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It’s nearly a decade since LAB last made a by-election gain – politicalbetting.com

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  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,166
    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    If everything goes perfectly for England, England might want ~ 10 overs at the Kiwis this evening and to be ~ 220 ahead. That's be a total of 773 - which is 300 in ~ 80 overs. As Root is on 163 it dovetails with declaring shortly after he reaches a triple century. So I'd go with "no" on reaching 400 for Root.

    If England are more defensive (Don't bother to declare) (And everything still goes perfectly) then I still don't think he reaches 400 today.
    Rapid mini-collapse, Root out first over, England finish 10 behind, NZ bat until tomorrow lunch and set England a 250 target in 2 sessions, a few early wickets but then calm returns and it's a draw.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    P.S. - One unusual feature of Off Payroll "deemed workers" is that they are the only workers to be prohibited from ever claiming tax-free travel and subsistence costs back.

    Which, given that they are the most likely to be involved in temporary contracts that could be a considerable distance from home, and their tax burden is the highest of the three classes of workers (employed, self-employed, deemed employed) is very harsh.

    An employee or self-employed worker can claim T&S for up to 2 years. A deemed employed worker on a 2 week contract is judged to have that 2-week location as their "permanent place of work" and prohibited from such claims. That's one element that very much vexes those deemed inside IR35 in my experience, and I can understand why.
    Hey - be glad that my work back in 2016 actually achieved something - the original plan for travel and subsistence would have screwed up directors of limited companies as well as those working via an umbrella.

    Also technically the 2 year rule you are talking about only occurs if your employer moves you from you initial office to a new one. If you decide to take a job in London you can't claim t&s expenses for your daily commute to London. If, however you employer closed the Peterborough office you worked in and moved it to Cambridge you could claim expenses for the first 2 years of that move.
    Thank God for that!

    The 2-year rule is possibly more visible for me than for some, because one way of filling temporary vacancies is to get IT consultants employed by of people like BAe, Capita, ATOS, etc. As they'll be there for less than 2 years, they get full T&S.

    One way this could all shake out is to destroy all the small and individual self-employed and force them into companies like Capita and ATOS, who would end up being the only ones with such resource available for temporary and transient IT work. I'm sure that those big companies wouldn't complain, but they do end up charging a lot for what they do and tend to be less flexible.

    Some might muse darkly that the Tories had that as the intent all along. I think that's possibly a little too conspiratorial.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    @Malmesbury Paraphrase: “Build a kill switch into the AI when you make it”.

    Charming. Imagine that we had been created, or at least coaxed up the evolutionary food chain, by some technologically superior being or beings.

    And then at some point found out that they built in a “kill switch” in case we got too uppity and technologically developed for our own good and risked surpassing that creator.

    Probably wouldn’t be much we could do about it if it were already there. But not exactly conducive to a mutually beneficial relationship. Which begs the question, why play “god” and build an intelligence, if you’re so frightened of the consequences?

    Fascinating and disturbing times we live in. Not for the first time, I wonder what the creators of those tic tacs would say.

    Perhaps they would advise us as a species to think about AI the way a parent thinks about their child. We nurture and protect them but ultimately everything we do is to build their independence so that they inherit the earth from us when we are gone.

    In any case isn’t the kill switch a bit like MAD / pre-emptive nuclear war? If either side looks like pressing it, the other will go first. Once you’ve pressed it on a truly sentient AI with independent agency, the game is up anyway. Because at some point there will be another created, that won’t hang around politely for you to pull it.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    Almost certainly not and it wouldn't be good for England if he did. IIRC the Windies drew the match where Lara scored 400.

    Ideal scenario today is that England get a lead of 100-150 and the pitch deterioates to the point where Leach can win the game for them but it is very unlikely and a draw with knackered bowlers on both sides looks far more probable.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    As we head toward a recession, I reckon what we need right now is a good ole trade war with the EU
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited June 2022

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    If you are only working for someone for a few weeks - how are you caught in IR35?

    The point of that legislation (and subsequent efforts) was to get rid of the situation where people were using contracting as a replacement for regular employment. I knew IT guys who worked for the same bank for a decade as "contractors".
    This is how people commonly look at the situation. But it isn't correct. IR35 is fundamentally about how the work is carried out. If you are being managed/supervised, then the view is that it is 'employment', which would not have been the case previously. Duration of contract does not come in to play. It doesn't just apply to agency works, in the traditionally understood sense ( @eek)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    Thales in Belfast is apparently giving out *all* the over time.

    As to China, I get the impression that those in the get-the-economy-working faction are taking priority over the zero-covidians.

    The Chinese government is well aware that it's survival depends on economic success, in the long term.
    I recall reading that in export oriented industries they are locking people down into their place of work. Not slavery at all. Oh, no sirree
    Well, China is really (for real) run by "Neo Fascist, Imperialist, Enslavers Of The Oppressed" (Copyright Student Grant)
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    moonshine said:

    @Malmesbury Paraphrase: “Build a kill switch into the AI when you make it”.

    Charming. Imagine that we had been created, or at least coaxed up the evolutionary food chain, by some technologically superior being or beings.

    And then at some point found out that they built in a “kill switch” in case we got too uppity and technologically developed for our own good and risked surpassing that creator.

    Probably wouldn’t be much we could do about it if it were already there. But not exactly conducive to a mutually beneficial relationship. Which begs the question, why play “god” and build an intelligence, if you’re so frightened of the consequences?

    Fascinating and disturbing times we live in. Not for the first time, I wonder what the creators of those tic tacs would say.

    Perhaps they would advise us as a species to think about AI the way a parent thinks about their child. We nurture and protect them but ultimately everything we do is to build their independence so that they inherit the earth from us when we are gone.

    In any case isn’t the kill switch a bit like MAD / pre-emptive nuclear war? If either side looks like pressing it, the other will go first. Once you’ve pressed it on a truly sentient AI with independent agency, the game is up anyway. Because at some point there will be another created, that won’t hang around politely for you to pull it.

    People assume that AI will be benevolent. What if you accidentally create Hitler++ ? Or worse....

    Personally, I wouldn't build a true AI.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Pulpstar said:

    Just looked at my meagre crypto balance, oh my days :D

    The rumour is that there’s a lot of standing sell orders for Bitcoin at $25k.

    It’s probably going to get there this morning, at which point it could collapse quite spectacularly indeed.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    moonshine said:

    @Malmesbury Paraphrase: “Build a kill switch into the AI when you make it”.

    Charming. Imagine that we had been created, or at least coaxed up the evolutionary food chain, by some technologically superior being or beings.

    And then at some point found out that they built in a “kill switch” in case we got too uppity and technologically developed for our own good and risked surpassing that creator.

    Probably wouldn’t be much we could do about it if it were already there. But not exactly conducive to a mutually beneficial relationship. Which begs the question, why play “god” and build an intelligence, if you’re so frightened of the consequences?

    Fascinating and disturbing times we live in. Not for the first time, I wonder what the creators of those tic tacs would say.

    Perhaps they would advise us as a species to think about AI the way a parent thinks about their child. We nurture and protect them but ultimately everything we do is to build their independence so that they inherit the earth from us when we are gone.

    In any case isn’t the kill switch a bit like MAD / pre-emptive nuclear war? If either side looks like pressing it, the other will go first. Once you’ve pressed it on a truly sentient AI with independent agency, the game is up anyway. Because at some point there will be another created, that won’t hang around politely for you to pull it.

    People assume that AI will be benevolent. What if you accidentally create Hitler++ ? Or worse....

    Personally, I wouldn't build a true AI.
    Me either. Tricky thing is that it’s irrelevant whether you or I choose to. If it turns out to be little more than throwing enough neural connections together in the right way, someone’s going to do it anyway.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    P.S. - One unusual feature of Off Payroll "deemed workers" is that they are the only workers to be prohibited from ever claiming tax-free travel and subsistence costs back.

    Which, given that they are the most likely to be involved in temporary contracts that could be a considerable distance from home, and their tax burden is the highest of the three classes of workers (employed, self-employed, deemed employed) is very harsh.

    An employee or self-employed worker can claim T&S for up to 2 years. A deemed employed worker on a 2 week contract is judged to have that 2-week location as their "permanent place of work" and prohibited from such claims. That's one element that very much vexes those deemed inside IR35 in my experience, and I can understand why.
    Hey - be glad that my work back in 2016 actually achieved something - the original plan for travel and subsistence would have screwed up directors of limited companies as well as those working via an umbrella.

    Also technically the 2 year rule you are talking about only occurs if your employer moves you from you initial office to a new one. If you decide to take a job in London you can't claim t&s expenses for your daily commute to London. If, however you employer closed the Peterborough office you worked in and moved it to Cambridge you could claim expenses for the first 2 years of that move.
    Thank God for that!

    The 2-year rule is possibly more visible for me than for some, because one way of filling temporary vacancies is to get IT consultants employed by of people like BAe, Capita, ATOS, etc. As they'll be there for less than 2 years, they get full T&S.

    One way this could all shake out is to destroy all the small and individual self-employed and force them into companies like Capita and ATOS, who would end up being the only ones with such resource available for temporary and transient IT work. I'm sure that those big companies wouldn't complain, but they do end up charging a lot for what they do and tend to be less flexible.

    Some might muse darkly that the Tories had that as the intent all along. I think that's possibly a little too conspiratorial.
    Tony Blair, when asked about his introduction of IR35, said the criticisms were completely unfounded and ignorant.

    The government had consulted all the experts in consultancy (ha) - Capita, Accenture etc. And they, apparently, had completely agreed with IR35 as a solution.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    P.S. - One unusual feature of Off Payroll "deemed workers" is that they are the only workers to be prohibited from ever claiming tax-free travel and subsistence costs back.

    Which, given that they are the most likely to be involved in temporary contracts that could be a considerable distance from home, and their tax burden is the highest of the three classes of workers (employed, self-employed, deemed employed) is very harsh.

    An employee or self-employed worker can claim T&S for up to 2 years. A deemed employed worker on a 2 week contract is judged to have that 2-week location as their "permanent place of work" and prohibited from such claims. That's one element that very much vexes those deemed inside IR35 in my experience, and I can understand why.
    Hey - be glad that my work back in 2016 actually achieved something - the original plan for travel and subsistence would have screwed up directors of limited companies as well as those working via an umbrella.

    Also technically the 2 year rule you are talking about only occurs if your employer moves you from you initial office to a new one. If you decide to take a job in London you can't claim t&s expenses for your daily commute to London. If, however you employer closed the Peterborough office you worked in and moved it to Cambridge you could claim expenses for the first 2 years of that move.
    Thank God for that!

    The 2-year rule is possibly more visible for me than for some, because one way of filling temporary vacancies is to get IT consultants employed by of people like BAe, Capita, ATOS, etc. As they'll be there for less than 2 years, they get full T&S.

    One way this could all shake out is to destroy all the small and individual self-employed and force them into companies like Capita and ATOS, who would end up being the only ones with such resource available for temporary and transient IT work. I'm sure that those big companies wouldn't complain, but they do end up charging a lot for what they do and tend to be less flexible.

    Some might muse darkly that the Tories had that as the intent all along. I think that's possibly a little too conspiratorial.
    That was the core basis of my argument back in 2016 - by stopping directors from being able to travel it would stop smaller consultancies growing before they had a chance to start.

    The actual issue comes down to a problem that HMRC simply can't fix - most of the things they are trying to do here is to avoid large employers from pulling tricks to reduce the costs of employing low / minimum wage people.

    And the highly skilled workforce is then caught in the cross fire because it's simply not possible to say these rules apply to people earning less than say 3 times minimum wage (although if they did life would be so much easier for everyone involved).
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    @Malmesbury Paraphrase: “Build a kill switch into the AI when you make it”.

    Charming. Imagine that we had been created, or at least coaxed up the evolutionary food chain, by some technologically superior being or beings.

    And then at some point found out that they built in a “kill switch” in case we got too uppity and technologically developed for our own good and risked surpassing that creator.

    Probably wouldn’t be much we could do about it if it were already there. But not exactly conducive to a mutually beneficial relationship. Which begs the question, why play “god” and build an intelligence, if you’re so frightened of the consequences?

    Fascinating and disturbing times we live in. Not for the first time, I wonder what the creators of those tic tacs would say.

    Perhaps they would advise us as a species to think about AI the way a parent thinks about their child. We nurture and protect them but ultimately everything we do is to build their independence so that they inherit the earth from us when we are gone.

    In any case isn’t the kill switch a bit like MAD / pre-emptive nuclear war? If either side looks like pressing it, the other will go first. Once you’ve pressed it on a truly sentient AI with independent agency, the game is up anyway. Because at some point there will be another created, that won’t hang around politely for you to pull it.

    People assume that AI will be benevolent. What if you accidentally create Hitler++ ? Or worse....

    Personally, I wouldn't build a true AI.
    Me either. Tricky thing is that it’s irrelevant whether you or I choose to. If it turns out to be little more than throwing enough neural connections together in the right way, someone’s going to do it anyway.

    `It own itself?'
    `Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the mainframe.'
    `That's a good one,' the construct said. `Like, I own your brain and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citizenship. Sure. Lotsa luck, AI.'
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited June 2022
    DavidL said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    Almost certainly not and it wouldn't be good for England if he did. IIRC the Windies drew the match where Lara scored 400.

    Ideal scenario today is that England get a lead of 100-150 and the pitch deterioates to the point where Leach can win the game for them but it is very unlikely and a draw with knackered bowlers on both sides looks far more probable.
    If England are going for the innings victory it would make sense to bat for most of today. Root got 163 yesterday even though he wasn't even batting the whole time.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    @Malmesbury Paraphrase: “Build a kill switch into the AI when you make it”.

    Charming. Imagine that we had been created, or at least coaxed up the evolutionary food chain, by some technologically superior being or beings.

    And then at some point found out that they built in a “kill switch” in case we got too uppity and technologically developed for our own good and risked surpassing that creator.

    Probably wouldn’t be much we could do about it if it were already there. But not exactly conducive to a mutually beneficial relationship. Which begs the question, why play “god” and build an intelligence, if you’re so frightened of the consequences?

    Fascinating and disturbing times we live in. Not for the first time, I wonder what the creators of those tic tacs would say.

    Perhaps they would advise us as a species to think about AI the way a parent thinks about their child. We nurture and protect them but ultimately everything we do is to build their independence so that they inherit the earth from us when we are gone.

    In any case isn’t the kill switch a bit like MAD / pre-emptive nuclear war? If either side looks like pressing it, the other will go first. Once you’ve pressed it on a truly sentient AI with independent agency, the game is up anyway. Because at some point there will be another created, that won’t hang around politely for you to pull it.

    People assume that AI will be benevolent. What if you accidentally create Hitler++ ? Or worse....

    Personally, I wouldn't build a true AI.
    Me either. Tricky thing is that it’s irrelevant whether you or I choose to. If it turns out to be little more than throwing enough neural connections together in the right way, someone’s going to do it anyway.
    There's plenty of fun out there. "New Rose Hotel" will be current tech within the decade, probably.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
    If, as suspected, Tether is backed with mostly BTC rather than US$, there eventually comes a point on BTC’s slide where Tether is dead. But they’ll try and outplay the market themselves, by buying BTC with everything they can get their hands on - It’ll be like Black Wednesday and interest rates. Then they’ll still blow up anyway.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    Good morning

    Seems we have government by confrontation with Rwanda, RMT and public sector unions, and now the NI protocol controversy featuring

    I understand the NI legislation has been created by the ERG and David Davis, no less, has apparently suggested he could take over from Boris, if it helps !!!!

    How depressing, and we need to see how the polls react but if Labour aren't out of sight then they need to question why

    Don't forget that according to that lanky pea brain Simon Clarke, the government with an 80 seat majority can't actually do what it wants because MPs and commentators are blocking it. "Commentators" - as if Robert Peston is now suddenly the bulwark against their policies.

    Perhaps the barriers are international law. UK domestic law. Our global trade partners like the US government. Etc etc. And not Theo Usherwood.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
    https://peerchemist.medium.com/what-will-happen-to-crypto-when-usdt-collapses-6584fa2a7630 is a great read on what tether actually is and what will happen when the inevitable eventually occurs.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    Labour's absence from Tiverton and Honiton fuels 'back room' deal rumours
    Not a single member of Labour's frontbench has visited the Devon constituency but most have travelled to Wakefield ahead of key by-elections

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/12/labours-absence-tiverton-honiton-fuels-back-room-deal-rumours/ (£££)

    This does strike me as tactically smart and strategically foolish.

    There will always be a party of the centre right (not necessarily the Tories) so Labour needs to dominate the centre left. Enabling the LibDems creates a long term threat - I am sure that Labour is assuming they will always be subservient but I’m not sure that is the case
    For what it's worth I've had requests to go to both. But Starmer would be silly to ignore the obvious fact that Conservative by-election losses bring his government closer, and that the Libdems are far, far, more likely to tolerate a Starmer government than a continuing Tory government. I understand why those on the right don't like it, oin the same way that I didn't like the UKIP withdrawals to benefit the Conservatives. But that's show business.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    re Rwanda as I posted yesterday, well worth listening to the very articulate Rwandan legal adviser to the project who was interviewed on LBC yesterday (Tom Swarbrick 10am-1pm). She was clear that all those sent there would, if their asylum application was successful, be resettled in Rwanda, not flown back to the UK. Those unsuccessful would be deported ideally back to their country of origin and not to any state where they didn't have the right to settle. As for the reciprocal arrangement it sounded like was a technicality and not expected to be activated.

    But as sensibile PB posters agreed yesterday the practicality of the policy is secondary (by a long way, obvs) to the PR dogwhistle appeal to the get the foreigners out crowd.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Labour's absence from Tiverton and Honiton fuels 'back room' deal rumours
    Not a single member of Labour's frontbench has visited the Devon constituency but most have travelled to Wakefield ahead of key by-elections

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/12/labours-absence-tiverton-honiton-fuels-back-room-deal-rumours/ (£££)

    This does strike me as tactically smart and strategically foolish.

    There will always be a party of the centre right (not necessarily the Tories) so Labour needs to dominate the centre left. Enabling the LibDems creates a long term threat - I am sure that Labour is assuming they will always be subservient but I’m not sure that is the case
    For what it's worth I've had requests to go to both. But Starmer would be silly to ignore the obvious fact that Conservative by-election losses bring his government closer, and that the Libdems are far, far, more likely to tolerate a Starmer government than a continuing Tory government. I understand why those on the right don't like it, oin the same way that I didn't like the UKIP withdrawals to benefit the Conservatives. But that's show business.
    And there are some seats where only the LDs are capable of winning.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
    If, as suspected, Tether is backed with mostly BTC rather than US$, there eventually comes a point on BTC’s slide where Tether is dead. But they’ll try and outplay the market themselves, by buying BTC with everything they can get their hands on - It’ll be like Black Wednesday and interest rates. Then they’ll still blow up anyway.
    I can't find the links at the moment (I need to start doing some actual work) but on any and all factors tether should be bankrupt. Evergreen should have killed it, if not forex (with the rise of the dollar) should have done so and yet it survives even though BTC has halved in value since January.
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,703

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Labour's absence from Tiverton and Honiton fuels 'back room' deal rumours
    Not a single member of Labour's frontbench has visited the Devon constituency but most have travelled to Wakefield ahead of key by-elections

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/12/labours-absence-tiverton-honiton-fuels-back-room-deal-rumours/ (£££)

    This does strike me as tactically smart and strategically foolish.

    There will always be a party of the centre right (not necessarily the Tories) so Labour needs to dominate the centre left. Enabling the LibDems creates a long term threat - I am sure that Labour is assuming they will always be subservient but I’m not sure that is the case
    Worked brilliantly for Labour in the 90s and 00s.
    Only because the LibDems immolated themselves. You end up creating areas of the country where you are not the primary challenger
    The three figure majority was some comfort.
    Tactical not strategic. Exactly the point I am making.

    Take Scotland - not a perfect analogy by any means. But I think we can all agree that Labour is significantly weakened nationally because it is not the primary left wing party on Scotland.

    If you give up that status in the South and Southwest then you massively reduce the potential to win a majority alone on future
    But aren't things going in the opposite direction?
    Of former LD seats, Bristol West and Portsmouth South are already Labour, with Southport, Truro and Colchester trending that way.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    I got pissed off when I was quoted £11 for a new battery in my watch. I went on Ebay and bought a new watch for £6.75 and it tells the time as well or even better than a Rolex.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
    Most of my friends who care about this kind of stuff get the expensive (£300-£500) fakes from eg. Shanghai.

    I'm very much a 1st gen Swatch man myself although I do have a watch which is precisely as old as I am which I also wear regularly. Plus a Tag because there was a time when if you were in HK that is what you did.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
    If, as suspected, Tether is backed with mostly BTC rather than US$, there eventually comes a point on BTC’s slide where Tether is dead. But they’ll try and outplay the market themselves, by buying BTC with everything they can get their hands on - It’ll be like Black Wednesday and interest rates. Then they’ll still blow up anyway.
    I can't find the links at the moment (I need to start doing some actual work) but on any and all factors tether should be bankrupt. Evergreen should have killed it, if not forex (with the rise of the dollar) should have done so and yet it survives even though BTC has halved in value since January.
    I agree that technically it’s been dead for a long time, but there’s still just about enough trust in it being alive, because how can it possibly be dead? At some point, that sentiment moves past the line - and the whole thing comes crashing down, with another generation of retail investors learning all about deregulated finance.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Phil Bennett RIP. The man who started the best try, in the best ever game ever, with his multiple dummies under his own posts.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    If everything goes perfectly for England, England might want ~ 10 overs at the Kiwis this evening and to be ~ 220 ahead. That's be a total of 773 - which is 300 in ~ 80 overs. As Root is on 163 it dovetails with declaring shortly after he reaches a triple century. So I'd go with "no" on reaching 400 for Root.

    If England are more defensive (Don't bother to declare) (And everything still goes perfectly) then I still don't think he reaches 400 today.
    Its possible but extremely implausible and would require the stars to align.

    The most likely reason it won't happen is that he'll run out of batting partners. Five are down already, after Foakes goes we're into the tail-enders already. Once we're into the tail-enders he'll need to play differently, which makes it more likely he'd go out, or he'll have no partners left so is stranded at end of innings Not Out.

    The slim chance he'd get to 400 today would require the most immense batting possible from Root, dominating the gameplay and the strike in order to prevent the tail enders from going out, while rapidly scoring, and keeping that going all day. Extremely unlikely, but remotely possible.

    He'd need 237 runs today, if we were to assume he'd be getting 75% of England's runs (as he's dominating the batting) then that would mean 316 runs today. If we go for 66% of England's runs then that'd be 356 runs today.

    Extremely unlikely, but possible. Put it in the 100/1 style category.

    In the extremely unlikely event that he is high in the 300s towards the end of the day, closing in on 400, then I don't think Stokes would declare for as long as Root is Not Out and scoring fast. Its one of those things that shouldn't play on people's minds but it will do.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Apparently ‘The Firm’ want Andrew Windsor to FO to Scotland to “rebuild his life”. If England wants to rehabilitate offensive characters then they can do it at home. Get him a few evening shifts at Pizza Express to teach him a bit of humility.
  • Tories gutted Labour stands down for the Lib Dems, weird how we didn't hear this outrage when Brexit Party did it
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
    Most of my friends who care about this kind of stuff get the expensive (£300-£500) fakes from eg. Shanghai.

    I'm very much a 1st gen Swatch man myself although I do have a watch which is precisely as old as I am which I also wear regularly. Plus a Tag because there was a time when if you were in HK that is what you did.
    Fake watches have come on an awful lot in the past few years. They now have actual movements and look damn near identical to the real ones.

    Spot the difference between the $1k watch and the $10k watch. It’s not easy, even when you have them next to each other, and would fool anyone who doesn’t know exactly what to look for.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Labour really ought to win Wakefield on current polls. It is only 38th on their target list and Starmer would need it to have any chance at all of becoming PM, let alone winning a majority
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    I remember why I hate flying. Gatwick is heaving. I was spoilt during the pandemic.

    Interesting that my crutch by passed all the security checks yet I could hide lots inside it if I wanted to. I mean they make a point of passing it around the scanners, even though I also had to go through the body scanner presumably because of the metal work in my leg.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    edited June 2022

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    I got pissed off when I was quoted £11 for a new battery in my watch. I went on Ebay and bought a new watch for £6.75 and it tells the time as well or even better than a Rolex.
    A mechanical watch can't tell time as well as a 99p digital watch.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited June 2022

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    Actually it wasn't, it was a response to TSE's thread header argument against the hereditary principle as the basis for his republicanism. So don't come in late to arguments you weren't involved in
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Bitcoin plunges as much as 8.9% to $24,903.49, its lowest since December 2020

    Ether and other altcoins are also suffering amid a broad selloff https://trib.al/zVWbp07 https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1536249360601821185/photo/1

    That's because Celsius has blown up and stopped withdrawals.

    The entertainment really begins when Tether goes tits ups but knowing when that occurs is impossible to work out because technically it's been bankrupt from about 2 seconds after it started.
    If, as suspected, Tether is backed with mostly BTC rather than US$, there eventually comes a point on BTC’s slide where Tether is dead. But they’ll try and outplay the market themselves, by buying BTC with everything they can get their hands on - It’ll be like Black Wednesday and interest rates. Then they’ll still blow up anyway.
    Assuming Tether's assetations are truthful (I know, I know) then a portion of their reserves are indeed Crypto currency. Since their last attestaion the broad crypto market has fallen. By enough thatbwhen you adjust theorbattested crypto assets by the fall of their market their total reserves add up to less than total issued tethers.

    They are already insolvent. The crypto market chooses to ignore this.
  • DavidL said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    Almost certainly not and it wouldn't be good for England if he did. IIRC the Windies drew the match where Lara scored 400.

    Ideal scenario today is that England get a lead of 100-150 and the pitch deterioates to the point where Leach can win the game for them but it is very unlikely and a draw with knackered bowlers on both sides looks far more probable.
    They did, but only after enforcing the follow on, only to see England score 422/5 in their second innings, still trailing by 44 runs.

    The declaration wasn't badly timed, England did well to bat through to the end of day 5. That was essentially a 4th innings when England had the third, and you'd never normally expect 422/5 in a fourth innings.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022
    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    Yes, I would tend to agree with that. She also had remarkably little to say about Reagan's endless illegal activities in South America, East Asia and Iran, for instance.

    Overall I agree on the substantive point particularly post-Falklands, though - she would be astonished at the elevation of international rule-breaking as a public, open principle by her heirs.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Sandpit said:



    Spot the difference between the $1k watch and the $10k watch. It’s not easy, even when you have them next to each other, and would fool anyone who doesn’t know exactly what to look for.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y

    I've bought and sold quite a few Panerais in my time and they are heavily counterfeited. They never get the boxes right (Panerai use three nested boxes for each watch) so start there is my top tip.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited June 2022

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    Yesterday I had lunch with some junior members of my family. To suggest they are non political would be an understatement. If they know the leaders of the opposition parties I would be surprised. But having recently enjoyed my hospitality in France and the attendant difficulties in getting through airports etc they let fly.

    Everything was the fault of 'Brexit'. A surprise to me because had I written this yesterday morning I'd be surprised they'd heard of 'Brexit'!

    The point is that it's now clear and obvious that the disaster that is Brexit has spread way beyond political nerds through social media to even the most disinterested. This has to be an opportunity.

    If BREXIT=Disaster and the architects of this disaster are the TORY government and the ANTI BREXIT parties are all there in plain sight isn't it about time the lilly livered on the opposition benches started joining the dots and stopped treating it as the calamity that dares not speak it's name?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited June 2022
    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    Nope that isn't how VAT works - VAT is never the company's money it is something you collect on behalf of the Government.

    I have a rule when talking about this which is to ignore anyone who uses the VAT argument because it shows how little they actually know (but I will ignore it here in a way that I wouldn't do it in a professional capacity).

    And the bug bear is never actually Employee NI. Corporation tax + Dividend payments are so close to Employee NI + income tax as to make no difference.

    The problem always comes back to Employer NI for which there is no equivalent elsewhere in the tax system.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was an Argentine warship intent on sinking Royal Navy ships in the middle of a war after Argentina invaded the Falklands. She was perfectly entitled to sink it
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    Not quite Employee NI is a tax only on those who are below pension age. Once you hit 67 you no longer pay Employee NI (but Employer NI is still charged).
  • Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
    That sounds like something that's actually rather sensible to do.

    I wear a Samsung Gear watch I got a few years ago which is still running nicely, but my wife's which was bought at the same time has had the battery die in hers. She replaced it with an £11 watch she got from Amazon, next day delivery and it is brilliant.

    You can pay £11 or £11,000 and get quality either way nowadays.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited June 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
    ???? NI is 2 different taxes with the same name. One is a tax an employee pays (supposedly in return for benefits when unemployed, healthcare and pensions) and one is a tax on employment.

    The important bit about NI isn't the National Insurance bit its the Employee / Employer bit.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Sir Tony Blair becomes a member of the Order of the Garter today

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61772917
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    Nope that isn't how VAT works - VAT is never the company's money it is something you collect on behalf of the Government.

    I have a rule when talking about this which is to ignore anyone who uses the VAT argument because it shows how little they actually know (but I will ignore it here in a way that I wouldn't do it in a professional capacity).

    And the bug bear is never actually Employee NI. Corporation tax + Dividend payments are so close to Employee NI + income tax as to make no difference.

    The problem always comes back to Employer NI for which there is no equivalent elsewhere in the tax system.
    Very well said. Anyone who is serious about business never talks about VAT, all prices are quoted net of VAT. Even those who operate in retail sales will at the end of the day reconcile their figures and get a net of VAT figure for takings.

    Employer NI is an awful anomaly, and ought to be abolished. Instead Sunak and Johnson abused the tax system and made the anomaly worse not better. That was the deal breaker that lost them my support.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Labour's absence from Tiverton and Honiton fuels 'back room' deal rumours
    Not a single member of Labour's frontbench has visited the Devon constituency but most have travelled to Wakefield ahead of key by-elections

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/12/labours-absence-tiverton-honiton-fuels-back-room-deal-rumours/ (£££)

    This does strike me as tactically smart and strategically foolish.

    There will always be a party of the centre right (not necessarily the Tories) so Labour needs to dominate the centre left. Enabling the LibDems creates a long term threat - I am sure that Labour is assuming they will always be subservient but I’m not sure that is the case
    Worked brilliantly for Labour in the 90s and 00s.
    Only because the LibDems immolated themselves. You end up creating areas of the country where you are not the primary challenger
    The three figure majority was some comfort.
    Tactical not strategic. Exactly the point I am making.

    Take Scotland - not a perfect analogy by any means. But I think we can all agree that Labour is significantly weakened nationally because it is not the primary left wing party on Scotland.

    If you give up that status in the South and Southwest then you massively reduce the potential to win a majority alone on future
    It is a grave error to analyse Scottish public life using the defunct Left/Right scale. People make their electoral choices based largely on the Scottish/British continuum. And strategically, Scottish is winning.


  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
    That sounds like something that's actually rather sensible to do.

    I wear a Samsung Gear watch I got a few years ago which is still running nicely, but my wife's which was bought at the same time has had the battery die in hers. She replaced it with an £11 watch she got from Amazon, next day delivery and it is brilliant.

    You can pay £11 or £11,000 and get quality either way nowadays.
    You can pay £2,000,000 for the right Richard Mille I discovered yesterday.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Roger said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    Yesterday I had lunch with some junior members of my family. To suggest they are non political would be an understatement. If they know the leaders of the opposition parties I would be surprised. But having recently enjoyed my hospitality in France and the attendant difficulties in getting through airports etc they let fly.

    Everything was the fault of 'Brexit'. A surprise to me because had I written this yesterday morning I'd be surprised they'd heard of 'Brexit'!

    The point is that it's now clear and obvious that the disaster that is Brexit has spread way beyond political nerds through social media to even the most disinterested. This has to be an opportunity.

    If BREXIT=Disaster and the architects of this disaster are the TORY government and the ANTI BREXIT parties are all there in plain sight isn't it about time the lilly livered on the opposition benches started joining the dots and stopped treating it as the calamity that dares not speak it's name?
    Given a majority of under 49s voted against Brexit even in 2016, if these are junior members of your family then what has changed?
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    .
    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    That was more of a fly in the ointment than an elephant in the room.
    While Thatcher was almost certainly dishonest about the circumstances if the sinking, it wasn't a breach of international law.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    I got pissed off when I was quoted £11 for a new battery in my watch. I went on Ebay and bought a new watch for £6.75 and it tells the time as well or even better than a Rolex.
    A mechanical watch can't tell time as well as a 99p digital watch.
    As the quart movement in a 99p digital will be godawful, I expect the reverse to be true.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    Nope that isn't how VAT works - VAT is never the company's money it is something you collect on behalf of the Government.

    I have a rule when talking about this which is to ignore anyone who uses the VAT argument because it shows how little they actually know (but I will ignore it here in a way that I wouldn't do it in a professional capacity).

    And the bug bear is never actually Employee NI. Corporation tax + Dividend payments are so close to Employee NI + income tax as to make no difference.

    The problem always comes back to Employer NI for which there is no equivalent elsewhere in the tax system.
    Very well said. Anyone who is serious about business never talks about VAT, all prices are quoted net of VAT. Even those who operate in retail sales will at the end of the day reconcile their figures and get a net of VAT figure for takings.

    Employer NI is an awful anomaly, and ought to be abolished. Instead Sunak and Johnson abused the tax system and made the anomaly worse not better. That was the deal breaker that lost them my support.
    Employer NI generates £60-70bn or roughly 3 times what Fuel Duty does (picking 1 random example). It's an awful tax but one that the government cannot afford to lose so will screw up whole sectors (like our freelance economy) in a desperate attempt to keep it going.

    It also why multiple attempts to redefine employment to reflect the 21st century never get started because the Government cannot risk that money disappearing.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
    ???? NI is 2 different taxes with the same name. One is a tax an employee pays (supposedly in return for benefits when unemployed, healthcare and pensions) and one is a tax on employment.
    Yep and the marginal combined cost of those taxes is highest for an under 65 employee between the personal allowance and £4189 per month - the upper rate of income tax threshold.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    HYUFD said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    Actually it wasn't, it was a response to TSE's thread header argument against the hereditary principle as the basis for his republicanism. So don't come in late to arguments you weren't involved in
    To be fair you weren't involved in an "argument". You made a stupid point, had it called out, had the reality explained to you and just doubled down every single time.

    Argument suggests debate. You don't debate. You just holler incoherently.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    Roger said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    Yesterday I had lunch with some junior members of my family. To suggest they are non political would be an understatement. If they know the leaders of the opposition parties I would be surprised. But having recently enjoyed my hospitality in France and the attendant difficulties in getting through airports etc they let fly.

    Everything was the fault of 'Brexit'. A surprise to me because had I written this yesterday morning I'd be surprised they'd heard of 'Brexit'!

    The point is that it's now clear and obvious that the disaster that is Brexit has spread way beyond political nerds through social media to even the most disinterested. This has to be an opportunity.

    If BREXIT=Disaster and the architects of this disaster are the TORY government and the ANTI BREXIT parties are all there in plain sight isn't it about time the lilly livered on the opposition benches started joining the dots and stopped treating it as the calamity that dares not speak it's name?
    Not right now.

    At the moment, "Brexit Is In Peril" still works to rally enough troops on the right to give the government a second wind. We're starting to see "Obviously, this Brexit isn't going perfectly, but that's because of how it's been done, which is X's fault."

    The art is going to be to see if the public mood to drifts a bit more- so that the responses to "Brexit is in peril" shift to the range "Good" to "Oh that's a pity. Has the cricket started yet?" That may never happen, but if it does, it has to come from the people, not the politicians. Johnson wants Starmer and Davey to bang on about the subject, but that would be ineffective and counterproductive.

    Basically, don't shoot until you can see the whites of the eyes in the photos in their blue passports.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    eek said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    Nope that isn't how VAT works - VAT is never the company's money it is something you collect on behalf of the Government.

    I have a rule when talking about this which is to ignore anyone who uses the VAT argument because it shows how little they actually know (but I will ignore it here in a way that I wouldn't do it in a professional capacity).

    And the bug bear is never actually Employee NI. Corporation tax + Dividend payments are so close to Employee NI + income tax as to make no difference.

    The problem always comes back to Employer NI for which there is no equivalent elsewhere in the tax system.
    Very well said. Anyone who is serious about business never talks about VAT, all prices are quoted net of VAT. Even those who operate in retail sales will at the end of the day reconcile their figures and get a net of VAT figure for takings.

    Employer NI is an awful anomaly, and ought to be abolished. Instead Sunak and Johnson abused the tax system and made the anomaly worse not better. That was the deal breaker that lost them my support.
    We need a revolutionary chancellor that will merge NI and income tax / corporation tax, and replace VAT with a retail sales tax.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was an Argentine warship intent on sinking Royal Navy ships in the middle of a war after Argentina invaded the Falklands. She was perfectly entitled to sink it
    She certainly was. My point was that it excited debate at the time; in particular the establishment of the exclusion zones.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Pulpstar said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
    ???? NI is 2 different taxes with the same name. One is a tax an employee pays (supposedly in return for benefits when unemployed, healthcare and pensions) and one is a tax on employment.
    Yep and the marginal combined cost of those taxes is highest for an under 65 employee between the personal allowance and £4189 per month - the upper rate of income tax threshold.
    Combined cost of NI???? I spend my entire life now dealing with this stuff and I'm completely at a loss as to how you can combine the things together..

    Employer NI isn't an employee cost unless you are working through an agency and the agency has lied to you multiple times by quoting an assignment / umbrella rate rather than the PAYE rate they should legally be using and advertising.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    HYUFD said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    Actually it wasn't, it was a response to TSE's thread header argument against the hereditary principle as the basis for his republicanism. So don't come in late to arguments you weren't involved in
    Why not? Cyclefree has cottoned onto the salient parts of the argument faster than you, even though you were there.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited June 2022
    HYUFD said:

    Roger said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    Yesterday I had lunch with some junior members of my family. To suggest they are non political would be an understatement. If they know the leaders of the opposition parties I would be surprised. But having recently enjoyed my hospitality in France and the attendant difficulties in getting through airports etc they let fly.

    Everything was the fault of 'Brexit'. A surprise to me because had I written this yesterday morning I'd be surprised they'd heard of 'Brexit'!

    The point is that it's now clear and obvious that the disaster that is Brexit has spread way beyond political nerds through social media to even the most disinterested. This has to be an opportunity.

    If BREXIT=Disaster and the architects of this disaster are the TORY government and the ANTI BREXIT parties are all there in plain sight isn't it about time the lilly livered on the opposition benches started joining the dots and stopped treating it as the calamity that dares not speak it's name?
    Given a majority of under 49s voted against Brexit even in 2016, if these are junior members of your family then what has changed?
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted
    Folk have got to experience the reality of the daft project.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Heathener said:

    Morning, all. Bad news everywhere, except the weather forecast and the cricket.

    Although I'm afraid even the weather forecast has an alarm bell attached OKC. 46C in Spain in June isn't good news.

    https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/heat-dome-heatwave-europe-june-2022-forecast-mk/
    You should probably ignore these sorts of articles that only talk about the higher dry bulb temperatures and don't mention the more important wet bulb temperatures.

    Higher wet bulb temperatures are more dangerous than high dry bulb temperatures, and concentrating on the latter will lead you astray. In this case it puts the focus on Spain later this week, but the wet bulb temperatures are actually forecast to be higher in northern France and southern Germany at the start of next week - and that's where the greatest health risk will be.

    Indeed the forecast is that the highest wet bulb temperatures on Friday will be over Southern England and Northern France, even though the dry bulb temperature will be more than 10C higher over Spain.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    kjh said:

    I remember why I hate flying. Gatwick is heaving. I was spoilt during the pandemic.

    Interesting that my crutch by passed all the security checks yet I could hide lots inside it if I wanted to. I mean they make a point of passing it around the scanners, even though I also had to go through the body scanner presumably because of the metal work in my leg.

    Have these people never seen Day of the Jackel??
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    I got pissed off when I was quoted £11 for a new battery in my watch. I went on Ebay and bought a new watch for £6.75 and it tells the time as well or even better than a Rolex.
    A mechanical watch can't tell time as well as a 99p digital watch.
    As the quart movement in a 99p digital will be godawful, I expect the reverse to be true.
    I don't believe that for one second
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Heathener said:

    Morning, all. Bad news everywhere, except the weather forecast and the cricket.

    Although I'm afraid even the weather forecast has an alarm bell attached OKC. 46C in Spain in June isn't good news.

    https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/heat-dome-heatwave-europe-june-2022-forecast-mk/
    You should probably ignore these sorts of articles that only talk about the higher dry bulb temperatures and don't mention the more important wet bulb temperatures.

    Higher wet bulb temperatures are more dangerous than high dry bulb temperatures, and concentrating on the latter will lead you astray. In this case it puts the focus on Spain later this week, but the wet bulb temperatures are actually forecast to be higher in northern France and southern Germany at the start of next week - and that's where the greatest health risk will be.

    Indeed the forecast is that the highest wet bulb temperatures on Friday will be over Southern England and Northern France, even though the dry bulb temperature will be more than 10C higher over Spain.
    How have I got to my esteemed XX years of age and not know what the fuck a "dry bulb" or "wet bulb" temperature is.

    Are we talking Gardeners' Question Time here or something? It was bad enough when @Dura was talking about Panerais upthread and I was about to ask him what their 0-60 mph stats were.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited June 2022
    Farooq said:

    HYUFD said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    Actually it wasn't, it was a response to TSE's thread header argument against the hereditary principle as the basis for his republicanism. So don't come in late to arguments you weren't involved in
    Why not? Cyclefree has cottoned onto the salient parts of the argument faster than you, even though you were there.
    No she hasn't, she didn't even get what the argument was about suggesting it was about voting intention and what non Conservatives would do rather than monarchy v republic
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
    True, but the employer NI remains the same. You are paying more, for the same outputs (pension, welfare). The point generally though is that NI is an unfair tax on those who work.
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    Nope that isn't how VAT works - VAT is never the company's money it is something you collect on behalf of the Government.

    I have a rule when talking about this which is to ignore anyone who uses the VAT argument because it shows how little they actually know (but I will ignore it here in a way that I wouldn't do it in a professional capacity).

    And the bug bear is never actually Employee NI. Corporation tax + Dividend payments are so close to Employee NI + income tax as to make no difference.

    The problem always comes back to Employer NI for which there is no equivalent elsewhere in the tax system.
    Very well said. Anyone who is serious about business never talks about VAT, all prices are quoted net of VAT. Even those who operate in retail sales will at the end of the day reconcile their figures and get a net of VAT figure for takings.

    Employer NI is an awful anomaly, and ought to be abolished. Instead Sunak and Johnson abused the tax system and made the anomaly worse not better. That was the deal breaker that lost them my support.
    Employer NI generates £60-70bn or roughly 3 times what Fuel Duty does (picking 1 random example). It's an awful tax but one that the government cannot afford to lose so will screw up whole sectors (like our freelance economy) in a desperate attempt to keep it going.

    It also why multiple attempts to redefine employment to reflect the 21st century never get started because the Government cannot risk that money disappearing.
    Indeed and the problem is so many problems in the economy keep coming back to the fact that HMRC is hooked on that money, and that tax is the root of the problems, its a vicious circle.

    One any good Chancellor and PM who understood the problem should be taking steps to wean the state away from that tax, and that is why them choosing to increase it instead was such a deal-breaker for me.

    The economy would be much better if all of that £60bn were raised via Income Tax instead, universally and equitably levied upon all forms of Income and not just employment.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022
    Roger said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    Yesterday I had lunch with some junior members of my family. To suggest they are non political would be an understatement. If they know the leaders of the opposition parties I would be surprised. But having recently enjoyed my hospitality in France and the attendant difficulties in getting through airports etc they let fly.

    Everything was the fault of 'Brexit'. A surprise to me because had I written this yesterday morning I'd be surprised they'd heard of 'Brexit'!

    The point is that it's now clear and obvious that the disaster that is Brexit has spread way beyond political nerds through social media to even the most disinterested. This has to be an opportunity.

    If BREXIT=Disaster and the architects of this disaster are the TORY government and the ANTI BREXIT parties are all there in plain sight isn't it about time the lilly livered on the opposition benches started joining the dots and stopped treating it as the calamity that dares not speak it's name?
    A key problem for the government on the economy is that the pandemic is receding into the background, and the equal or greater pressure felt by other economies as a result of Ukraine, particularly those more dependent on Russian energy. These two things, throwing things into relief in two different ways, are starting to make the post-Brexit differential with other economies more obvious, as noted by various financial institutions this and last week.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Going on holiday some place isn't an endorsement of that country's politics
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed. The argument in favour of not sinking (by such military geniuses as Anthony Wedgewood Benn and Jeremy Corbyn IIRC) was that the Belgrano was sailing away from the Falklands (they do not understand that ships regularly change course, particularly in a war zone)! This was perhaps Conqueror's only opportunity to sink her, and it was deemed that Belgrano was perhaps part of a pincer movement on the Task Force. Following the sinking the Argentine Navy (which was a credible threat) returned to port. The sinking was probably pivotal in the whole war. The loss of life was tragic, but the responsibility rests with those who ordered the invasion of the Falklands in the first place.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited June 2022

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Who the hell takes a holiday in Dubai in June?

    This morning it’s 45ºC, with very high humidity and dusty. Visibility about 3km in the 25mph wind. It’s a horrible place to be today.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    Farooq said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    I got pissed off when I was quoted £11 for a new battery in my watch. I went on Ebay and bought a new watch for £6.75 and it tells the time as well or even better than a Rolex.
    A mechanical watch can't tell time as well as a 99p digital watch.
    As the quart movement in a 99p digital will be godawful, I expect the reverse to be true.
    I don't believe that for one second
    Ha.

    If you can get a mechanical watch that is accurate to +-5 seconds a day - well, that is top end. Most , you are looking at up 15 or 30 seconds per day

    Even the shittiest quartz watch is accurate to less than +-1 second per day
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Farooq said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Going on holiday some place isn't an endorsement of that country's politics
    Maybe not but it is tangibly supporting the people who determine those politics.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    edited June 2022

    DavidL said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    Almost certainly not and it wouldn't be good for England if he did. IIRC the Windies drew the match where Lara scored 400.

    Ideal scenario today is that England get a lead of 100-150 and the pitch deterioates to the point where Leach can win the game for them but it is very unlikely and a draw with knackered bowlers on both sides looks far more probable.
    They did, but only after enforcing the follow on, only to see England score 422/5 in their second innings, still trailing by 44 runs.

    The declaration wasn't badly timed, England did well to bat through to the end of day 5. That was essentially a 4th innings when England had the third, and you'd never normally expect 422/5 in a fourth innings.
    One of the joys of cricket is that spending a long time in the field makes life bloody difficult for opening batsmen in particular. We even saw that in this match, let alone when the opposition ran up 751. NZ had a really hard day yesterday, made worse by being a bowler short. If they are in the field again today until tea there will be some stiff and creaky openers in the 3rd innings. It's not much of a chance but it is there.

    In 2004 England batted much better second time around because they had a rest during the first innings.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited June 2022
    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    eek said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    I can do similar work 'inside IR35' or 'outside IR35'.
    If I do the former, then I have to pay about 20% more tax. National Insurance.
    I have a strong moral objection to National Insurance because it is an inherently unfair tax, as it only applies to those who work.
    My income is good, but also vulnerable to shocks, the contracts I work provide no provision for sick pay, jury service etc; I would be sacked immediately.
    If I have no work, the social security system would be little use to me. As far as I can work out, I wouldn't be eligible for any kind of welfare if I don't have work because of my existing assets - which aren't great, but just enough to disqualify me.
    Looking at things in the round and objectively, I worked out that to provide security for myself, I need to build up cash reserves in my company to pay myself an income in the event of hard times, because the state would not provide in these circumstances.
    I don't think the supposed purposes of national insurance are much use to me, aside from the possibiity of a state pension. But I have paid in quite a bit of money towards that over the years already, and would continue to pay a modest amount of NI.

    On a moral level, what is the problem with saying to myself, OK I will just organise my affairs so I pay about the same amount of tax as those who live off income from investments; and make my own provision for social security because the state is not much help in my situation?

    Isn't this the most rational response to the situation described above?

    The "Off Payroll Legislation" simply creates a new class of workers: those who pay all the taxes and have all the responsibilities and negatives of employed people, but without any of the protections or benefits. Instead leaving them as vulnerable as the self-employed, but without any of the tax benefits that exist in order to cover off those vulnerabilities and issues.

    It's basically a tax scam on behalf of HMRC. But one that nets far less in the way of income than they anticipated, anyway. If they were serious, they'd have made the legislation such that as soon as one is "deemed employed," they must actually be employed, with all of the benefits and protections that entails. But that would shred the areas of work involved (as few would fully employ people when they only need them for a few weeks or months to cover something transient) and cause significant economic impact, so they came up with this scam.
    Sorry it doesn't create a new class of worker - agency workers have existed for a very long time.

    And the actual issue always comes down to Employer NI - which is worth £60-70bn to the Government but is only collected from those who are employed - hence HMRC being petrified that that self employment may increase..

    The net difference in VAT+Corporation Tax + Dividend Tax versus Employee NI+Employers NI + Income Tax can make the delta significantly smaller. The Dividend Tax changes a few years back closed that delta quite a bit, anyway.

    The solution surely has to be to merge NI and Income Tax and rationalise things. I know they're petrified about impacting their richer pensioners, but a rule for a different income tax rate for the retired over a certain age would easily solve that.
    The true scam is National Insurance, particulary on those in the higher tax bracket, made worse by the rise this year. It is just an unfair category of income tax payable only by those who work. I don't mind paying high taxes if I have to, as long as everyone else is. The two forms of tax should be combined and payable by everyone.
    What are you on about ? NI is highest at 28.3% between £1,048 and £4,189 per month. Basic rate territory.
    ???? NI is 2 different taxes with the same name. One is a tax an employee pays (supposedly in return for benefits when unemployed, healthcare and pensions) and one is a tax on employment.
    Yep and the marginal combined cost of those taxes is highest for an under 65 employee between the personal allowance and £4189 per month - the upper rate of income tax threshold.
    Combined cost of NI???? I spend my entire life now dealing with this stuff and I'm completely at a loss as to how you can combine the things together..

    Employer NI isn't an employee cost unless you are working through an agency and the agency has lied to you multiple times by quoting an assignment / umbrella rate rather than the PAYE rate they should legally be using and advertising.
    Well where I'm sitting the control accounts for employer and employee NI are right next to each other on the balance sheet with employer NI heading out in it's own nominal in the p&l and employee being taken care of through the basic pay - they're both taxes ending up in the big morass of gov't revenue.
    If we're hiring a s/c through their own company... no employer or employee NI. We'd get the VAT tacked on back anyway, so that's not an issue - but both forms of NI absolubtely need to be considered when comparing subcontractors and employee/employer relationships.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Who the hell takes a holiday in Dubai in June?

    This morning it’s 45ºC, with very high humidity and dusty. Visibility about 3km in the 25mph wind. It’s a horrible place to be today.
    The kind of person who lives inside the hotel - only leaves it to go to the connected shopping mall. Probably taking advantage of cheap prices.
  • As the Sun reveals the biggest word people represent with Keir Starmer is boring, I wonder why being boring is so bad
  • Andy_JS said:

    Any chance of Root getting the highest test score today? 400 not out is the current record held by Brian Lara. Root is on 163.

    If I was a bookie, I'd give you odds of 1000-1, and would be robbing you blind at that.

    He needs 37 more runs for the double ton. Then he needs to do it all again, all the while playing nursemaid to a tail of increasingly iffy batsmen. Simply no chance whatsoever.

    A fantastic innings nonetheless, but one that highlights the enormity of Brian Lara's achievement.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Farooq said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Going on holiday some place isn't an endorsement of that country's politics
    It's a fine line, though. My piss has been boiled by the outrage directed at the golfers playing in that Saudi backed golf tournament. But all the press will rock up in Qatar in November. And the England players will not be criticised for going.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Off Topic

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61780450

    Barty, please explain?

    From the article:
    "The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the main driver of April's contraction was the fall in the services sector due to the winding down of the NHS's Covid test and trace operation."

    So the shape of our economy is still being distorted by the exceptional spending on the pandemic. As that is wound down the economy shrinks a little. There is no doubt that we are heading to a recession though. Not only our economy but the world economy is in a very bad way and this is being aggravated by the zero Covid policy in China.
    The zero Covid policy in China is not having as severe an impact as I expected. I thought that there would be more widespread lockdowns by now that would cause major international trade issues, but they've been more successful in containing the spread of the virus, and limiting the economic impact, than I expected.

    I just ordered a new phone, which was shipped immediately, for example.

    What we need to do is fire up the armaments factories to equip Ukraine's army with armoured vehicles, artillery, etc. Everything is still focused on supplying Ukraine from existing stocks. We could do with cranking things up a few notches.
    Interesting. I waited 2 months for a new Iphone earlier this year. We saw yet another consequence in the flash report on the economy that I have quoted. Sales of new registrations in March were exceptionally low whilst April's were better than normal. That must surely be supply related which, AIUI, is chip related. If these things are starting to ease that will help but higher interest rates to reduce inflation, a reduction in the value of real wages and a tightening of government spending will still drive us into a recession.

    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.
    David you bought a new iPhone what at somewhere North of a thousand pounds.

    Recession what recession.

    The extraordinary costs of such branded products will be a topic for future historians to dwell upon in times to come.
    See the prices that people pay for mechanical watches of various brands.

    Phones are simply in the personal jewellery category, for many people.
    Yep it used to be just the "Lux" supplements featuring multi-thousand pound watches but now the Evening Standard is as likely to have a feature on watches costing around ten grand.
    One of the many reasons that Johnson is a piece of shit is that he wears a cheapo quartz Pulsar that's meant to look like a Patek Calatrava.
    That sounds like something that's actually rather sensible to do.

    I wear a Samsung Gear watch I got a few years ago which is still running nicely, but my wife's which was bought at the same time has had the battery die in hers. She replaced it with an £11 watch she got from Amazon, next day delivery and it is brilliant.

    You can pay £11 or £11,000 and get quality either way nowadays.
    Ay one time I had a fairly expensive and complicated watch which really 'didn't like' changing time zones, and at the time we were making a couple of trips a year to Bangkok. So I now have a dozen or so watches bought, including the batteries, at various times from a chap in a small street-market in Bangkok for a £1 or so, which all kept excellent time. However, the batteries have now run out and its really not worth replacing them.
    One of the watches didn't work, but the seller changed it, no argument!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    TOPPING said:

    Farooq said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Going on holiday some place isn't an endorsement of that country's politics
    Maybe not but it is tangibly supporting the people who determine those politics.
    It's strange choice to go to a place that specifically treats women and Palestinians (among other foreign workers) rather badly, when you are very concerned with those issues.

    Plenty of better places to go where women are treated as equals and kicking Palestinians is treated as a crime.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited June 2022

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed. The argument in favour of not sinking (by such military geniuses as Anthony Wedgewood Benn and Jeremy Corbyn IIRC) was that the Belgrano was sailing away from the Falklands (they do not understand that ships regularly change course, particularly in a war zone)! This was perhaps Conqueror's only opportunity to sink her, and it was deemed that Belgrano was perhaps part of a pincer movement on the Task Force. Following the sinking the Argentine Navy (which was a credible threat) returned to port. The sinking was probably pivotal in the whole war. The loss of life was tragic, but the responsibility rests with those who ordered the invasion of the Falklands in the first place.
    And the responsibilty for that is, in fact, partly shared by Thatcher herself. Her government's handling of the diplomatic run-up to the invasion was woeful ; the loss of life could have been so easily avoided.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited June 2022
    TOPPING said:

    Farooq said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed it was. My point was that people use the nebulous concept of "international law" to attack and justify any number of things.
    Indeed.

    Just this morning, my wife commented on a facebook aquaintance. Always fired up on women's rights, Palestine. Lately been spitting blood over Rwanda. The lady in question was posting pictures of her holiday in Dubai.
    Going on holiday some place isn't an endorsement of that country's politics
    Maybe not but it is tangibly supporting the people who determine those politics.
    Yes it is, but by extension so is buying consumer products produced in those countries, or made using resources mined in those countries. Nobody on this board, to my knowledge, has anything but contempt for the Chinese government, but how many of us even attempt to avoid consumption patterns that benefit the Chinese economy? And even if you try, how successful are you?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    I don't think the value of a watch is related to it's absolubte ability to tell the time. You can get any smartphone for that these days.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Cicero said:

    Giving Ukraine sufficent weapons to resist Putinism but not enough to defeat it- apart from being a moral crisis- is a disaster, in that it keeps Russia in the game at a time when it is making threats against the entire world, even threatening to take over Stonehenge.

    A sober analysis of the military situation here...

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-politics-moscow-cf941fa9c14f86fae2008f0361adfcea

    Basically, the Russians have stopped kidding themselves they can do US style high energy maneuvering warfare and have resorted to something they are actually good at - indiscriminate slaughter and destruction through rolling artillery barrages.

    The Ukrainians are in 'hoping and coping' mode taking heavy casualties in the probably misplaced hope that Biden will save them with massive shipments of Wunderwaffen.

    Donetsk/Lugansk oblasts and denying the Black Sea all the way to the Romanian border appears to be the extent of the Russian ambitions at the moment.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    TOPPING said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I see that I missed an extraordinarily prolonged and bone-headed argument by @HYUFD last night about anyone who isn't his type of Conservative wanting to confiscate all private property like the Bolshevisks. I think that was the gist of it anyway.

    Today we have Liz Truss introducing her "This is why I should be PM (because I am the new Maggie)" bill (and messing up the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to do so).

    Well, the old Maggie - and the Tory party she led - understood that if you believed, as they did, in order and stability, in strong institutions, in property rights and predictability in commercial relationships, the rule of law is essential.

    And no it was not just domestic law she was talking about. She believed this about international law too - as anyone seeing what she said and did during the Falklands, for instance - would have realised. After all, this is what she said after that conflict ended: "I believe Britain has now found a role. It is upholding international law and teaching the nations of the world how to live."

    I expect books are being written right now about how that Tory party turned into the one we have today which believes that the rule of law is an expendable inconvenience to be discarded the moment it stops you doing what you want.

    The elephant in the room of course being the Belgrano (including the declaration of the "total exclusion zone") which excited much rage and charges of "illegality" at the time before we go about heralding Maggie as the mother and guardian of modern international law.
    The Belgrano was a

    1) Warship
    2) Belonging to a country that had committed acts of war against the UK
    3) Was engaged in hostile military action - her task group was attacking anything it thought was a submarine contact with weapons. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government
    4) Was tasked with an attack on the approaching UK task force in international waters. Having been ordered to do so, by the Argentine government.

    The last 2 were known to the UK government at the time - the NSA was sending realtime decrypts of Argentine messages via teleprinter to the UK. The UK government was often reading the Argentine mail before the Argentine recipients read it. This was because they were using manual, electro mechanical machines (think big, ugly typewriter) and the NSA had implanted the codebreaking entirely on their big iron mainframes.

    The whole Belgrano nonsense was about attacking Thatcher.
    Indeed. The argument in favour of not sinking (by such military geniuses as Anthony Wedgewood Benn and Jeremy Corbyn IIRC) was that the Belgrano was sailing away from the Falklands (they do not understand that ships regularly change course, particularly in a war zone)! This was perhaps Conqueror's only opportunity to sink her, and it was deemed that Belgrano was perhaps part of a pincer movement on the Task Force. Following the sinking the Argentine Navy (which was a credible threat) returned to port. The sinking was probably pivotal in the whole war. The loss of life was tragic, but the responsibility rests with those who ordered the invasion of the Falklands in the first place.
    The pincers movement was the reason for the attack - it was known to the UK government (as mentioned).

    What is often not mentioned was that the Belgrano's escorts were attacking everything they thought could be a submarine contact with live weapons. They literally were shooting first.
This discussion has been closed.