Monday 21 March 2011

Fun Online Polls: Savings strategy and Fukushima

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which is the better investment?

Paying off your mortgage as quickly as possible/saving up cash to buy a house - 73%
Investing in stocks and shares - 27%


Please note that I was not trying to compare the respective merits of buying a house or buying shares as an investment, so I suppose I should have asked "Which is the better way of saving money?.

Nonetheless, I'm relieved that I'm with the majority on this one.
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The whole Fukushima catastrophe is still rumbling on, and we still don't know what the final outcome will be. For inexplicable knee jerk reasons, a lot of countries in non-earthquake threatened areas got the jitters about nuclear power, and nuclear power generally has taken a hiding in political terms over the last week.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "Has the Fukushima catastrophe changed your attitude towards nuclear power?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

20 comments:

Lola said...

'Which is the better way of saving money' transforms the quiz. That's a fundamentally different question and there is no contest - the answer is pay off your mortgage. Which is no the same thing as having no debts.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, I personally don't distinguish between 'saving' and 'investing' or between 'saving' and 'not spending'. It's all much the same thing.

Electro-Kevin said...

I'm more positive about nuclear power than ever.

The Fukushima plant should be a ringing endorsement to everyone.

Hit by a scale 9 earthquake, a 20 foot Tsunami, various explosions and still contained.

It doesn't get worse than that and ours will never be subjected to anything like the stresses...

... short of a nuclear attack by which time it won't matter anyway.

Lola said...

MW - Ha ha. I knew you'd say that! And you are exactly right, they are the alternate sides of the same (bad?) penny. But, if I am asked the direct question by someone not as economically erudite as wot yew is...

Mark Wadsworth said...

EK, I'm anti-nuclear, always have been, but I'm more positive (or less negative?) now, for those very reasons. If this is the worst that can happen...

L, and I knew you'd say that...

formertory said...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's been a large uplift in the numbers of articles about thorium (liquid salt) reactors over the last few days. Interesting reading.

DBC Reed said...

The problem for private sector zealots is that companies are now never going to be able to raise the finance for nuclear power stations.

Lola said...

DBC Reed - 'Never' is a very long time...

Mark Wadsworth said...

FT, that's too tricky for me. That's why I devolved that sort of thing to Neil Craig, planning minister in my Bloggers Cabinet.

DBC, that's what my old mum said thirty years ago "Let the market decide", she said "And no new nuke will be built ever again" (I inherited anti-nuke instincts from her).

L, on planet politics "never" is about a week?

James Higham said...

I personally don't distinguish between 'saving' and 'investing' or between 'saving' and 'not spending'. It's all much the same thing.

That's profound, Mark.

Span Ows said...

Fukushima poll is only going one way...the way you know is right :-)

Span Ows said...

It's all much the same thing.

That's profound, Mark.


profound...in the brown stuff maybe.

Saving because you don't spend is a world away from "saving" because you invest.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, ta.

SO, hang about here: "Saving because you don't spend is a world away from "saving" because you invest."

In either case you have to spend less than you earn, that is the key to this. What you then do with your savings is a separate issue. If you get better investment returns that other people on your 'savings', well good for you, that's a separate issue.

Span Ows said...

True and I realise what you're saying but my point was really with one you have more just because you spend less but with the other you are actively looking to grow that extra, not just have it. Of course if that investing is considered "after" and a separate issue then I agree with you (d'oh!)

;-)

Robin Smith said...

Its a good idea for a poll.

My view is that the disaster once overwhelmed will bring out a heck of a lot of education.

http://gco2e.blogspot.com/2011/03/radiation-dose-get-educated-relax-be.html

That is, if the people want it. Or allow themselves time away from slaving to think about the simple observed facts

Robin Smith said...

PS. This is not by any means whatsoever the worst that can happen.

This is not about natural disaster. It is about human error. Please stop dreaming and blaming nature for it.

The worst that can happen is that even more human error allows meltdowns in the safest places.

This is because humans are very stupid, selfish and ignorant. Go ask any homeownerist or climate change denier.

Robin Smith said...

DBC. The market has never been available to decide about nuke. Monopoly power and politics, mainly in the guise of Big Oil, put paid to that as usual. They have plenty of motive of course and funded the anti nuclear movement indirectly. But that movement doesn't even know it. How ironic.

In my years as a supporter of nuke I found that socialists do not oppose nuclear because it is dangerous or bombs. They do it because they are anti growth primarilly. Its a winner you see. An enormous labour saving device.

Bayard said...

"Go ask any homeownerist or climate change denier"

There are people that don't believe the climate changes? Wow, they are probably flat-earthers with high reptilian awareness into the bargain.

DBC Reed said...

RS Is n't just as possible that proponents of man-made warming have been "funded indirectly" by the nuclear power industry to overstate the amount of CO2 damage
caused by older energy technologies?

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, game set and match to you. See for example EDF/Eden Project.