airwave

http://www.sixsixone.com/information_sizing.aspx google is your friend, now, the unicycle? :-)

And the Unicycle ? :-) The 661 pads, sizing, online they are s/m/l what size does a 5'10" 190lb gent need to get? (entirely average dimensions)

as to the puzzlement, assuming it's a two stroke bike (never heard of a 4st doing it) the only thing reversed is the rotation of the engine. if you think through what the engine is doing, it makes very little difference to crankshaft which way it rotates and no difference to the piston (as it doesn't actuallt rotate at all) the ignition timing will be off but everything else, reeds, carb, "Reek spoot" will all be functioning normally.

uncommon but not unheard of for a two stroke to run backwards. the ignition timing will be off, but with a healthy plug, it won't make that much difference, Never heard of it doing any damage either.

Nigel, I'm trying, really. If you actually _read_ what I posted, and / or do a bit of your own research, you'll find that people are willing to pay, about, 20% tax. globally, any creed, colour, religions, caste, or football team followed, 20% is it. You also find, if you , *cof* actually _read_ what I posted up, that the data comes right up to Reagans time (mid 80's) If you look at the way the UK taxes corporations and companies, they roughly aim at taking 20% of profit, which is generally agreed as fair (well, paid if not actually fair) If you see the way the gubmint is attempting t rip the bahookey clean out of emplyees, you _should_ come to the conclusion that this is "just not right" and know, it's not going to work. When gubmints expect the great unwashed to pay more than this nominal 20% figure, things give. people just won't do it. now I accept that there are many many people on PAYE who have no say in the matter, but, there are equally, many many more who do, and just _won't_ (as you so succinctly pointed out) The issue is not what should gubmints get the people to pay for, it is more what can the gubmint do with 20% of GDP as history has proven, that is all they are going to get. The "Survey" you poo poo was of the HSBC "premier" account holders, you need a minimum of USD $100k in funds to get that account. if you gear that number, and that minimum deposit, those 31,000 people could fund Greece. If they did, we wouldn't have the current keffufle (which, I fear, is about to get spectacularly worse) However, they have more sense and won't.

American historical info on tax rates versus tax revenue.

Maggie dropped the tax rate and increased the tax take. Have you seen how many british expats live in asia now ? Think you'll find it's a significant number and the UK is loosing a significant amount of money that way.

Think you answered that one perfectly yourself TFT. The infrastructure that was left in India was, for it's time, excellent. Indians now talk about an infrastructure deficit, wryly. As to buying a digger now, go fer it! As the Addict points out, pretty clearly, what you pay for it now will be a fraction of what it will cost in 10 years. Merv is devaluing the pound. That, simply put, means we are becoming poorer, day by day, relative to the rest of the world. From inside the UK, it's hard to see that as it looks like everything is becoming more expensive. *sigh* reading the Gruinad ruins your eyesight. My company makes more than 85% of it's income outside the UK, pays UK based employees (on UK passports) and pays UK taxes, I _seriously_ doubt that I'm part of the problem. You don't have to be "super rich" to pay 62% tax, you just have to be on a decent day rate and daft enough to live in the UK and declare your earnings. which, oddly, very few people making a "decent day rate" do. Phillip Green runs a business and has a responsibility to his _Shareholders_ the people who actually _own_ the company. If he was stupid enough to pay the ridiculous taxes attempted to be levied by the UK gubmint, I would expect his shareholders to have his head on a stick. If the UK dropped headline taxes to reasonable levels, then an awful lot of people would come back into the tax system. There are hundreds of thousands of people gleefully dodging UK taxes (legally, sort of) in the modern world, you can't _make_ people pay taxes if they don't want to, they just move. If you tax at a reasonable level, and provide something in return for it, people will pay taxes. Currently headline taxes are "too high" and people are declining to pay them. When I say "Declining" to pay taxes, I really do mean that. If you have to write out a cheque (which I used to do, it's all handled online now) twice a year to pay corporation taxes, you would want to strangle any / all / every politician and demand an explanation of exactly what they are up to with yer money . . . which as you are writing out the cheque, you are acutely aware of . . _your_ money that you are giving to the country. One of the issues the UK faces is it is engaged in actively driving wealth (Put Job in there instead if it makes you feel better)creators out of the country. The combination of ludicrously high taxes and both direct and indirect taxation being out of control. Business regulation is beyond silly now, that is driving companies to countries where you can actually get things done, reasonably quickly, for a fraction of what they would cost here and be carried out by a technically competent and cheery staff. You make it difficult for people to both start and run businesses and once they get through the hoops and actually start the buisiness, you tax the living bejesus out of them, assuming they get through that; you foist another set of regulations on them as the company grows . . it's nuts. Politicians are another issue we have, Being from the nicer end of the UK (The North, obviously) :-) we get saddled with: An MEP for Brussels an MP for London an MSP for hollyrood a regional councillor for the Shire a local concillor for the district. exactly, why, do I need 5 effing politicians to continually generate _more_ hoops for me to jump through in my day to day life? but the main thing bringing the UK down . . ? Bin collection. I'm currently in Muscat in Oman, bins get collected at night. Every night. it's done quietly, quickly and for free ! Houses do not have armies of multicoloured bins outside them with rubbish festering inside them for weeks in between collections. There are no (paid for out of our taxes) "Bin police" instructing that the wrong items have been put in the wrong bins. I don't have to druve to the dump on a weekly basis to get rid of the rubbish piling up in my garage in Muscat. I was in Doha a while back (Qatar) nightly bin collection there too, also done quietly. Where the bin men are telling us what we can and can't do . . the plot has been lost.

and it's not a new problem.

erm, no. I shudder to disagree with someone so obviously leaning left for fear of being shot down for non PC values. But India and China can not, in any way, shape or form, be compared. India will never be another China, it . . .might, be another "Africa" but not a China. Sorry. China being a good communist country, has VIP expressways which soar above the "freeways, which in turn soar above the 'great unwashed" I've been to and worked in both. chalk - cheese, are more similar. Indians, when you get them drunk enough, blame the UK for the state of their country. Chinese, don't even know where the UK is (bit like 'mercans) Left wing ideology is what has planked europe in the mess it is in. A belief that we are "entitled" or "deserve" or it is our "right" to have (insert item you can't actually pay for here) has led to the entire continent grossly over spending it's means. Should you decide that the UK with it's con/lib gov is not socialist / communist, I urge you to note the upper taxation level of 62% where the country gets more from your efforts than you do. erm, communism by definition (although, only saddled on the"rich") yes, I mutter this as the MD of a small company. I am appalled at the taxation levied in the UK and, I've been to and worked in more countries than is either sensible or reasonable, and as such, I have a _pretty_ good idea of where the UK sits in the "real" world. oddly enough, in the middle. not better, not worse, than most places.

I'll stick with that bit, there are a significant number who have a choice, and still go cheap. Therein lies the problem. I play with toy airyplanes and that demonstrates clearly why we are our own worst enemy; People in clubs moan about there being no local hobbyshop dealing with toy airyplane bits n bobs. There _used_ to be a local shop, but, the internet came along and people could save 50p off a widget by buying it mail order rather than going to the shop and bying it. Net result? shop went out of business. People maon about the prices of things and moan that there are no local shops, there is a connection. and you do (usually) have a choice. The gap between rich and poor has nothing to do with the general economy or the european situation. levelling incomes leads to everyone being poor. I've lived in two properly communist countries, they are a disaster. levelling reward leads to levelling of effort; and it always levells downward. no-one tries harder for less money. Moscow, back when it was a communist entity had priority traffic lanes for the rich and for politicians. London, now has priority lanes for public transport.

Things are just balancing out. The UK really doesn't make very much any more, our workforce is pretty average, on a world scale. The days of us leading the world at anything are over. Merv is furiously devaluing the pound to make what we do produce competitive in the rest of the world. It's a bit rich claiming that the Chinese make low quality product and all they are good for is cheap . . Remember British Leyland ? and the flip side of the coin is that plants like Foxconn (who make iPhones amongs the long long list of super hi tech, high quality product they produce) are . . . Chinese. and are waay waaaay waaaaaaay better than we are used to seeing. People who won't pay for European product are the root cause of this re-balancing. If all people will pay for is "Cheap" all the money goes to where the cheap product comes from. Remember back in Maggies day when she went all out to break the unions to get the UK to be competitive? and it didn't really work, as we have seen recently, there is still a significant union impact on the country. Well, the "Lying one eyed scottish git" did Maggies work for her. He gave Merv the ability to cut everyones wages without asking them, which is exactly what he is doing right now. Every day the pound gets devalued (and it's even sneakier than just watching the value relative to another "First world" currency like the Greenback as it's being devalued too) You have to go look at a proper thriving economy to see how much in real terms Merv has managed to cut yer wages. Our antipodean pal is a great example, how much was the southern hemisphere peso (Ozzie Dollar) worth 3-5 years ago compared to the pound . . . what's it worth now? Slowly, we'll come to accept where we are in the pecking order, but we are not where we once were. Slowly, we'll spend what we can afford and not keep lashing money into things we don't need (like "Diversity officers" for a start) and "Overseas aid" is not a good thing to cut, where do you think countries like Pakistan get the money to buy military equipment from the UK from . . ? We give them money, they buy equipment they neither need, want or are capable of operating . . less a healthy percentage which the government officials keep Obviously not UK government officials, they are far to "upright" for that . . In the short term. There would appear to be a high liklehood of Greece defaulting . . . . . . . (cue sound of disinterest . . . ) except. Greece defaulting means it's not going to pay off some of some of its debt. which means that the banks who lent that money, are going to have lost the money they lent. They lend, . . your money. You will loose money. during the initial default (which is actually, sort of, happening right now) Greece has not as yet technically defaulted as it is discussing the matter with it's bankers (Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Lloyds, PNB, insert _huge list of high street banks here, but leave HSBC off the list as it's been quite clever, apparently?) but Greece is lining up to stiff the banks, quite possibly, your bank. in a spectacular manner. If your bank can take the spanking it is about to get (and we are talking hundreds of Billions of Euros here, truly astronomical amounts of money) If your bank can take the spanking, all is well. If it can't and goes belly up (which there are plans in place for) you will have lost every penny you had in the bank . . . . of your money gone except, "Call me Dave" will guarantee 83,000 of you finest pounds. total. although, to be honest, if more than one or two banks go to the wall, "Call me Dave" won't have enough money to go round . . . . but Merv has thought of this and has the presses running, QE Quantative easing is making it easier for "Call me Dave" to cough up in the event that banks start going to the wall. Remember the panic by the politicians and bankers in 2008 when there was a bit of a run on Northern Rock? That

Excellent ! i'm so so so jealous, I so so so want to paint my garage floor red . . . .at which point I wouldn't let anyone walk on it, never mind do donuts . . :-)