Philip

Buzzjack version of wife swap :P. Congrats Rooney and im glad Andre is staying on as a mod :D

Alan Sugars words are about as unpolitical as you can get, government wants to stick up for SME not have the business "tzar" saying most of them are just whining and should be wound up! In a recession everyone looks for a scapegoat and as investment banking is so far removed from many businesses people just blame all invesmtent banks and bankers which is completely wrong. Bonuses are paid to people who make money, a bit like commision. Their global banking and markets division made (profit) £1.1 billion in Q2 this year and £375 million in Q3 (markets where less volatile in Q3 so most banks earned less), thats a lot of money. If you have star people earning huge amounts of cash for your business you HAVE to compensate as a shareholder (government) or as the CEO. If you dont they leave and guess what, next quarter you dont make the money anymore... RBS have another issue as well, noone really wants to work for a goverment owned institution as they can see red tape being introduced in the droves. So RBS have to pay a big premium when they hire anyone to bridge the gap. You might see figures where head count has been slashed but wage bills are still huge... So to your point they have to pay bonuses but there should be a law introduced so every bank needs to spread them over a number of years and they can be clawed back if the bank underperforms during that period. Read a bit about Fred Goodwin and you will learn a bit more about why RBS got itself in so much mess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Goodwin

but as I said the banks are not blameless but there is a bigger picture in all this. In a free market noone forces anyone to take up any product or service and it is up to the consumer to make a decision, look at the catalogue companies who ruin many a life. Having said that a LOT of people where sacked in investment banking, huge droves at the turn of this year so they got hit extremely badly. Bonuses where slashed and pretty much everyone I spoke to had a pay freeze this year. Now it really is only a select few who caused this by packaging up synthetic CDS and reselling to other people (who then took a hit as it devalued). For example I work nowhere near this area but although I wasnt sacked people around me where, they did nothing to cause this but worked under the "investment bank" umbrella. The goverment needs to force banks to lend to businesses at a competitive rate but this is an issue as the banks are hording cash in case more of their portfolio needs propping up if the market drops further. Alan Sugar had an interesting point saying that only a small % of the businesses really need the cash, the others are not fit for purpose and should go into liquidation.

yeah, maybe I will make it more intuitive. But if all AF mods can add their images that will make their respective forums stand out in the two listings.

added this back :)

For some time now it has become difficult to show new users all our AF forums while offering flexibility for members to show only their chosen AF's. The system has now been redesigned so that members see more details for each of their chosen AF's while the guest interface remains unchanged. This will allow at a quick glance the chance to see any new posts and topics. I have also incorporated the artist image on the forum page, if the artist page is missing please contact your AF mod to add it in their control panel!

For someone who works in investment banking and my day to day work is with the traders it is a difficult call. This needs a global approach on banks, no one country (especially London or New York) are going to sacrifice their position and start to majorly tax the profits further or try to disadvantage these institutions because they will just move abroad. Long term bonus payments make sense, a higher tier 1 capital ratio also make sense as the more you have as a buffer the better. Also there where big issues around CDS (Credit Default Swaps) which where bought to insure against the collapse of an institution. There is going to be a central clearing house for these by year end... Gearing ratios should also be reduced (ratio between the assets you have on your book and the liabilities you have with the street). But a lot of banks are just doing their job. My last bank was the most successful in the credit crunch and my current bank has also done exceptionally well so we are talking about a select few. Also there are a number of other reasons we are in this mess; there has been a huge rise in reliance on debt by consumers who have also relied on their house through remortgages as a steady income! With the recession rates have increased on credit cards and house prices have reduced leading to a double squeeze on people. A footballer is in fact a very good example of how society thinks in todays age, why do they command such very high wages even when the profits of a club do not justify it? I have seen companies go into administration but still people stick up for their footballers regardless of their wage. They stick up for them regardless of their criminal record or their recent run ins with law enforcement... Many people have no idea how banks caused the credit crunch so they blame all banks and also do not take into account when they perhaps overstretched themselves on their mortgage of credit card payments. There is a reason to have a focussed debate about some banks but its not as clear cut as many people make out.

should be fixed, can you both let me know?

its a ff problem for sure - when did this start for you?

did this just start tonight?

strange, let me know on the below: What thread are you seeing this in What browser are you using How do you go to the next page - by clicking the page number or with the page popup box near the page numbers Thanks

what happens when you go to Display modes (right top of a topic) and click the Standard view?

thanks Ricky, all :D

fixed. Took a very long time to find out what this was!

does anyone know for how long this has been happening?

members where never able to mass PM.

reading up on this it seems that humans actually sign up and then hand over to the bot. It is still controlled by a human however as they sent ~ 750 PM's in July and stopped and then restarted yesterday.

yes strange how it "picks" who to send the PM to. Most are in chronological order but there are some omissions. For example first 50 where sent to: 5 7 8 10 21 22 23 25 26 28 29 31 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

all back now, apologies for the downtime. Read below for more info: http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=101270

It has come to our attention that the PM facility on BuzzJack has recently been used by a spammer using an automated script. We endeavour to protect users from spam in the same way as we secure users data when they register on BuzzJack. The automated script mimicked a user so essentially was processing legitimate actions hence why it was able to pass our security system. Actions Taken: Over 1500 PM messages deleted from todays spamA further 750 messages deleted from a similar spam event on the 25th JulyThe 2 accounts used by the user have been deleted.1 Minute PM time added between sending PM'sAgain I apologise for those who received the messages. We have now implemented a system which will not allow a user to send more than 1 PM a minute. This should not restrict PM activity but will restrict spammers ability to mass PM users. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Phil

sounds like a browser, cookie problem. Are you having issues on other sites? Please delete your cookies and temp internet files and try again!

yes not warnings, nothing to worry about :D

these are based on the number of posts :D The most you post (higher your post count) the more pips you will see!

lie, I would never lie :P. Reviews section has always been after the artist page update..

thats means - the reviews section is the next in my list to be worked on :P