Monday, November 3, 2008

Credit Crunch or Recession?

Just who was it that came up with the idea of the phrase 'Credit Crunch'?
I hate it when they do this. As far as I am concerned the 'Credit Crunch' means recession. Thats what they should have called it from the beginning. In my book the following equation results in what we can technically call a recession.

Financial downturn + Banks in trouble + Businesses in trouble + Job Losses + Less Retail Spending + Lower standard of living + Repossessions + Poverty = RECESSION

I find a great number of things disturbing about this recession.

1. How can this still be happening in the 21st Century?
2. Why does the world economy have to suffer when the roots of the recession begin in a single country?
3. Why were various financial institutions not monitored enough to ensure they were operating within correct guidelines.
4. The fact that it is the every day tax payer who is having to bail out those whose greed in part are responsible for the recession.
5. A media frenzy that has practically scared us into recession.

What do you think. Was there ever a credit crunch or has it been a recession all along and the powers that be just could not admit to it.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Do Little Green Men and Ghoulies Exist?

Out of all of the worlds phenomenons it seems UFO's and ghosts get the most attention. Why? After years of speculation, sightings and ghost busting has anyone come up with a true, final and lasting conclusion?

No. It seems we are obssessed with the unexplained an despite years of evolution and scientific breakthroughs we are still speculating. We still have sceptics and believers.

I do wonder sometimes what would happen if one day little green men and the undead were to make a public appearance at the same time.

What would all the speculators, cults, fans, sceptics, believers do then?

Are you a believer or do you think its a load of old mumbo jumbo?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Do you want bank charges abolished?

This one is a real bug bear with me at the moment. The credit crunch has really been hitting my family hard and that along with a series of recent misfortunes has meant we blew our overdraft limit. Now the vicious cycle of bank charges = another overdraft limit breached = another bank charge = bank gets richer = we get pushed further into poverty has started.

Despite pleads to the bank for help and breathing space it has fallen on deaf ears. They couldn't even increase our overdraft yet the helpful person at the other end of the phone said that as 'you are a priority customer we can give you a loan'.

In a less serious time I would have found this funny but I'm not laughing, I'm fuming.

I shall not mention my bank's name as that would only give them yet another reason to steal my money in the form of a lawsuit.

Anyone else think bank charges should be abolished in the UK?

~JAY T~

Monday, October 20, 2008

How many people are you?

I'm not talking schitzo or split personality here. I'm talking about the people influences that make us what we are.

Scientists love to bash home that we are all unique and individual but are we really that different from each other?

Take five and in quiet contemplation look back over your life and think of all the people you have known. Have any influenced you? Do you carry around someone else's habits or mannerisms without realising?

I think the human race is a massive collective of influences. Don't get me wrong, we are not photocopiers endlessly duplicating ourselves. It seems that there is a little selection processing going on when we decide to take on part of someone elses persona.

Often than not when we do inherit part of someone it always tends to be a good friend or somebody you look up to. Whether or not this is a conscious or unconscious decision I cannot tell.

Could this be the reason why so many of us ultimately grow up to be like our parent? Ye gods!

There is some truth in sayings such as 'Look at your wife's mother because thats what she will be like in her later years'. I'm not referring to the physical appearance here but rather the attitiude and mannerisms that get copied.

I never met my mother in law because sadly she passed away long before I came on the scene. I do know however that from relative's descriptions of her my wife has indeed inherited some of her mother's personality traits.

I won't say which ones or whether they are good or bad as it may be dangerous to my health if I did.

The strange thing about inheriting personality traits is that over time they seem to fade, or get replaced by new ones. Its like a constant layering process but underneath they all merge together to produce the person everyone sees.

Pyschologists have a field day with this sort of thing as they believe they can get to the root of somones problems by peeling back the layers.

It reminds of that film 'The Boys from Brazil' in which a Nazi doctor tries to recreate Hitler by exposing his clones to similar traumatic life situations,

The reality is that our influences are far too complex to be able to reproduce them in order to come up with a replica personality. We all meet different people under different circumstances at different times under different conditions.

For a pyschologist to really know whats going on in that head they would have to know every single individual that may have ever had an influence on you.

Are some people born lucky?

Luck. Something we all need from time to time and more than often during an economic crisis like the one we are experiencing now.

Its funny but it only seems to be at times like this when you really notice just how lucky or not so lucky you are,

If I was to put my luck on a scale of 1 to 10 it would probably average out at about 2.

If I were able to make money from being unlucky I would be incredibly rich but then that would be lucky and as I am not lucky so that won't happen.

It makes you sick when you see headlines in the news like '16 year old wins lottery'. There you are struggling to make ends meat, going through the daily drudgery of working to live, just as you always have for the last 20 years of your lift. Your lottery numbers never seem to come up and then all of a sudden 16 year old Tom Anom down the road wins the roll over.

You should be happy for the lad but your current predicament just leaves you thinking why him? he's not done anything, he always gets into trouble with the police, he doesn't deserve to win but I do.

Thats the thing about lady luck. She's not choosy about who to bestow good fortune on.

I use to disagree with the idea that some people are born lucky but in recent years I've seen more than my fair share of evidence to make me think differently.

There are a few people I know who always seem to come up smelling of roses no matter how much guana they cover themselves in. Sometimes I have felt cursed when a year has gone by and not one bit of luck has visited me. Yet for these other people the luck just keeps on coming.

In fact I have to say me and my wife are quite depressed at the moment because we've nearly had a year of things going wrong. One after another, after another.

So, was I born unlucky for some reason or am I creating the bad luck through 'negativity'. I hate that word so much especially when people preach it to you. Yes lets get onto preaching. Here's some of those phrases that get me smoking around the edges.

1. 'Luck of the Irish' - Mmm, so lady luck is racist as well as unfair.
2. 'You make your own luck' - Do you? Who said so and wheres the manual?
3. 'Turn your negative into a positive' - Er ok, I've lost my job, my home, my wife and kids through no fault of my own. What would you suggest? Write a book? Go on Jerry Springer? Join a reality TV show? Get real will you!
4. 'Read my new book. How to calculate the winning lottery numbers' - They are out there and if you are mug enough to believe them then you really are unlucky.

I'm sure there are many more out there that readers will elaborate on.

One thing I would like to know is are there any chances that a terminaly unlucky person could at some point become lucky. I really hope so and if you are listening lady luck, don't give me the lottery win on my 90th birthday just days before I die.

Introduction

Welcome to Net Talk Talk.

The aim of this blog is to encourage thoughtful ideas across a broad range of subjects. Within this blog I am seeking the collective knowledge of Net users in order to gather people's thoughts with regards to differen topics.

I want this blog to be fun, creative and interesting. Adult content will not be accepted because this is not that kind of blog. There are plenty of those around already. I will also not tolerate flaming or malicous posts aimed at individuals or organisations with intent to hurt or harm.

That said I will get the ball rolling by starting some topics.

~Jay T~