Best Of

I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.

The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.

This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.

Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades

Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous

Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.

My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.

Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.

Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.

Labour

Warwick All Saints and Woodloes (Warwick) council by-election result:

GRN: 34.9% (+22.1)
REF: 21.8% (+21.8)
LAB: 19.4% (-24.7)
CON: 18.6% (-15.7)
LDEM: 5.3% (-3.5)

+/- 2023

Great result for my party

Who are the Putinists?

You

Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.

And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.

Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.

When would you have stopped the pointless killing of WW2? Just curious. Before or after the Red Army reached Berlin?

At the point Hitlers Nazis surrendered. One of only 2 wars I would have supported.

Unlike yourself and most PBers who supported Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and wants bloodshed at every conceivable opportunity.

Wars are generally totally pointless and cost a fortune when we claim to have no money and should be avoided in almost all circumstances.

Ukraine are literally fighting against an invading army. It is as close to a “just war” as you can find, you absolute imbecile.

I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.

The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.

This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.

Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades

Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous

Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.

My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.

Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.

.

Fuck you and your concern, Susan Collins.
You voted for this shit.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5144026-trump-ukraine-peace-talks/
...Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who occasionally bucks Trump’s positions and is strongly aligned with Kyiv, said she is concerned about Ukraine’s fate.
“This was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion. I appreciate that the president is trying to achieve peace, but we have to make sure that Ukraine does not get the short end of a deal,” she said. ..

It's rather unedifying logging on and seeing lots of pb regulars dropping the f-bomb on anyone associated with Trump.

Are we going to have a full 4 years of this?

Fuck yeah!

It's going to get rather boring.

It also doesn't convince a single person.

No one has ever been persuaded of anything by posts on PB. Some might have changed their minds by the force of events and circumstance, or gone a bit quiet about uncomfortable stuff, eg pre SMO Putin is the defender of western values.

I don't think that's true.

We just do it very slowly and, due to pride, rarely admit it when we have.

PB posts can certainly change minds.

I used to think most people were reasonable, rational and open to persuasive argument!