dale#1
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Posts posted by dale#1
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I saw that. They were in pro photo studios, all made up in wedding dresses (?) and tons of make up and hair-dos. Then the bloke came in for a "three shot" photo. Came across as a bit strange.
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Excellent! Is there a directional control console?
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Do you take requests cheeseman? How about taking a big globe of Edam cheese on the Adam gondola in Hakuba? That would make a good shot.
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Whats the opposite of do gooders? They're not the solution are they?
It's the ott inflexible jobsworth type do-gooders that could be done without.
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Still looks ok that to me.
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Landslide for McCain.... ooops, for OBAMA!
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Just some tales from the world as it was. How long before it will get back there?
I know someone who is close to doing something silly with the absurd mortgage he has to pay now on the house he 'bought' when things were much brighter for him. Lost his job now, can't find another and having to pay back way more than he can afford. Almost hopeless story it is.
Whats the mortgage situation like in Japan?
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1) The "Together" mortgage
The notorious Together deal from Northern Rock and other deals like it, which allowed homeowners to borrow up to 125 per cent of the value of their home, have at times been blamed for the entire negative equity epidemic facing British homeowners.
The deals were a combination of a secured mortgage worth 95 per cent of the property's value and a unsecured personal loan for the final 30 per cent. The loan was at the same cheap rate as the mortgage.
Mortgage experts argue that at the end of the 1990s, 125 per cent deals made sense in certain cases. The value of homes doubled in value in the space of a decade and a 125 per cent deal quickly represented only 60 or ever 50 per cent of the property's sale price. However, thousands of homeowners have been caught out. Those who took out these loans at the peak of the housing boom, between 2004 and 2007, now have mortgages which greatly excesd the value of their homes and no other bank, including Northern Rock, will lend to them.
Northern Rock certainly wasn't the only lender who offered 125 per cent deals. Another big provider of the loans was Bradford & Bingely. In the last year both lenders have been nationalised, and 125 per cent deals have disappeared.
2) Eight to ten times your salary
In the midst of the credit boom lenders were happy to lend 8 or 10 times salary. And in some cases, this could include expected bonuses.
Morgan Stanely, the investment bank bought to its knees by toxic sub-prime mortgage-backed securities, was offering 8-times-salary deals though its Advantage brand in the UK. Meanwhile, GE Home Lending, owned by General Electric, the monolithic US enterprise, offered 10 times salary through its First National brand.
3) Foreign currency mortgages
Last year nearly 90 per cent of new loans in Hungary were in a foreign currency, mostly Euros or Swiss Francs. The exchange rate meant that these loans were much cheaper than mortgages in forints, the Hungarian currency.
However, the problem with foreign currency loans is that as your home currency declines relative to the foreign currency, the cost of making your loan payments rises considerably.
The bad news for Hungarian homeowners has been that as the economic crisis ripples across the continent, currencies have been fluctuating wildly. The Euro has soared against the Hungarian forint, reaching a peak of 286 forints last week compared to a low of 229 last July, adding vast sums to the cost of mortgage and loan repayments for ordinary Hungarians who were not warned of the hidden risks behind their low cost loans.
4) Libor mortgages
Borrowers with less than perfect credit histories, known as sub-prime, have always faced prohibitively high interest rates because lenders insist on pricing in the risk that they slip into arrears.
In recent years a number of lenders specialising in sub-prime have bumped borrowers who have come to the end of their fixed rate deals onto a variable rate that is tagged to three-month libor, an interbank money market rate which has soared in recent months as the financial crisis knocked the confidence of institutions in the City.
As Aaron Strutt, of Chase de Vere Mortgage Management, a broker, explains: "Thousands of borrowers who have been coming to the end of their mortgage deals are unwittingly reverting to a margin above libor, which could be as much as 10 per cent".
Libor has been falling in recent weeks, much to the relief of these homeowners, but it is still over a 1.3 percentage points higher than the base rate.
5) The Rover 200 mortgage
A good mortgage deal will sell itself, as lenders have found to their dismay in recent months as a pole position in the best-buy tables results in a deluge of enquires.
But a bad deal? Well, a bad deal requires something more. In the case of West Bromwich Building Society it required a free Rover 200. The deal was partly inspired by geographical logistics, as the ill-fated Longbridge plant which made the car was sited near West Brom's head office.
However, the 200 was more of a curse than a blessing for over-excited homeowners. The model was dogged by problems with reliability from the start. To matters worse, there was scarcely a profit to be made from flogging it, as heavy depreciation and a glut of cars on the second hand market made it difficult to sell on.
And the mortgage itself? Homeowners would have been better off opting for a best-buy mortgage with the most competitive rate and buying a new, more reliable car with the savings.
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Definitely. I hate seeing things like that.
There was another eating contest on the tv over the weekend. You know the kind where they eat 20 bowls of ramen in 10 minutes, then 40 ebi-fry the next etc. "O-jouzu desu ne" came the admiring calls from the sidelines.. wtf?
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Voting day.
And Obamas granny died just before. Life can be cruel.
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I hope I grow old gracefully.
Some people seem to actually like making a spectacle of themselves.
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How did you get that?
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About this RAID thing, it seems we get a choice of none, RAID0 or RAID1 now with online customisation thingies. Which would you (the ones in the know) choose?
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Great dance Jimmy boy
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Whats the reasoning behind that? (Well, surely something to do with wads of cash, but....) It's ridiculous.
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\where does the cake appear?
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Was on holiday and able to have a day out skiing - took it. That was it.
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Thanks for sharing that mate.
Good overhead photos
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Best season for powder is surely January.
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Quote:That's what the skins are made from.
Really?
The less I know about sausages the better it seems.
As long as they are nice and crispy -
I always say no to that receipt thing, it annoys the hell out of me.
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I buy a new one when I need one. I've had this one for over 2 years now and I hope at least 2 more.
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Not had a problem with any of the updates myself, I have them on manual but check every few weeks or so
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The places I have been to here I have paid on checkout with nothing paid up front. Is that just here, trusting too much perhaps?
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If you don't mind me asking, how many people enter these giveaways?
Haggis is English
in General off-topic discussions
Posted
Without a doubt!
I am intrigued by it though - would like to try that and a proper black pudding too.