Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah, i've just done this (as close as I can remember). Now i'm depressed

Overlapping the House Price thread - the vast majority of a monthly mortgage payment is weighted as interest on a repayment mortgage. It means that only 10-20% of the actual payment is money that decreases the net balance and therefore the net interest the month afterwards.

Overpaying even by tiny amounts realises immense savings over the term of the loan, but many don't think to do that. If you can live in fairly money-strict pain for a couple of years to overpay as much as possible, you seriously alleviate the financial burden of the future. Mortgages are a long game, but people often only think of the month ahead.

I agree entirely, but of course this is bank interest, not taxation. Many mortgages severely restrict overpayments (especially capped interest rate ones), though, and besides, most people these days don't have much spare cash precisely because they're being taxed to the hilt.

It'd be great if mortgage overpayments attracted tax relief or incentive so as to encourage defacto saving and reducing private debt levels in this country, not to mention personal productivity to help pay for it, but that would be far too much a common sense policy ever to be implemented.

Aye, it's actually the reverse. Capital gains tax disincentives paying down your mortgage, if you ever plan on selling the property.

Yep, yet another example of idiotic politics/policies being entirely counter-productive to the common good. Man, you could list these forever.

Capital gains vs. not having to pay interest on the morgage - I wonder how long it'll take before that becomes a net gain? I'd have to make some projections, and probably will

The general T&Cs are definitely stacked against you. Usually you can overpay 10% of the remaining balance per year, so the smaller it gets, the less you can overpay without penalty. I'd need yet more spreadsheets to calculate if the overpayment charge vs. interest saved on exceeding the overpayment cap on a given mortgage was a net gain over a long enough time. It may also be better, as the balance gets smaller, to hold your cash in account and redeem the remaining balance as a lump sum, but it would need to be carefully timed to be the best option.

Hmmm.

I'm sure there will be a tipping point where it makes sense to pay into the mortgage against the capital gains tax, and that probably comes up pretty quick.
However its hardly an incentive for people to pay down. There is mitigation in that as long as you have lived in the property then it becomes exempt, but for people in my situation as a reluctant landlord (and going by this forum that's actually a reasonably common situation at the moment due to the housing market of the past few years!) it's another kick in the nuts.

Only on somewhere you don't live, surely?

Aye, see my last post.

There is an assumption by the government that anyone who is paying a mortgage on more than one property is a grossly rich devil and is to blame for the state of the housing market, so they need punishing wherever possible Whereas the reality is, that disincentives like that are more punishing to the average man in the street rather than anyone else.

Though, of course, that is completely true, and they should all be shot at the very least.

I've been overpaying on mortgage since I've had it. For every year I pay it, I come two years closer to paying it off completely so I'm technically paying double what I need to. It was hard at first but it makes sense to me as in 8 years time, it'll be paid off completely (all being well)

Wow, that's some good going there man.

Please explain using numbers. And laws.

In other news, my annual credit card summary arrived yesterday. Amount charged to card in the past 12 months - £48,000. I nearly framed it.

Good going - hope it's an Amex Nectar card.
Mine is, and it gets me £1000 in Nectar rewards every year, for absolutely nowt. Christmas food and booze-tastic.

Yep, deffo the way to go, no sense in giving banks any more money than you have to.
My mortgage was paid in 10 years but it's a current account type and, since it has no fees and only charges (low) interest against any debit balance, I keep it open as it's effectively a very low interest, fee-free £500k pre-arranged overdraft facility.

Tesco. So c£750 in clubcard vouchers which are/will be worth over £2k.

Hahaha, that's immensely cunning. Clearly I should be trying to flog you some products and/or services.

That's a load of pizza/Alton Towers tickets!

I think we could eat at zizzi for free every weekend between now and christmas.

My college, who's scottish, sounds scottish, says words in stupid scottish ways etc, says he can't vote, as he lives in the UK.

Surely the same is true for Rev Moneybags Campbell? (Or has this point been done to death in this thread already?)

Correct, he can't vote in this referendum (and is a man-child).

Just realised I probably won't be able to catch Monday's debate, unless I can convince some pub landloard in the middle of nowhere to put it on the telly.

Or you have a wifi connection and an internet connected device.

It's an option, but I'm wanting to keep my phone and other devices switched off whilst I'm away. I'll probably fail (I usually do).

If you're going to impose your own restrictions that stop you solving a problem you've got then I don't know what to tell you.

I think I probably will watch it on Monday, but it'll also make me angry and pissed off again when that gimpy twat rolls out the same old propaganda for voting Yes, and the same old tiresome insults will be traded. Both sides will claim victory, both will find a resulting poll that puts them ahead. So the fucking tedium will continue.

We'll also get glimpses of the small-minded greedy twats of the public that think voting Yes is a quick ticket to easy wealth, while using the opportunity to carp about the imagined transgressions of the incumbent government.

For me this debate has revealed how many people of this grasping, selfish mentality exist in the world - it's about 35%. Win or lose, I'll forever be mindful that these twats are still out there.

In fairness, I think we're all better off pretending that Gordon Brown was never PM.

It does irritate me that the arguments for independence I've heard sound more like an election manifesto than a case for splitting. Vote YES for more welfare, a better NHS, a more equal society, keep the evil Tories out etc etc. Why not use your existing powers and grants to relieve poverty in Scotland?

Much has been said of the Scottish NHS recently. It's completely devolved already, but YesNP have been saying it's under threat from public spending cuts from Westminster.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... laims.html

The constitution has always been a major area of interest to me (hence this thread!). When I was a student I only met one academic who actually understood the Barnett Formula - it's very much our version of the Schleswig-Holstein question.

To be fair if you believe a single thing that Cameron says about the NHS then you're a fucking idiot.

I don't have much of an opinion about Scottish Indepedence however it strikes me that most of those who do seem to have 100% certainty that *every single reason* that anyone proposes for voting other than the way they intend to is 100% wrong and vice versa. Which tells me that they are very biased and probably not worth listening to.

Yeah, that's the level of reductive debate I expect from Nationalists, and is the main reason that I think they're all fucking idiots.

I think that the burden of proof lies on the 'Yes' side. Unfortunately, I don't feel they've ever produced a reasonable answer to all the key questions involved with a split (currency, economy, foreign relations, welfare), but that each response just begs more questions. I'd be happier if the response was: 'we honestly don't know if we can do this but we'll try anyway'. It seems that the 'yes' campaign are promising a New Jersualem and many will be disappointed.

But, for me, the main question I have yet to hear an answer to, other than why now, is 'what cannot Scotland do within the Union that it could do outside of it?'

The other thing that occurred to me the other day is that in the unlikely event of a Yes vote, I'm not really at risk. Industrious and hardworking folk (which, with staggering arrogance, I consider myself to be) who don't expect a living from anyone else can weather most economic storms, because they don't immediately flounce at the first sign of difficulty and then whine for external support.

So in the event we do go Independent and it all goes tits up, I can remind myself that those who will suffer the first, longest, and hardest, are all the same lazy, greedy fucks that voted Yes in the first place.

Harsh, but I suspect you're right.
There does seem to be a disproportionately high quotient of dole-ites (past and present) who are also grievance merchant ultra-yessers and cybernats?

Thing is, though, ordinary hardworking folk in Scotland are becoming just as pissed off at these people as the rest of the UK. Only the other day I read that the proportion of Scots who think benefit payments are too high has risen from 25% to over 50%, so although the Tory Party itself is still regarded as toxic, actually there is a big swing to the Right in terms of the electorate. Long may that continue and not before bloody time.

We should also remember that Scotland very recently elected a UKIP MEP as well, something I regarded as unthinkable.

That was exactly what I was getting at. But also the most vehement 'No' proponents seem equally certain of everything. I find it hard to imagine that things would be that much different if Scotland were independent but I'm just as unconvinced that it would end up as some sort of failed state.

Maybe they think that as pay is too low

In the event of a Yes vote, how would citizenship be dished out?

Would it be offered to current residents or people who were born there, or both? Would Kindly Old Uncle Stu have to move home or risk becoming an English?

Any clue if the Scottish electorate are better informed than those in England or are the figures for what % of tax is spent on welfare vs the percentage % people think is just as massively out of whack with each other there? Given that most of their press are owned by much the same right wing nutbars ours are I'm guessing the answer is no.

I think their proposed interim constitution automatically grants it to anyone ordinarily resident in Scotland at the time of the divorce, and to anyone born in Scotland but living elsewhere.

I'm not sure of exactly how the question/poll was framed, but I think it was purely talking about benefit payment levels per se, not the % proportion of GDP, tax take or whatever.

It's worth mentioning though, I think, not least because in recent decades, Scotland has been an unthinking, default Labour-voting black hole with any old lefty nonsense being considered "good" by absolute default, as part of some long drawn out, convulsive reaction to Thatcher and what happened in the 80s. In the end, though, people move on I guess.

My mantra for life



Typically support is higher in deprived areas, although there are also otherwise well-educated and comfortably employed people who are also voting yes for different reasons.

I repeat that I would be up for supporting a Yes vote if the argument had any substance behind it, but it doesn't. For reasons that I think are not unlinked to a misplaced sense of patriotism ("True Scots vote Yes"), they merely think the proposition *is* viable. Quite a lot of people who I'd never suspect it of are actually extremely embittered towards England (and merely pass this off as unhappiness at 'Westminster') and that chip-on-shoulder is really coming to the fore here.

Dual citizenship would be presumed. If the choice came down to be 'Scottish or British, not both', then I'll be proudly keeping hold of my British passport, thanks.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Yeah, thanks for your input.

Or, and I'm just throwing out this crazy notion here, it's done because people have largely supported Labour party policies (in comparison to other party policies at the time anyway). Seriously, have you got any foundation for branding an entire country as grudge voters? Is it that hard to believe that people might not make the same choices you do because they just think you're wrong and not because of some ulterior agenda? I'm honestly stunned at the level of patronising nonsense in that quote there man.

I honestly think that - as a very broadbrush principle (as these things have to be, by definition) - that yes, Scotland voted Labour by absolute default. I really don't see how anyone could dispute this, given its voting record of the last 30 years?

Sorry, I don't mean to appear patronising or offensive but this is my honestly held opinion. But it's changing now though, most certainly (albeit slowly). The uselessness of such policies has been empirically demonstrated time and again, and no-one is impervious to these things forever.

You've written off a whole country's primary democratic action over decades as not being an informed and honest choice of any kind while managing to impugn an entire side of the political spectrum. What part of it did you think wouldn't be offensive and patronising? Your chat about 'default' voting does the same thing.

You're bigging this up. People can vote how they like, for whatever reason(s), however spurious, and it's none of my business. That's democracy for you. I'm not suggesting that this is 'dishonest' nor am I impugning anyone.

Plenty of people, families, entire communities and complete cities vote along 'traditional' (i.e. default) lines both north and south of the border; you've heard of the expression "safe seat", yeah? That's how these things often seem to work; it's hardly some amazing revelation.

That's a non-response to a question that was never asked. I'm questioning the content of your statement, not your right to make it. Why did you even post this?



You came right out and said that an entire country voted a certain way due to something other than genuine belief in what they were voting for; you don't think that looks like an accusation of dishonesty in any way?

And I didn't accuse you of impugning any 'one' but of impugning a side of the political spectrum, which you very much did with:



That's totally your right but can we stop pretending you never said it? Or, to take a more charitable reading of the situation, could you perhaps read my posts properly before responding?

Anyway, all the above aside I'll attempt a 'broad stroke' response if I may: whether you meant it, or like it, or not your post that I objected to hand-waved away an entire country's political beliefs and actions over years as 'just some weird grudge that they'll eventually get over'. I had sort of hoped you'd just be able to acknowledge it and that would be the end of it, but all you're doing is digging in harder and adding insult to insult; as if that either explained it or made it better. It's disappointing is all.

I think my implications are more offensive than anything Cavey said, mostly because I take an extraordinarily dim view of anyone of the Yes position that I've been told many times is patronising.

Perhaps that's true. Except I am open to the probability that a lot of perfectly nice, sensible, intelligent people vote Yes because they believe things can be better. That's great, and I can have a chat with them about it, but I still think they're wrong.

The people I can't chat to are those most unpleasant examples of Nationalism. A person so riddled with confirmation bias that the evidence has ceased to matter. Arguments from authority sway them utterly, contradictory evidence is discarded using whatever pretext is convenient. Opposing views are given a disproportional amount of regard, and faith in their veracity is absolute. Angry, shouty aggression against anyone who threatens that view, whether that opposition is polite and reasonable, or just as shouty and aggressive.

Those people, who to me are the most visible, are complete fucking idiots unworthy of my time or respect. They form the mainstay of the cash-throwing zealots, waiting for their mobilisation orders from the king of offensive cybernats.

Do I discard them utterly as people? Yes. Do I condescend to them as if they are simpletons? Absolutely.

I also consider myself rather above their level of blind faith, in that I am not remotely swayed by the opposing arguments made by Better Together, or misleading examples of media that are clearly scaremongery. I'm not knocking on doors or giving money to people who spout the kind of fanaticism I identify with. I merely consider the arguments made by Yes to be staggeringly unconvincing, that don't hold up to scrutiny, and at best represent a gamble on whether things could be just about as good as they are already, with an even thinner outside chance that they could be better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Independence is the conclusion the Nationalists have decided they want, and have since scrabbled around for the tenuous evidence to support it. This is an affront to a basic scientific method of obtaining, analysing, confirming and reviewing the evidence to *then* come up with a conclusion. The movement is led by pure ideology, and I'll have no part of it.