In todays news...

[mangocrazy]

OK, fair cop. I had forgotten the power of compound interest.

Don’t buy a house until you remember it.

My days of house-buying are over. Three is enough for anyone.

[JackyJoll]

OK, fair cop. I had forgotten the power of compound interest.

Don’t buy a house until you remember it.

My days of house-buying are over. Three is enough for anyone.

Are you living a throuble life of trigamy?

[cheb]

I stopped buying when my next move was to have to sell them all and buy a hotel.

And I'm firmly in the tough titties for you camp. You want to whine about not being able to afford your mortgage payments then paste your accounts on here, I'll bet there'll be a few things that aren't actual necessities. I'm an ex debt collector from the late 1980s who sold his bike because it was either that or not afford the mortgage.

Bluntly, if you haven't the wit to realise that interest rates might increase from an historic low then you're are stupid.

[mangocrazy]

Don’t buy a house until you remember it.

My days of house-buying are over. Three is enough for anyone.

Are you living a throuble life of trigamy?

More likely infamy...


Infamy! Infamy! everyone's got it infamy! (© Kenneth Williams)

[Yambo]

Inflation is sky high,

Lol! You have no idea what sky high inflation is.

Yup - 23% in 1975.

Pretty sure that Potter was probably using a potty back then. Government figures for inflation here in Turkey say it's 39.6% and dropping. I don't think that even the people who spout those numbers believe them. I'm buffered by the exchange rate (all my money is sourced in UK) but I still know it's way higher than 39%. I'm not going to even try and put an actual number on it but probably double that.

[mangocrazy]

Lol! You have no idea what sky high inflation is.

Yup - 23% in 1975.

Pretty sure that Potter was probably using a potty back then. Government figures for inflation here in Turkey say it's 39.6% and dropping. I don't think that even the people who spout those numbers believe them. I'm buffered by the exchange rate (all my money is sourced in UK) but I still know it's way higher than 39%. I'm not going to even try and put an actual number on it but probably double that.

Good grief. That's heading towards Weimar Republic levels. What's driving that?

[Yambo]

Yup - 23% in 1975.

Pretty sure that Potter was probably using a potty back then. Government figures for inflation here in Turkey say it's 39.6% and dropping. I don't think that even the people who spout those numbers believe them. I'm buffered by the exchange rate (all my money is sourced in UK) but I still know it's way higher than 39%. I'm not going to even try and put an actual number on it but probably double that.

Good grief. That's heading towards Weimar Republic levels. What's driving that?

The recently re-elected president does not believe that using interest rates to control inflation is a good thing. He has a guru who tells him this sort of thing. I have no idea what triggered the inflation, I'm no economist and I'd rather build a boat than study economics but there's no denying it's here. One could even say it's sky high.

[Mr. Dazzle]

As that is the only option!

Id like to see some sort of model put in place as to where banks contact their customers to forewarn them about possible hikes in interest rates...

That's the thing though, they do...they asbolutely do!

They warn you when you take out the mortgage. I can obviously only speak for my own bank, but they also warn you when they think big rate changes are coming. I've been getting letters often (not to me personally, generic "all customers" stuff) saying "Rates are rising", "find out how we can help" and so on. I also get the same sort of advice and info every time I log in to the banking app.

I really don't see how anyone can complain they weren't told about this. In one ear and out the other, as my Mum always says.

[The recently re-elected president does not believe that using interest rates to control inflation is a good thing.

I was reading a thing the other day about how something like 80% of UK mortgages are fixed rate now, whereas it used to be like 10-20%. Therefore interest rates don't have the effect they used to, at least not immediately.

Kinda contradicted by recent news articles of course!

[Ant]

I wonder if the monthly repayment figures we're hearing about are those who own maybe only 10% of their property, if that? Plus interest only mortgages?

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

In the early 90s interest rates hit something like 15%, lots of people (including my friend Dave) had their houses repossessed because they couldn't pay the mortgage, it took Dave years to get past this economic issue, at no point did Dave ask for a handout from the Government to help him out, he got on with working and sorted himself out financially, as did lots of other people.

In the mid 90s I had negative equity and outgoings more than my incomings, I had to borrow money to get through this period and spent years paying it off.

And now you want people who went through house repossession and negative equity to pay the mortgages of people who aren't prepared to go through the same shit as we did.

[Ant]

In the early 90s interest rates hit something like 15%, lots of people (including my friend Dave) had their houses repossessed because they couldn't pay the mortgage, it took Dave years to get past this economic issue, at no point did Dave ask for a handout from the Government to help him out, he got on with working and sorted himself out financially, as did lots of other people.

In the mid 90s I had negative equity and outgoings more than my incomings, I had to borrow money to get through this period and spent years paying it off.

And now you want people who went through house repossession and negative equity to pay the mortgages of people who aren't prepared to go through the same shit as we did.

That 15%, what was the amount of money which the mortgage was for?

[Yambo]

In the early 90s interest rates hit something like 15%, lots of people (including my friend Dave) had their houses repossessed because they couldn't pay the mortgage . . .

It's hard to forget that. I was sort of lucky in that my mortgage wasn't huge and I was paying it with my army pension (that I started receiving the day I left) which also wasn't huge but a very useful addition to the income. We had to top up a bit but Mrs Y was working as well as me and we had no real difficulties.

We'd been clearly warned though that rates could go up or down as Dazzle has said and it was not a surprise nor did it lead to me asking for government assistance.

[mangocrazy]

The highest base rates I've known were 17% in 1979, when I was still renting. In 1982 I took the plunge and bought a house with interest rates fluctuating between 10% and 15% for most of the 80s. I ran up considerable debts just to stay afloat during that period and it was only during the early-mid 90s that I was able to pay off my debts and become solvent again. The idea of asking for government assistance was so bizarre it never even occurred to me.

[Yambo]

I may be the only one who thinks they stand a chance then.

I am quite confident that this submersible will have features designed to mitigate most if not all of the disaster scenarios you can think of. I mean YOU dear reader because if you can think of a potential problem in the five minutes you spent thinking about it, I am sure the designer will also have thought of them in the five years it took to build it.

It is tempting to invoke the Darwin Award for people who take such risks to gawp at a shipwreck but they're still people. Pretty good people too by all accounts so I hope they get out of this alive. It is looking grim but there is yet hope.

I liked your post Screwd but a few minutes ago a friend posted on facebook the following:

"I've moved from sad to pissed off about the downed sub. Weighted, spaced cradle with conical tapered release on a pressure pad activated 1 hr timed explosive bolt. Sub would have autoreleased and be on surface by now. Where the fuck was their back up plan? Was this sub honestly operating negative buoyant on a 1 way ticket if there was an electrical failure?
I read this morning that the front viewing porthole was rated to 1,300mtrs,... in a 3,800mtr working depth. How did they get an operating ticket with gear like that? No independent 3rd party inspection maybe? Absolutely a downward route to 'aye, it'll be alright'. Fuck....
Even with Deep energy 3k rated Technip subs and a 10% over on their max WD they're still be 1/2k off bottom and i dont know any side scans that can see that far.. My minds been running like a rat, wish I could see a way to get them."

There's been one reply:

"There a few posts on redit from a few guys who where set to do work on it. One guy did one job and refused to set foot again on it for some of the very reasons you mention. Also it can't be opened from the inside."

Just as a matter of interest, my friend worked with submersibles for a pretty long time in the oil/gas exploration industry and has only recently retired. I guess the reply is from an ex work mate who also knows what he's talking about.

Not much hope left here tbh.

[Taipan]

I may be the only one who thinks they stand a chance then.

I am quite confident that this submersible will have features designed to mitigate most if not all of the disaster scenarios you can think of. I mean YOU dear reader because if you can think of a potential problem in the five minutes you spent thinking about it, I am sure the designer will also have thought of them in the five years it took to build it.

It is tempting to invoke the Darwin Award for people who take such risks to gawp at a shipwreck but they're still people. Pretty good people too by all accounts so I hope they get out of this alive. It is looking grim but there is yet hope.

i was hoping they'd ditched the ballast and floated to the surface. Not sure how they could have got snagged on anything as they don't go that close to the structures for fear of blowing the silt everywhere.

I thought they'd have one of those little beacon transmitters for when they surface as standard equipment as they could easily come up miles from the main ship on any mission? I've not seen this scenario discussed on the news at all though, only the assumption that its sunk and stuck there?

[Taipan]

What certification does the submersible have?
Patrick Hughes

Science reporter

"I understand that this sub is virtually ‘home-made’ and has no certification from any scientific technical regulatory body whatsoever,” Tim Stafell asks. “Is this true?"

Most major marine operators require that chartered vessels are “classed” by an independent group, such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).

Titan, the submersible involved in this case, is not classed according to Oceangate themselves. In a blog post from 2019, the firm claim that it is the innovation behind their vessel which makes it difficult for an external body to certify.

The BBC’s US partner CBS sent one of its reporters on a voyage with the same company last year to see the wreck of the Titanic.

In his report, David Pogue reads from what appears to be a waiver which describes the submersible as an “experimental” vessel, "that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death".

Pogue questioned CEO Stockton Rush about the ‘jerry-rigged nature’ of some of the components. In response, Rush said that the company worked with Nasa and Boeing to ensure the safety of the pressure vessel.

[Taff]

I read a similar article to the one that you’ve posted in, but it was more focused on the certification slowing down innovation and preventing them putting this thing to sea.

I interpret that more like certification is expensive, time consuming, and difficult to achieve if you don’t intend to meet the standards from the start. So let’s not bother with the hard bit, let’s just jump in and do the fun stuff.

This is the kind of thing that I worry about when I read headlines talking about bonfires of regulation. A lot of regulation is there for safety.

[cheb]

I may be the only one who thinks they stand a chance then.

I am quite confident that this submersible will have features designed to mitigate most if not all of the disaster scenarios you can think of. I mean YOU dear reader because if you can think of a potential problem in the five minutes you spent thinking about it, I am sure the designer will also have thought of them in the five years it took to build it.

It is tempting to invoke the Darwin Award for people who take such risks to gawp at a shipwreck but they're still people. Pretty good people too by all accounts so I hope they get out of this alive. It is looking grim but there is yet hope.

i was hoping they'd ditched the ballast and floated to the surface. Not sure how they could have got snagged on anything as they don't go that close to the structures for fear of blowing the silt everywhere.

I thought they'd have one of those little beacon transmitters for when they surface as standard equipment as they could easily come up miles from the main ship on any mission? I've not seen this scenario discussed on the news at all though, only the assumption that its sunk and stuck there?

An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. They work very effectively. There's been numerous incidents where owners have been startled by a rescue helicopter hovering over their shed. Of course it went off by mistake and not because you were fiddling with it.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. They work very effectively. There's been numerous incidents where owners have been startled by a rescue helicopter hovering over their shed. Of course it went off by mistake and not because you were fiddling with it.

Wouldn't work under water

[Greenman]

In the early 90s interest rates hit something like 15%, lots of people (including my friend Dave) had their houses repossessed because they couldn't pay the mortgage, it took Dave years to get past this economic issue, at no point did Dave ask for a handout from the Government to help him out, he got on with working and sorted himself out financially, as did lots of other people.

In the mid 90s I had negative equity and outgoings more than my incomings, I had to borrow money to get through this period and spent years paying it off.

And now you want people who went through house repossession and negative equity to pay the mortgages of people who aren't prepared to go through the same shit as we did.

That's like saying i went though the war and you lot should go through one too.

Isn't life about making things better, rather than just going around in circles?