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RufusTFirefly

Listed below are comments made by RufusTFirefly between Sunday, 30th November 2008 and Friday, 2nd October 2009.

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House prices: Too good to be true? 12:47pm on 02 Oct 2009 Why do people bother commenting when they clearly have not even read the article?
House prices: Too good to be true? 11:29am on 02 Oct 2009 What bizarre reactions. When the banks are lending to people who can't afford it they are reckless and profligate. Now they've returned to lending only to people who might be afford to repay they are mean and withholding money from the economy.

Also we see the old mantra "it's not really harder now for young people to buy than it was 30 years, they just need to lower their sights a little and tighten their belts".

The answer to both points is in the article, if not stated explicity: The average house price (£160k) is still 6 and a half times the average salary (£24k).

Banks are being very sensible not lending people 6 times their salary and the multiple 30 years ago was between 2 and 3. Again, as the article points out, the inevitable conclusion is that house prices are too high.
Why Kraft's salary cap cure cannot compete 09:02am on 15 Aug 2009 A salary cap will never work as clubs will always find a way round it. At the very least players are still more likely to want to live in, say, London or Manchester than Burnley.

A much simpler way to narrow the gap a little would be to place restrictions on the amount of debt a club is permitted to carry. I don't think anyone can claim it's unfair that a club should have to live within it's means (ie on matchday and merchandising revenue), and wealthly owners could still gift money to clubs, they would just be prevented from lending it Abramovich style or leveraging it Gilette/Walker style. This would have little affect on most clubs, but would perhaps discourage the more fickle nouveau riche from investing in football (as they couldn't take their money back when they got bored) and protect clubs like Leeds from themselves.

The Football League has rules on clubs going into administration, I'm sure the same structure that monitors this can be used to monitor debt.

The rules would of course have to be applied pan-europe, but given UEFA's recent comments I don't think that's unrealistic.
The Marvellous, Magical, Mad Football League Tour - part II 8:44pm on 07 Aug 2009 Dubbin, take your thatcherite whinging elsewhere. HYS I imagine is your usual haunt.
A public element 10:48am on 18 Jun 2009 Tribunes? Crusty old Senators? Whence our Sulla?
Secrets of the fixture computer 10:46am on 17 Jun 2009 Well I'm glad you have confirmed that the fixtures are actually generated by a computer because for years the Football DataCo Ltd have insisted that they are not. The reason is that the output of a computer program cannot be copyrighted and, as the BBC will well know, the FDC make their living by collecting license fees for people simply printing fixture lists (check the bottom of each listing page on the BBC website). Now their business model has been publicly demonstrated to be null and void, will they be refunding the "license fees" they have been collecting from fan websites and media organisations alike for the last ten years?
What did the PM say? 4:30pm on 18 May 2009 It is great that one of the more powerful people in this country chooses an imaginary deity as his first port of call when it comes to serious decisions...

Perhaps a his judgement is clouded in other ways too
China: still buying the world 08:34am on 06 Mar 2009 #3

Peston is responsible for the global recession because he didn't parrot your drivel about the uk defaulting on it's debts?

I think perhaps you need a good couple of whacks from the clue-bat...
It's business as usual 8:06pm on 16 Dec 2008 Finally, proof that politicians are completely detatched from reality. Could you ask for a more graphic demonstration than the last 3 months that market forces are not a universal panacea and that the "guiding hand" is a fallacy? Yet here they are, in the midst of the worst failure of the market in living memory, privatising everything that moves.

So they're going to sell the profitable bits to the Dutch and German state owned mail services and keep the loss making bits owned by the British state? Genius! The whole point of a national mail service is that the loss making bits are funded by the profitable bits, is it really that hard to see?

This country is ripe for some Greek-style political landscape changing methinks, after which all these crooks who have sold off our taxpayer assets for personal profit (going back to Major et al) will be first to be placed against the wall.
The sanctity of the Commons 7:25pm on 30 Nov 2008 "How much of our money are they paying you to spam the messageboard with Labour lies, Derek Draper?" power_2_the_ppl

Oh please, of all the commenters on this board you are by far the most transparently a right wing hack. "Jackboot Jaqui";"Mandelsnake"; "NuLabour"... Gee, I wonder who you work for?

The biggest clue of course is that most normal people, those who live outside that little westminster clique, know that attacking the Tory party is not the same thing as defending the Labour party.

Of course the real irony is that if the Tories can't form an effective opposition when the government, with the current PM as the main protaganist for a decade, has just crashed and burned the economy, they have absolutely no hope of every being taken seriously.

Boris for President!

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