via loan or injection of capital via QE money printing. Either way the UK government could not afford it save for the magical printing press or selling its citizens yet to be born further into serfdom. The thing is banks appetite for risk is somewhat skewed by the unfortunate (lol) position they now almost universally find themselves up against being zero to negative interest rates which kills bank profitability and loans made prior to the 2008 failure. Most of those loans made before 2008 are bad, the banks cannot turn a reasonable profit anymore in the current environment without playing Russian Roulette on the stock markets and injecting capital there. I would argue that the current rules to the game (low to zero or subzero) interest rates are killing the banks and is actually pushing those institutions closer to riskier endeavors not pushing them on the path to righteousness. Again I will reiterate my "European Banks look unhealthy" and expand that to banks unilaterally look unhealthy; wholesale backed by nothing other than BNT rhetoric and the publicly listed share prices of European Banks (and banks in general) given that share and stock price seems a good enough yardstick to flog the BREXIT horse with lets get it out. Women are fickle creatures (they are ), as is gold. I would sooner have a fickle wife and some gold than a cool wife and a fist full of fiat. Regardless of how annoying that mistress is, fickle doesn't burn your house down and leave you with nothing; more you embrace a relationship and accept it for what it is knowing that whatever happens you leave with something other than a smoldering ruin which I believe the current monetary order offers. Opinions will vary

The recession we had was not allowed to run its course, it was halted by central bank and government intervention by massive amounts of currency creation, manipulation of interest rates close to, zero or below the zero bound. I would argue that gold, other PM's, raw materials, oil are more valuable than paper money as the formers have an intrinsic value where as the later arguably does not unless your using it as fuel on a fire, then you could argue it does have some intrinsic value as a fuel. For the former you need to spend time, locating an economical site to mine or drill, human labor (at a cost of wages) to extract, energy such as oil and electricity to extract it and refine it and then manufacture it into whatever it is you want. With paper money chop down a few trees for the paper and the cost to run the printing presses and the man power to run them which is considerably less than running a mine or drilling rig for instance, and of course you can always up the amount of money created by simply putting a few zero's on the end of it. For the most part you dont even have to print it as you can add billions by the stroke of a keyboard due to most of banking finance occurring as electronic transfers thus very little to no overheads. I agree wholeheartedly with you however that gold and other things have a value attached to them because people believe in the value of it. If I am stuck in Antarctica starving and freezing gold has as much use to me as paper money, you cant eat either and a few notes is hardly going to keep me warm; there is nothing for me to buy using either and thus I would argue along a similar vein that Shaensha said earlier in the thread in that wealth and GDP should be linked to economic production and not currency creation and current stock market hocus pocus. Both are as you say mediums of exchange, natural resources however are far more resistant to manipulation of quantity and rarity, have some intrinsic value as they simply cannot be printed unlike fiat currency which can be printed and used to finance whatever pet project the politicians of the day conjure up with money that they dont have. Gold is a luxury item and people will do a lot to acquire it, even cultures that have never had contact valued it highly; when south america was explored and plundered the natives valued gold just as much as the Europeans; the species seems hardwired to like shiny things. (Central bankers/economic gurus to some schmuck) Yeah buddy, its worth as much as that dog turd (hilarious dog turd prank), you had best get rid of it and trade it in for some freshly printed fiat currency, and as it happens I feel sorry for you here, I will buy it off you; but just remember its worthless and I am doing you a favor that's the kind of guy I am. For all of the debunked theory talk of gold being a pet rock etc and is peddled by the economic gurus that run the world, that gold has no value at all and is a relic of a bygone era it strangely does not prevent them holding thousands of tons of it at great expense to guard and vault or go out of their way to acquire as much of it as they can get their hands on. Most central banks that are not run by left wing cucks (Canada lol) are amassing as much of it as they can get their hands on, but just remember, its worthless. You could use coca beans as payment if you want, not necessarily precious metals, but the return to a resource based currency is preferable to Joe Public than the current fiat system that we have at the moment. Whilst I don't think many would agree with me at the moment, when this system burns to the ground I think a lot of people wished that they had 2-3 tons of coca beans, a handful of useless gold coins or a silo of grain as opposed to a lot of meaningless digits in a bank account that they cannot access and is being inflated away.

I don't look into this; when "money" is simply printed or added to an account at a few keystrokes its funny money; you cant print your way to prosperity, if so Zimbabwe would be the third richest nation on the planet behind Hungary (Hungarian Pengo) and Wiemar Germany. It to me money creation is simply deficit spending and deficit spending has never ended well nor is there anything for me to think that this should otherwise change. If you had said that the EU, the Euro and by extension EU member states are backed up with nearly 10,000 tons of gold and that is a great back up plan I would agree with you. The UK is sat on a pathetic 300 tons thanks to "The Iron Chancellor" Gordon Brown (Labour) selling half of the UK gold reserves in a bear market, letting the market know in advance when, the volume to be sold and the price it was to be sold at was horrific and arguably criminally negligent. I view your post as a red herring; my view being for instance if Bank X got into trouble tomorrow the Central Bank of Country A simply deposits the capital required into the Bank X with a few keystrokes. Central Bank of Country A could let the bank rightly go bankrupt (as should be the fate of all failed enterprises) but the risk to the rest of the banking industry would be too great so the (any) government in my opinion would simply take the easy option and hand over the digital "money" again. I would be interested to know how much of the "capital requirements" that banks have to carry these days are made up of its customers money, to me the writing was on the wall when they had the bail in in Cypress and bank nationalisations in the late 2000's. As I said the ins and outs of capital requirements for the banks is something I have not looked into or to be honest care enough about to do so. I have already taken the opinion that it is likely to be multiple nuances built upon a bed rock of fiat currency. I question the fiat monetary system itself, my apologies if I come across as being dismissive here in my post; but I take the Greenspan view that there will always be enough money (fiat), we can guarantee any sum for as far out as you would like, but we (FED) cannot guarantee its purchasing power.

I think he is referring to the PMI in the UK. Basically companies dont want to spend/invest money and are fearful of the future etc. A recession is needed and is not necessarily a bad thing. Sure people will "loose everything", what people fail to realise is that they have nothing now, debt has been monitized, currency is debt. Your pensions, social security and even savings are all intertwined with your neighbor and fellow countrymen's ability to service that debt; last I looked a lot of people are just getting by, even more are in debt to some degree assuming they are even in work and not sucking at the teat of social security. Think of it as a forest fire that comes along every 2-3 years and clears out all the dead wood; when the fires don't come because of the well intentioned interference of man the fires are even bigger and more deadly when they inevitably do come. The central banks have been delaying the inevitable for far too long by pumping in trillions of funny money into the market to keep it running; there are around 1.25 quadrillion dollars outstanding in the derivatives market alone, or put another way the amount of money that people have been swapping and buying currently stands at around 10 times global GDP. Deutchse Bank depending on sources have $70 trillion in exposure to this market, and their stock price was trading bellow their 2008 low (2008 being the last big recession) months before BREXIT, European banks are looking rather unhealthy also on the same timeline. Madoff's $50 billion ponzi scheme is spit in the ocean in comparison. I voted to leave the EU, if it was a vote for recession I would have voted for that too; incidentally they seem intertwined But no; just flog the BREXIT whipping boy; its all his fault.

Were they hot? Did you get your squirttle wet?

LOOOOL I await Sir Nigel being appointed to the home office