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

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  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Alistair said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    Since Bitcoin has come back from the dead far more times than Jesus, I'd give it a few more years before declaring the party over.

    The psychology of people like you really fascinates me. You're one of the most hardcore libertarians on this site, yet you don't see the value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant.

    You can argue that its true value is far less than its current value, but you seem to delight in every dip in the market and take every possible opportunity to crow that it's "dead" (hint: it's not).

    What is it about bitcoin that makes you so angry?

    Do you get angry about people paying $1800 for a bar of gold? Or 10k for a Rolex watch?
    The only person using the word "dead" is you. I have never used that word to the best of my recollection, all I have ever and consistently said is that it is worse than a pyramid scheme. Only you seem to be bothered by Bitcoins supposed "death" or not, I'm more bothered by whether its a scam or not. Scams can go on almost forever without ever dying if more people are able to fall victim to fraudsters.

    I do see the theoretical possible value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant. The problem is that Bitcoin is not that. Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire so Bitcoin is neither censorship resistant, nor permissionless, nor decentralised and ultimately nor is it really private money either.

    I don't get angry about people paying for a bar of gold, or a Rolex watch. People aren't scammed into buying those as people are scammed into buying cryto "currencies".

    What makes me angry about Bitcoin is I don't like fraudsters and that is what Bitcoin has evolved into, at the cost of burning enough fuel to power a medium sized country.
    I would suggest that "eventually it all comes to an end" (your words) and "dead" are synonymous with each other.

    Gold is arguably the better private money - it's certainly more battle tested. But bitcoin is an attempt to do the same thing digitally. That's why it has value - the only question we haven't found out yet is what that value is.

    With regards to energy...

    We expend energy digging gold out of the ground (and storing it, err, back in the ground)
    The dollar is backed by gas guzzling warships and jet planes. And human life, when those things are used.

    People adorn their homes with Christmas lights every year around December.
    Drive cars daily, on journeys they could walk.
    Stream hours of endless crap on netflix, the carbon footprint of which is about 71g per hour.

    And yet bitcoin attracts far more ire than any of these things. I don't get it.
    It's because Bitcoin is a useless sack of shit.

    It cannot achieve any of its stated aims - by design.

    The good parts of bitcoin are not new, the new parts of bitcoin are not good.
    Always knew you were an ETH man.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Nigelb said:

    Integrity latest lol
    #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts, the parliamentary website shows https://t.co/4qixsYWTtF
    Morning all

    What !!!!!!
    I’m thinking Labours struggles in polls is related to Tory’s successful Sir Beer Korma attacks on Labours front bench. Boris popularity dipped a little bit when he partied in lockdown, Labours popularity can be dipping a little bit too for partying in lockdown.
    To clarify the leader of the opposition is under a criminal investigation by Durham Police and is now under investigation by the Commons sleaze commissioner

    By his own words you would have to ask why hasn't he resigned ?
    Because he is not accused of being a serial liar in statements to the House of Commons.
    He and his deputy have both put their careers on the line by saying that they will resign should they receive FPNs - and indeed Rayner has gone further by saying that they would be unlikely to seek re-election thereafter.

    They've answered that direct question several times. Why do you keep asking it ?
    Because BigG is a member of Bozo's tory party and is desperately clinging on to the hope that the other parties are as dodgy as Bozo and co are.
  • 'Sir Beer Korma' makes Starmer seem more of a LAD than he actually is - Labour should be using it to their advantage
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Oh dear oh dear ! :D
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Peter Schiff
    @PeterSchiff
    With #Bitcoin dropping below key support at $25K and #Ethereum below 1300, the combined market cap of nearly 20K #cryptos has broken below $1 trillion, from a record-high of $3 trillion. That's $2 trillion down, $1 trillion left to go. The last trillion will be the most painful.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    edited June 2022
    Nigelb said:

    Integrity latest lol
    #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts, the parliamentary website shows https://t.co/4qixsYWTtF
    Morning all

    What !!!!!!
    I’m thinking Labours struggles in polls is related to Tory’s successful Sir Beer Korma attacks on Labours front bench. Boris popularity dipped a little bit when he partied in lockdown, Labours popularity can be dipping a little bit too for partying in lockdown.
    To clarify the leader of the opposition is under a criminal investigation by Durham Police and is now under investigation by the Commons sleaze commissioner

    By his own words you would have to ask why hasn't he resigned ?
    Because he is not accused of being a serial liar in statements to the House of Commons.
    He and his deputy have both put their careers on the line by saying that they will resign should they receive FPNs - and indeed Rayner has gone further by saying that they would be unlikely to seek re-election thereafter.

    They've answered that direct question several times. Why do you keep asking it ?
    Because, in spite of frequent allegations by my fellow Essex Man to the contrary, Mr G is a Conservative, and happy to draw attention of Labour 'faults'.
    To be fair, he's a 'traditional' Conservative, not a Johnsonite!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587

    Dura_Ace said:

    DavidL said:



    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.

    The tories cancelled the Warrior CSP so Lockheed sacked everybody involved with heavy armour at Ampthill.

    You've got the repurposed forklift factory at Merthyr Tydfil that's fucking up Ajax. Probably no capacity there.

    Rheinmetall-BAE at Bristol are busy painting giant Union Jacks on everything as part of the Challenger 3 project.

    The UK has very little capability or capacity to make armour or artillery. The government needs to worry more about equipping its own armed forces competently before fretting about fucking Ukraine.
    Golly, I hadn’t realised that Germany has a 55% stake in the UK’s MBT programme, gammons choking on their kedgeree everywhere. The Cadwalladr verdict should finish them off.
    The MBT is hardly a priority for UK defence needs.

    In terms of land forces, I'd put well in front of it replacing the 155mm artillery (the much delayed 'Mobile Fires"), and buying more MRLS - together with a lot more ammunition for both.

    Of course Rheinmetall owns 55% of the munitions production, too.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,004
    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Integrity latest lol
    #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts, the parliamentary website shows https://t.co/4qixsYWTtF
    Morning all

    What !!!!!!
    I’m thinking Labours struggles in polls is related to Tory’s successful Sir Beer Korma attacks on Labours front bench. Boris popularity dipped a little bit when he partied in lockdown, Labours popularity can be dipping a little bit too for partying in lockdown.
    To clarify the leader of the opposition is under a criminal investigation by Durham Police and is now under investigation by the Commons sleaze commissioner

    By his own words you would have to ask why hasn't he resigned ?
    Because he is not accused of being a serial liar in statements to the House of Commons.
    He and his deputy have both put their careers on the line by saying that they will resign should they receive FPNs - and indeed Rayner has gone further by saying that they would be unlikely to seek re-election thereafter.

    They've answered that direct question several times. Why do you keep asking it ?
    Because BigG is a member of Bozo's tory party and is desperately clinging on to the hope that the other parties are as dodgy as Bozo and co are.
    I am not a member of the conservative party but I do support the 148 in their desire to remove Boris and focus on winning the next GE
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Draw price isn't really moving. Is Trent bridge going to be hit by rain ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,290
    edited June 2022
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    We are doing WAR by proxy. It's not working.
    Yeah, we need the full on, full fat, full monty: WAR. Mobilisation. Troop Trains. Internment for Remainers. Small boys running around with newspapers shouting “cor blimey it’s war guvnor”. Ladies handing out white feathers. Roger in a concentration camp doing broadcasts for the enemy. Militias forming in Kent. Rationing. Klaxons. WAR

    Certainly worked in 1939. Got rid of the last of the Depression.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Integrity latest lol
    #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts, the parliamentary website shows https://t.co/4qixsYWTtF
    Morning all

    What !!!!!!
    I’m thinking Labours struggles in polls is related to Tory’s successful Sir Beer Korma attacks on Labours front bench. Boris popularity dipped a little bit when he partied in lockdown, Labours popularity can be dipping a little bit too for partying in lockdown.
    To clarify the leader of the opposition is under a criminal investigation by Durham Police and is now under investigation by the Commons sleaze commissioner

    By his own words you would have to ask why hasn't he resigned ?
    Because he is not accused of being a serial liar in statements to the House of Commons.
    He and his deputy have both put their careers on the line by saying that they will resign should they receive FPNs - and indeed Rayner has gone further by saying that they would be unlikely to seek re-election thereafter.

    They've answered that direct question several times. Why do you keep asking it ?
    Because BigG is a member of Bozo's tory party and is desperately clinging on to the hope that the other parties are as dodgy as Bozo and co are.
    I am not a member of the conservative party but I do support the 148 in their desire to remove Boris and focus on winning the next GE
    My mistake for which I apologise.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    darkage said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    With bitcoin, the bubble evidently has a history of reflating itself. You can accept that it is a speculative bubble and still buy in to it. Bitcoin has an ubiquity and function as a currency that other cryptocurrencies lack, so it is not without fundamental value. But you are basically speculating on the behaviour of other people.

    It is without fundamental value, its got no real function as a currency.

    The very volatility of Bitcoin that has made it such an "investment" completely contradicts its supposed worth as a "currency".

    The technology isn't there for it to be a currency. Visa are capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, Bitcoin is capable of handling single digits of transactions per second and it does so consuming enough electricity to power a medium sized country and it couldn't possibly scale up to anything like the scale needed.

    Hence people have tried to come up with all kinds of ever more bizarre currencies etc that piggyback onto Bitcoin's blockchain but they inevitably end the supposed "decentralised" nature of it which is why when things like Luna or Celsius go bust that so many victims of the scam get taken down with it.

    The technology behind Bitcoin may have some worthwhile uses in the future. Bitcoin itself does not.
    I expect central bank digital currencies to become mainstream fairly soon. The advantages are obvious.

    The problem for crypto-currency adherents is that there’s no driving force behind owning them except the hope that “number go up” & they’ll be able to sell out to the next buyer at a higher price. On a bubble to bubble cycle that has worked out very well for early buyers, but the obvious question is: who’s left? Is there a part of the world that hasn’t bought in yet, that can still be convinced to do so? Because if not, there’s no floor under the price - the only way is all the way back down to where it started.

    Gold has actual industrial use to put a floor under the price. Crypto-currencies have nothing at all except the faith that “number go up”. Once that’s gone, the party is over.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Pulpstar said:

    Draw price isn't really moving. Is Trent bridge going to be hit by rain ?

    5 and a bit sessions for 22 wickets is a big ask on this pitch.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,290
    Enough of this weak and piping time of peace
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748
    Nigelb said:

    .

    darkage said:

    Nigelb said:

    darkage said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    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.
    That hardly negates @Cicero 's argument.
    If we're going to send Ukraine weapons, we should send suffiecnet to defeat the invasion. It's not complicated.

    Stop Putin now, and there is sufficient time to replace what's sent.
    The strategy seems to be to provide enough weapons to Ukraine to make things difficult for Putin and to hold Russia back. Not for Ukraine to actually win the war. The strategic aim is possibly to force Russia to agree to a ceasefire and to deter similar invasions in the future.
    That's deluded, particularly since it has already been proven not to work.
    The only real deterrence is completely to defeat the invasion.

    Anything else is just a pause, which also concedes more territory to Russia in the meantime.
    It is easy enough for people to say 'just ship whatever is needed to Ukraine', but it is high stakes stuff - basically the west declaring war on Russia.
    Except it is not.
    It is the west supplying weapons to an independent state which has been invaded.
    Of course. But why does the truth matter? It is all about perception. If Russia is in a quagmire in Ukraine, and Ukraine keep pleading every day for more weapons; Russia cannot credibly say that it is at war with NATO. The aim is just to make things difficult for Russia.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,004
    530 for 9
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,756
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    DavidL said:



    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.

    The tories cancelled the Warrior CSP so Lockheed sacked everybody involved with heavy armour at Ampthill.

    You've got the repurposed forklift factory at Merthyr Tydfil that's fucking up Ajax. Probably no capacity there.

    Rheinmetall-BAE at Bristol are busy painting giant Union Jacks on everything as part of the Challenger 3 project.

    The UK has very little capability or capacity to make armour or artillery. The government needs to worry more about equipping its own armed forces competently before fretting about fucking Ukraine.
    Golly, I hadn’t realised that Germany has a 55% stake in the UK’s MBT programme, gammons choking on their kedgeree everywhere. The Cadwalladr verdict should finish them off.
    The MBT is hardly a priority for UK defence needs.

    In terms of land forces, I'd put well in front of it replacing the 155mm artillery (the much delayed 'Mobile Fires"), and buying more MRLS - together with a lot more ammunition for both.

    Of course Rheinmetall owns 55% of the munitions production, too.
    True, but I’d say a major revision of views on the strategic battlefield value of MBTs is quite recent!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Well Bitcoin was at $28k last night, went below $25k a couple of hours ago and is now below $24k.

    24% down in the last week.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Phil said:

    darkage said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    With bitcoin, the bubble evidently has a history of reflating itself. You can accept that it is a speculative bubble and still buy in to it. Bitcoin has an ubiquity and function as a currency that other cryptocurrencies lack, so it is not without fundamental value. But you are basically speculating on the behaviour of other people.

    It is without fundamental value, its got no real function as a currency.

    The very volatility of Bitcoin that has made it such an "investment" completely contradicts its supposed worth as a "currency".

    The technology isn't there for it to be a currency. Visa are capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, Bitcoin is capable of handling single digits of transactions per second and it does so consuming enough electricity to power a medium sized country and it couldn't possibly scale up to anything like the scale needed.

    Hence people have tried to come up with all kinds of ever more bizarre currencies etc that piggyback onto Bitcoin's blockchain but they inevitably end the supposed "decentralised" nature of it which is why when things like Luna or Celsius go bust that so many victims of the scam get taken down with it.

    The technology behind Bitcoin may have some worthwhile uses in the future. Bitcoin itself does not.
    I expect central bank digital currencies to become mainstream fairly soon. The advantages are obvious.

    The problem for crypto-currency adherents is that there’s no driving force behind owning them except the hope that “number go up” & they’ll be able to sell out to the next buyer at a higher price. On a bubble to bubble cycle that has worked out very well for early buyers, but the obvious question is: who’s left? Is there a part of the world that hasn’t bought in yet, that can still be convinced to do so? Because if not, there’s no floor under the price - the only way is all the way back down to where it started.

    Gold has actual industrial use to put a floor under the price. Crypto-currencies have nothing at all except the faith that “number go up”. Once that’s gone, the party is over.
    Not quite true - there is some utility in crypto being able to transform money in 1 currency / country to another currency / country outside of normal banking channels for various reasons.

  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,093
    Leon said:

    Enough of this weak and piping time of peace

    Can't we be like Switzerland?
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,851

    Nigelb said:

    Integrity latest lol
    #Breaking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over potential breaches of rules on earnings and gifts, the parliamentary website shows https://t.co/4qixsYWTtF
    Morning all

    What !!!!!!
    I’m thinking Labours struggles in polls is related to Tory’s successful Sir Beer Korma attacks on Labours front bench. Boris popularity dipped a little bit when he partied in lockdown, Labours popularity can be dipping a little bit too for partying in lockdown.
    To clarify the leader of the opposition is under a criminal investigation by Durham Police and is now under investigation by the Commons sleaze commissioner

    By his own words you would have to ask why hasn't he resigned ?
    Because he is not accused of being a serial liar in statements to the House of Commons.
    He and his deputy have both put their careers on the line by saying that they will resign should they receive FPNs - and indeed Rayner has gone further by saying that they would be unlikely to seek re-election thereafter.

    They've answered that direct question several times. Why do you keep asking it ?
    Because, in spite of frequent allegations by my fellow Essex Man to the contrary, Mr G is a Conservative, and happy to draw attention of Labour 'faults'.
    To be fair, he's a 'traditional' Conservative, not a Johnsonite!
    Its incumbant upon us all to laugh at and criticise all the dodginess and allegations of dodginess and investigations into potential dodginess.
    I find BJs actions angered me, SKS misfortune i just find hilarious as hypocrites getting theirs always is.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    23 to get and Anderson and Leach in.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Sandpit said:

    Well Bitcoin was at $28k last night, went below $25k a couple of hours ago and is now below $24k.

    24% down in the last week.

    Given when the Celsius announcement was made I don't think we've seen the reaction from the US yet - and that's going to add to the fun.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    F1: thundery showers currently forecast for Friday. Worth keeping an eye to see if that drifts into Saturday or Sunday.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    MaxPB said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Draw price isn't really moving. Is Trent bridge going to be hit by rain ?

    5 and a bit sessions for 22 wickets is a big ask on this pitch.
    I've locked £30 profit with £500 incoming should NZ win.
  • Phil said:

    darkage said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    With bitcoin, the bubble evidently has a history of reflating itself. You can accept that it is a speculative bubble and still buy in to it. Bitcoin has an ubiquity and function as a currency that other cryptocurrencies lack, so it is not without fundamental value. But you are basically speculating on the behaviour of other people.

    It is without fundamental value, its got no real function as a currency.

    The very volatility of Bitcoin that has made it such an "investment" completely contradicts its supposed worth as a "currency".

    The technology isn't there for it to be a currency. Visa are capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, Bitcoin is capable of handling single digits of transactions per second and it does so consuming enough electricity to power a medium sized country and it couldn't possibly scale up to anything like the scale needed.

    Hence people have tried to come up with all kinds of ever more bizarre currencies etc that piggyback onto Bitcoin's blockchain but they inevitably end the supposed "decentralised" nature of it which is why when things like Luna or Celsius go bust that so many victims of the scam get taken down with it.

    The technology behind Bitcoin may have some worthwhile uses in the future. Bitcoin itself does not.
    I expect central bank digital currencies to become mainstream fairly soon. The advantages are obvious.

    The problem for crypto-currency adherents is that there’s no driving force behind owning them except the hope that “number go up” & they’ll be able to sell out to the next buyer at a higher price. On a bubble to bubble cycle that has worked out very well for early buyers, but the obvious question is: who’s left? Is there a part of the world that hasn’t bought in yet, that can still be convinced to do so? Because if not, there’s no floor under the price - the only way is all the way back down to where it started.

    Gold has actual industrial use to put a floor under the price. Crypto-currencies have nothing at all except the faith that “number go up”. Once that’s gone, the party is over.
    Precisely. Some people think its "digital gold" without realising that gold is what it is, because gold is useful.

    As time goes by, gold is becoming more useful not less too. Its very useful in modern electronic, its very useful in space and satellites too, and not just for the electronics.

    Gold has very useful physical properties for industrial uses. It can be used to store wealth, precisely because it is so useful.

    Crypto does not. Its not a store of wealth, because not only is there nothing there other than "number go up" faith but there is nothing to pay for the cost of maintaining the ecosystem. Without a means to acquire funding to maintain payments, how can it operate as a so-called "currency" even without its technical limitations as to why it doesn't work?

    There may be future uses for blockchains as a technology, but those blockchains won't be Bitcoin itself.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,290
    One small mercy at least


    “The Duke of York will not appear in public in the Garter Day service at Windsor Castle today after a last-minute intervention by the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge”

    (Times ££)

    If London Bridge should ever fall, then I predict that will be it for Andrew. He will never be seen in public, ever again
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    DavidL said:



    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.

    The tories cancelled the Warrior CSP so Lockheed sacked everybody involved with heavy armour at Ampthill.

    You've got the repurposed forklift factory at Merthyr Tydfil that's fucking up Ajax. Probably no capacity there.

    Rheinmetall-BAE at Bristol are busy painting giant Union Jacks on everything as part of the Challenger 3 project.

    The UK has very little capability or capacity to make armour or artillery. The government needs to worry more about equipping its own armed forces competently before fretting about fucking Ukraine.
    Golly, I hadn’t realised that Germany has a 55% stake in the UK’s MBT programme, gammons choking on their kedgeree everywhere. The Cadwalladr verdict should finish them off.
    The MBT is hardly a priority for UK defence needs.

    In terms of land forces, I'd put well in front of it replacing the 155mm artillery (the much delayed 'Mobile Fires"), and buying more MRLS - together with a lot more ammunition for both.

    Of course Rheinmetall owns 55% of the munitions production, too.
    True, but I’d say a major revision of views on the strategic battlefield value of MBTs is quite recent!
    In the build up to Gulf One everyone sent their SF over and whoever the general in charge was said FFS I don't want any more of these units I need tanks.

    As Frank Kitson put it - the next engagement will be unforeseen.
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited June 2022
    Anyone have any tips on not getting out LBW, I think my problem is that I keep unintentionally going in front of the stumps with my other leg, balance issue?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    We are doing WAR by proxy. It's not working.
    Yeah, we need the full on, full fat, full monty: WAR. Mobilisation. Troop Trains. Internment for Remainers. Small boys running around with newspapers shouting “cor blimey it’s war guvnor”. Ladies handing out white feathers. Roger in a concentration camp doing broadcasts for the enemy. Militias forming in Kent. Rationing. Klaxons. WAR

    Certainly worked in 1939. Got rid of the last of the Depression.
    Worked for the US; impoverished the rest of the world for a decade or more.
    War is immensely destructive of economies, even if select groups do well out of it.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    WTF does one do in Yerevan? I’ve wandered around a bit. I’ve looked at the right wing “Revolution”. I’ve had a glass of nice cold Armenian white wine. I’ve seen a Scotsman in a kilt by the ugly, Soviet Era Opera House (is there a footie match?)

    Now I’ve basically run out of shit to do. Tbilisi it ain’t. Help!

    Yerevan a bad time?
    Google says there's a brandy factory tour.
    Noto was worth the detour, thanks. Now at the pantalica necropolis which is seriously, gobekli tepe old, about to disturb the natives by disrobing for a swim
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,883
    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    eek said:

    Phil said:

    darkage said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    With bitcoin, the bubble evidently has a history of reflating itself. You can accept that it is a speculative bubble and still buy in to it. Bitcoin has an ubiquity and function as a currency that other cryptocurrencies lack, so it is not without fundamental value. But you are basically speculating on the behaviour of other people.

    It is without fundamental value, its got no real function as a currency.

    The very volatility of Bitcoin that has made it such an "investment" completely contradicts its supposed worth as a "currency".

    The technology isn't there for it to be a currency. Visa are capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, Bitcoin is capable of handling single digits of transactions per second and it does so consuming enough electricity to power a medium sized country and it couldn't possibly scale up to anything like the scale needed.

    Hence people have tried to come up with all kinds of ever more bizarre currencies etc that piggyback onto Bitcoin's blockchain but they inevitably end the supposed "decentralised" nature of it which is why when things like Luna or Celsius go bust that so many victims of the scam get taken down with it.

    The technology behind Bitcoin may have some worthwhile uses in the future. Bitcoin itself does not.
    I expect central bank digital currencies to become mainstream fairly soon. The advantages are obvious.

    The problem for crypto-currency adherents is that there’s no driving force behind owning them except the hope that “number go up” & they’ll be able to sell out to the next buyer at a higher price. On a bubble to bubble cycle that has worked out very well for early buyers, but the obvious question is: who’s left? Is there a part of the world that hasn’t bought in yet, that can still be convinced to do so? Because if not, there’s no floor under the price - the only way is all the way back down to where it started.

    Gold has actual industrial use to put a floor under the price. Crypto-currencies have nothing at all except the faith that “number go up”. Once that’s gone, the party is over.
    Not quite true - there is some utility in crypto being able to transform money in 1 currency / country to another currency / country outside of normal banking channels for various reasons.

    Fair. Mostly illegal reasons of course!

    You can run the numbers on the size of the international money laundering trade, how much that might go via BTC & how long the individuals concerned will hold the BTC they use & generate a value for BTC that way.

    It’s hard to push large sums of dodgy money through BTC these days though, so I’m not sure how well that will stand up in the future.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited June 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Well Bitcoin was at $28k last night, went below $25k a couple of hours ago and is now below $24k.

    24% down in the last week.

    I'm not sure why people even keep track of it as though there is some kind of u/l that it should somehow relate to. It is a random walk with so many factors determining its level that it really is not worth even considering as an investment asset.
  • Anyone have any tips on not getting out LBW, I think my problem is that I keep unintentionally going in front of the stumps with my other leg, balance issue?

    Hit the ball with your bat. 😉
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    DavidL said:



    I agree about defence spending too but I am wondering what our capacity might be.

    The tories cancelled the Warrior CSP so Lockheed sacked everybody involved with heavy armour at Ampthill.

    You've got the repurposed forklift factory at Merthyr Tydfil that's fucking up Ajax. Probably no capacity there.

    Rheinmetall-BAE at Bristol are busy painting giant Union Jacks on everything as part of the Challenger 3 project.

    The UK has very little capability or capacity to make armour or artillery. The government needs to worry more about equipping its own armed forces competently before fretting about fucking Ukraine.
    Golly, I hadn’t realised that Germany has a 55% stake in the UK’s MBT programme, gammons choking on their kedgeree everywhere. The Cadwalladr verdict should finish them off.
    The MBT is hardly a priority for UK defence needs.

    In terms of land forces, I'd put well in front of it replacing the 155mm artillery (the much delayed 'Mobile Fires"), and buying more MRLS - together with a lot more ammunition for both.

    Of course Rheinmetall owns 55% of the munitions production, too.
    True, but I’d say a major revision of views on the strategic battlefield value of MBTs is quite recent!
    Been questionable for a while - more that the balance of evidence has shifted even more dramatically against them.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Jimmy's batting pushing NZ price out :D
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well Bitcoin was at $28k last night, went below $25k a couple of hours ago and is now below $24k.

    24% down in the last week.

    Given when the Celsius announcement was made I don't think we've seen the reaction from the US yet - and that's going to add to the fun.
    Yup! 7am in New York now, the big selloff is probably just about to start.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    Since Bitcoin has come back from the dead far more times than Jesus, I'd give it a few more years before declaring the party over.

    The psychology of people like you really fascinates me. You're one of the most hardcore libertarians on this site, yet you don't see the value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant.

    You can argue that its true value is far less than its current value, but you seem to delight in every dip in the market and take every possible opportunity to crow that it's "dead" (hint: it's not).

    What is it about bitcoin that makes you so angry?

    Do you get angry about people paying $1800 for a bar of gold? Or 10k for a Rolex watch?
    The only person using the word "dead" is you. I have never used that word to the best of my recollection, all I have ever and consistently said is that it is worse than a pyramid scheme. Only you seem to be bothered by Bitcoins supposed "death" or not, I'm more bothered by whether its a scam or not. Scams can go on almost forever without ever dying if more people are able to fall victim to fraudsters.

    I do see the theoretical possible value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant. The problem is that Bitcoin is not that. Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire so Bitcoin is neither censorship resistant, nor permissionless, nor decentralised and ultimately nor is it really private money either.

    I don't get angry about people paying for a bar of gold, or a Rolex watch. People aren't scammed into buying those as people are scammed into buying cryto "currencies".

    What makes me angry about Bitcoin is I don't like fraudsters and that is what Bitcoin has evolved into, at the cost of burning enough fuel to power a medium sized country.
    I would suggest that "eventually it all comes to an end" (your words) and "dead" are synonymous with each other.

    Gold is arguably the better private money - it's certainly more battle tested. But bitcoin is an attempt to do the same thing digitally. That's why it has value - the only question we haven't found out yet is what that value is.

    With regards to energy...

    We expend energy digging gold out of the ground (and storing it, err, back in the ground)
    The dollar is backed by gas guzzling warships and jet planes. And human life, when those things are used.

    People adorn their homes with Christmas lights every year around December.
    Drive cars daily, on journeys they could walk.
    Stream hours of endless crap on netflix, the carbon footprint of which is about 71g per hour.

    And yet bitcoin attracts far more ire than any of these things. I don't get it.
    I would not, I would suggest "eventually it all comes to an end" and "mortal" could be said to be synonymous with each other if you want to stretch that point, but dead means something completely different. Eventually I will come to an end (die), that is a truism, but I am not dead.

    Gold is valuable because it is useful. It is a commodity that is a useful means of wealth protection and financial exchange, only because of all its other uses. Its not just rare (something Bitcoin sought to replicate) but its useful and desired for jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines, dentistry and much more

    Behind gold there is a useful product behind it, that is why you can store wealth in gold, because you know that the gold will be worth something in the future, because in the future people will still want jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines etc

    That use does not exist for Bitcoin. All Bitcoin has a future of is more people willing to bet on the future of Bitcoin. That is a Ponzi scheme, and worse it is a negative equity one.

    Yes we expend energy digging gold out of the ground, but we don't do so purely for the sake of it, but because people have a desire for it because of its uses.

    There are sane reasons to use gold as a means of financial exchange. Bitcoin is an economically and scientifically illiterate attempt to digitise that which preys on the uneducated and greedy.
    Then let us say that you are actively willing for the current drop in price to be terminal for Bitcoin's future. (Hint: it won't be).

    The great thing about bitcoin is I remember having these exact same conversations in 2018, when the price fell from 20k to 4k....

    I look forward to having this exact same conversation with you in four years time when it plunges from 400k down to 80k, etc...

    That is the point of the bitcoin obituaries site I linked to earlier. To prove how, again and again and again, the same old talking points about bitcoin keep coming round.

    All we need now is for someone to shout "tulips!" and we have a full house.

    But all of this misses the point. Bitcoin is an attempt to fix the problem that with fiat currency that you can print bazillions of it out of thin air. Inflation always and everywhere being a monetary phenomenon, and all that.

    You can argue that gold does the job better - and I'd be behind you on that one.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well Bitcoin was at $28k last night, went below $25k a couple of hours ago and is now below $24k.

    24% down in the last week.

    Given when the Celsius announcement was made I don't think we've seen the reaction from the US yet - and that's going to add to the fun.
    A small consolation for the state of my pension fund is the popcorn moment of watching the crypto world imploding.

    Celsius this week; Tether next?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited June 2022
    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
    It is also the world's only hygiene, as Marinetti pointed out.

    (Shortly before the Futurists were all but wiped out in WWI thereby changing their views on the beneficial nature of war.)
  • Phil said:

    eek said:

    Phil said:

    darkage said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    With bitcoin, the bubble evidently has a history of reflating itself. You can accept that it is a speculative bubble and still buy in to it. Bitcoin has an ubiquity and function as a currency that other cryptocurrencies lack, so it is not without fundamental value. But you are basically speculating on the behaviour of other people.

    It is without fundamental value, its got no real function as a currency.

    The very volatility of Bitcoin that has made it such an "investment" completely contradicts its supposed worth as a "currency".

    The technology isn't there for it to be a currency. Visa are capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, Bitcoin is capable of handling single digits of transactions per second and it does so consuming enough electricity to power a medium sized country and it couldn't possibly scale up to anything like the scale needed.

    Hence people have tried to come up with all kinds of ever more bizarre currencies etc that piggyback onto Bitcoin's blockchain but they inevitably end the supposed "decentralised" nature of it which is why when things like Luna or Celsius go bust that so many victims of the scam get taken down with it.

    The technology behind Bitcoin may have some worthwhile uses in the future. Bitcoin itself does not.
    I expect central bank digital currencies to become mainstream fairly soon. The advantages are obvious.

    The problem for crypto-currency adherents is that there’s no driving force behind owning them except the hope that “number go up” & they’ll be able to sell out to the next buyer at a higher price. On a bubble to bubble cycle that has worked out very well for early buyers, but the obvious question is: who’s left? Is there a part of the world that hasn’t bought in yet, that can still be convinced to do so? Because if not, there’s no floor under the price - the only way is all the way back down to where it started.

    Gold has actual industrial use to put a floor under the price. Crypto-currencies have nothing at all except the faith that “number go up”. Once that’s gone, the party is over.
    Not quite true - there is some utility in crypto being able to transform money in 1 currency / country to another currency / country outside of normal banking channels for various reasons.

    Fair. Mostly illegal reasons of course!

    You can run the numbers on the size of the international money laundering trade, how much that might go via BTC & how long the individuals concerned will hold the BTC they use & generate a value for BTC that way.

    It’s hard to push large sums of dodgy money through BTC these days though, so I’m not sure how well that will stand up in the future.
    If you wanted to design an illegal "currency" whereby your ill gotten gains can be "laundered" then designing an open system whereby if the authorities can connect one transaction to you, they can also see every transaction that wallet has ever done might not be the wisest system to design.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    Since Bitcoin has come back from the dead far more times than Jesus, I'd give it a few more years before declaring the party over.

    The psychology of people like you really fascinates me. You're one of the most hardcore libertarians on this site, yet you don't see the value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant.

    You can argue that its true value is far less than its current value, but you seem to delight in every dip in the market and take every possible opportunity to crow that it's "dead" (hint: it's not).

    What is it about bitcoin that makes you so angry?

    Do you get angry about people paying $1800 for a bar of gold? Or 10k for a Rolex watch?
    The only person using the word "dead" is you. I have never used that word to the best of my recollection, all I have ever and consistently said is that it is worse than a pyramid scheme. Only you seem to be bothered by Bitcoins supposed "death" or not, I'm more bothered by whether its a scam or not. Scams can go on almost forever without ever dying if more people are able to fall victim to fraudsters.

    I do see the theoretical possible value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant. The problem is that Bitcoin is not that. Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire so Bitcoin is neither censorship resistant, nor permissionless, nor decentralised and ultimately nor is it really private money either.

    I don't get angry about people paying for a bar of gold, or a Rolex watch. People aren't scammed into buying those as people are scammed into buying cryto "currencies".

    What makes me angry about Bitcoin is I don't like fraudsters and that is what Bitcoin has evolved into, at the cost of burning enough fuel to power a medium sized country.
    I would suggest that "eventually it all comes to an end" (your words) and "dead" are synonymous with each other.

    Gold is arguably the better private money - it's certainly more battle tested. But bitcoin is an attempt to do the same thing digitally. That's why it has value - the only question we haven't found out yet is what that value is.

    With regards to energy...

    We expend energy digging gold out of the ground (and storing it, err, back in the ground)
    The dollar is backed by gas guzzling warships and jet planes. And human life, when those things are used.

    People adorn their homes with Christmas lights every year around December.
    Drive cars daily, on journeys they could walk.
    Stream hours of endless crap on netflix, the carbon footprint of which is about 71g per hour.

    And yet bitcoin attracts far more ire than any of these things. I don't get it.
    I would not, I would suggest "eventually it all comes to an end" and "mortal" could be said to be synonymous with each other if you want to stretch that point, but dead means something completely different. Eventually I will come to an end (die), that is a truism, but I am not dead.

    Gold is valuable because it is useful. It is a commodity that is a useful means of wealth protection and financial exchange, only because of all its other uses. Its not just rare (something Bitcoin sought to replicate) but its useful and desired for jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines, dentistry and much more

    Behind gold there is a useful product behind it, that is why you can store wealth in gold, because you know that the gold will be worth something in the future, because in the future people will still want jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines etc

    That use does not exist for Bitcoin. All Bitcoin has a future of is more people willing to bet on the future of Bitcoin. That is a Ponzi scheme, and worse it is a negative equity one.

    Yes we expend energy digging gold out of the ground, but we don't do so purely for the sake of it, but because people have a desire for it because of its uses.

    There are sane reasons to use gold as a means of financial exchange. Bitcoin is an economically and scientifically illiterate attempt to digitise that which preys on the uneducated and greedy.
    Then let us say that you are actively willing for the current drop in price to be terminal for Bitcoin's future. (Hint: it won't be).

    The great thing about bitcoin is I remember having these exact same conversations in 2018, when the price fell from 20k to 4k....

    I look forward to having this exact same conversation with you in four years time when it plunges from 400k down to 80k, etc...

    That is the point of the bitcoin obituaries site I linked to earlier. To prove how, again and again and again, the same old talking points about bitcoin keep coming round.

    All we need now is for someone to shout "tulips!" and we have a full house.

    But all of this misses the point. Bitcoin is an attempt to fix the problem that with fiat currency that you can print bazillions of it out of thin air. Inflation always and everywhere being a monetary phenomenon, and all that.

    You can argue that gold does the job better - and I'd be behind you on that one.
    If BTC survives then I predict that miners will collude to change the protocol so that their inflationary seignorage continued indefinitely. It’ll cause a BTC split, but the majority will be forced to go where the mining hash power is, especially if the miners threaten to cripple any breakaway attempts by force mining 0 transaction blocks ahead of any breakaway group.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    Plunder.

    https://twitter.com/expatua/status/1536296419170127873
    In the Kherson region, the Russian military is forcing the population to hand over 70% of the harvest to Crimean buyers and banning the export.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Andersen and Boult toe to toe for most runs ever by an eleven.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,160
    edited June 2022
    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    Since Bitcoin has come back from the dead far more times than Jesus, I'd give it a few more years before declaring the party over.

    The psychology of people like you really fascinates me. You're one of the most hardcore libertarians on this site, yet you don't see the value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant.

    You can argue that its true value is far less than its current value, but you seem to delight in every dip in the market and take every possible opportunity to crow that it's "dead" (hint: it's not).

    What is it about bitcoin that makes you so angry?

    Do you get angry about people paying $1800 for a bar of gold? Or 10k for a Rolex watch?
    The only person using the word "dead" is you. I have never used that word to the best of my recollection, all I have ever and consistently said is that it is worse than a pyramid scheme. Only you seem to be bothered by Bitcoins supposed "death" or not, I'm more bothered by whether its a scam or not. Scams can go on almost forever without ever dying if more people are able to fall victim to fraudsters.

    I do see the theoretical possible value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant. The problem is that Bitcoin is not that. Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire so Bitcoin is neither censorship resistant, nor permissionless, nor decentralised and ultimately nor is it really private money either.

    I don't get angry about people paying for a bar of gold, or a Rolex watch. People aren't scammed into buying those as people are scammed into buying cryto "currencies".

    What makes me angry about Bitcoin is I don't like fraudsters and that is what Bitcoin has evolved into, at the cost of burning enough fuel to power a medium sized country.
    I would suggest that "eventually it all comes to an end" (your words) and "dead" are synonymous with each other.

    Gold is arguably the better private money - it's certainly more battle tested. But bitcoin is an attempt to do the same thing digitally. That's why it has value - the only question we haven't found out yet is what that value is.

    With regards to energy...

    We expend energy digging gold out of the ground (and storing it, err, back in the ground)
    The dollar is backed by gas guzzling warships and jet planes. And human life, when those things are used.

    People adorn their homes with Christmas lights every year around December.
    Drive cars daily, on journeys they could walk.
    Stream hours of endless crap on netflix, the carbon footprint of which is about 71g per hour.

    And yet bitcoin attracts far more ire than any of these things. I don't get it.
    I would not, I would suggest "eventually it all comes to an end" and "mortal" could be said to be synonymous with each other if you want to stretch that point, but dead means something completely different. Eventually I will come to an end (die), that is a truism, but I am not dead.

    Gold is valuable because it is useful. It is a commodity that is a useful means of wealth protection and financial exchange, only because of all its other uses. Its not just rare (something Bitcoin sought to replicate) but its useful and desired for jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines, dentistry and much more

    Behind gold there is a useful product behind it, that is why you can store wealth in gold, because you know that the gold will be worth something in the future, because in the future people will still want jewellery, medals, electronics, medicines etc

    That use does not exist for Bitcoin. All Bitcoin has a future of is more people willing to bet on the future of Bitcoin. That is a Ponzi scheme, and worse it is a negative equity one.

    Yes we expend energy digging gold out of the ground, but we don't do so purely for the sake of it, but because people have a desire for it because of its uses.

    There are sane reasons to use gold as a means of financial exchange. Bitcoin is an economically and scientifically illiterate attempt to digitise that which preys on the uneducated and greedy.
    Then let us say that you are actively willing for the current drop in price to be terminal for Bitcoin's future. (Hint: it won't be).

    The great thing about bitcoin is I remember having these exact same conversations in 2018, when the price fell from 20k to 4k....

    I look forward to having this exact same conversation with you in four years time when it plunges from 400k down to 80k, etc...

    That is the point of the bitcoin obituaries site I linked to earlier. To prove how, again and again and again, the same old talking points about bitcoin keep coming round.

    All we need now is for someone to shout "tulips!" and we have a full house.

    But all of this misses the point. Bitcoin is an attempt to fix the problem that with fiat currency that you can print bazillions of it out of thin air. Inflation always and everywhere being a monetary phenomenon, and all that.

    You can argue that gold does the job better - and I'd be behind you on that one.
    Its not just that gold does the job better, gold does the job, Bitcoin does not.

    If you want to invest in digital gold, you'd be far better investing in gold digitally than "investing" in Bitcoin.

    If we do have this conversation in four years time and Bitcoin is $400k to $80k then that just again proves my point and not yours. If Bitcoin were a "currency" it wouldn't be going to $400k, the very notion you even entertain that has nothing to do with inflation and is pure "number go up" worse than Ponzi madness.

    The same reason people keep making the points about why Bitcoin is flawed, is because Bitcoin is flawed, and those criticisms were valid in the past and are valid now and may be valid in the future regardless of whatever "number" says today.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    6 needed for Jimmy to retake the all time number 11 run machine crown.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,851

    Anyone have any tips on not getting out LBW, I think my problem is that I keep unintentionally going in front of the stumps with my other leg, balance issue?

    Get outside the line of off stump and twat it to leg or back away and hit inside out. Leave blocking to the girls that open and bore everyone into the club bar.
    And be a bowler so you can respond to criticism with 'not my job pal'
    That was my 20 years cricket career in a nutshell
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Lol what a horrendous review.
  • ozymandiasozymandias Posts: 1,503

    Johnson has liar, Starmer has boring.

    I know which I'd rather have

    And what if Beer is found to be a boring liar?

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-rule-breaches-probe-standards-watchdog-labour-leader-b1005729.html
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,290
    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
    Good man

    I’m going to form a Knappers’ And Artists Bicycling and Motorists’ Battalion, like the Lombardy Cycling Futurists in the Dolomites in 1915, so that we can really take on WHOEVER THE FUCK IT IS WE’RE FIGHTING.

    You are free to join

    https://straysatellite.com/futurist/

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    All out.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,851
    dixiedean said:

    6 needed for Jimmy to retake the all time number 11 run machine crown.

    One more catch and hes in the ultra rare 100 catches, 100 wickets, 1000 runs all rounder club
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    Anderson stumped. NZ 14-0
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944

    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.
    I do not agree at all. The responsibility lay with the aggressor. That is like trying to say that Zelensky should share the blame for Putin's actions. Besides, diplomacy is an imprecise art form. As with all aspects of leadership or difficult endeavour it is very easy to criticise in hindsight. Lord Carrington did the decent thing and resigned (remember when people used to do that?).The reality was that Mrs Thatcher took the difficult decisions to rectify the mistakes, and she had a resolve that few others would have matched.
    And after the Falklands War ended (more-or-less 40 years ago tomorrow) Mrs Thatcher resumed her Tory defence cuts, which is what prompted John Nott's walkout.
  • I hope Brillo is asked for comment on Banks losing his case
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    TimS said:

    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.
    So, part 1 of my morning's prediction fulfilled as expected (just 4 runs out). Let's see if part 2 develops for NZ in the predicted fashion.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,290
    IshmaelZ said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    WTF does one do in Yerevan? I’ve wandered around a bit. I’ve looked at the right wing “Revolution”. I’ve had a glass of nice cold Armenian white wine. I’ve seen a Scotsman in a kilt by the ugly, Soviet Era Opera House (is there a footie match?)

    Now I’ve basically run out of shit to do. Tbilisi it ain’t. Help!

    Yerevan a bad time?
    Google says there's a brandy factory tour.
    Noto was worth the detour, thanks. Now at the pantalica necropolis which is seriously, gobekli tepe old, about to disturb the natives by disrobing for a swim
    If that was aimed at me, you’re welcome. All the 8 baroque SE Sicilian towns are intriguing, some are amazing

    Just googled Pantalica Necropoli:, looks interesting - tho not quite Gobekli Tepe old. Nothing is Gobekli Tepe old (apart from Karahan Tepe and the other Tas Tepeler)

    Pantalica Necropolis dates from 13th century BC at its earliest

    Gobekli Tepe dates from eight to nine thousand years before that

  • KeystoneKeystone Posts: 127

    Anyone have any tips on not getting out LBW, I think my problem is that I keep unintentionally going in front of the stumps with my other leg, balance issue?

    Get outside the line of off stump and twat it to leg or back away and hit inside out. Leave blocking to the girls that open and bore everyone into the club bar.
    And be a bowler so you can respond to criticism with 'not my job pal'
    That was my 20 years cricket career in a nutshell
    C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le cricket
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,598

    I hope Brillo is asked for comment on Banks losing his case

    It's a sad day for democracy when PB's most detested journalist wins a libel case against a Brexit hero like Mr Banks.

    Can Cruella, the nation's cleverest lawyer, intervene and assist a national treasure?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Retail done very well over this period considering. Explain that. As that bit is going well, Maybe CBI and Business should stop whinging about staff and skill shortages and blaming Brexit?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    @Pulpstar - are you cheering New Zealand wickets?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    This is becoming a serious issue for F1.
    It's unlikely that there will be agreement to address it, given the competitive advantage enjoyed by the couple of team s not so badly affected.

    https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/gasly-f1-needs-to-stop-drivers-ending-up-with-a-cane-at-30/10321682/
    ...Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he was "holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain" in the race, while team boss Toto Wolff said F1 needed to find a solution to prevent possible injuries amid fears it could force drivers to skip races.

    Gasly crossed the line fifth for AlphaTauri in Baku, recording his best result of the season so far, but admitted he had never found a race to be so "brutal" through his F1 career.

    "It's not healthy, that's for sure," Gasly said. "I've had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

    "The team is asking me, 'OK, we can compromise the setup?' and I'm compromising my health for the performance...
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
    Ms Cadwallader is part of the establishment?
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    IshmaelZ said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    WTF does one do in Yerevan? I’ve wandered around a bit. I’ve looked at the right wing “Revolution”. I’ve had a glass of nice cold Armenian white wine. I’ve seen a Scotsman in a kilt by the ugly, Soviet Era Opera House (is there a footie match?)

    Now I’ve basically run out of shit to do. Tbilisi it ain’t. Help!

    Yerevan a bad time?
    Google says there's a brandy factory tour.
    Noto was worth the detour, thanks. Now at the pantalica necropolis which is seriously, gobekli tepe old, about to disturb the natives by disrobing for a swim
    Excellent.
    We didn't make it to the necropolis owing to a tyre puncture... glad to hear you had better luck.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,851
    edited June 2022
    Sir James Anderson, GOAT
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156
    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
    It is also the world's only hygiene, as Marinetti pointed out.

    (Shortly before the Futurists were all but wiped out in WWI thereby changing their views on the beneficial nature of war.)
    Oh? Did they give their opinions via an ouija board?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    Hmmm.

    Cadwalladr vs Banks.

    I think an Appeal may be likely. It seems an untidy verdict. All sorts of odds and ends left hanging out.

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,598

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
    Arron Banks is "up against the entire security and British establishment". Well it's a view. All his money might come in handy as he fights for freedom and integrity.

    I'll have a pint of whatever you're drinking please.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Nigelb said:

    This is becoming a serious issue for F1.
    It's unlikely that there will be agreement to address it, given the competitive advantage enjoyed by the couple of team s not so badly affected.

    https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/gasly-f1-needs-to-stop-drivers-ending-up-with-a-cane-at-30/10321682/
    ...Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he was "holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain" in the race, while team boss Toto Wolff said F1 needed to find a solution to prevent possible injuries amid fears it could force drivers to skip races.

    Gasly crossed the line fifth for AlphaTauri in Baku, recording his best result of the season so far, but admitted he had never found a race to be so "brutal" through his F1 career.

    "It's not healthy, that's for sure," Gasly said. "I've had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

    "The team is asking me, 'OK, we can compromise the setup?' and I'm compromising my health for the performance...

    It’s a difficult conundrum for teams, drivers and regulators.

    Obviously no-one wants to get injured, but at the same time the drivers are happy to put up with quite a lot of discomfort if it makes the car go faster.

    There were reports of 6g vertical loadings on the Mercedes when it was porpoising, which is on the limit of what you’d want to experience as a human, even an athletic one.

    Lewis is closer to 40 than 30, and age eventually wins over fitness. He managed to get through the race on adrenaline yesterday, but was clearly in quite a state when that stopped as he crossed the line. I guess the next couple of days will be key for him, and if he’s fit to get back in the car on Friday in Canada, he won’t care that it takes some time to recover from scoring points. A busy week for Angela his trainer, she’s actually a physiotherapist which will come in useful.

    That said, if he isn’t fully fit, they’ll have to raise the ride height of the car and sacrifice performance for comfort. Canada’s a temporary park track, and bumpy. Amazingly, six of the first nine races this season have been on streets or around parks, the worst possible conditions in which to have an issue like porpoising. They’ll all be happy to see Silverstone and the more permanent circuits that follow. .

    Danny Ric (33 in a couple of weeks) was also complaining yesterday. The younger drivers seem more comfortable for now, but at what cost later in their careers?

    Not an easy one for the FIA either. They clearly don’t want to see drivers injured, but also don’t want to frame a rule in a way that discriminates against the cars that don’t suffer as much from the porpoising issue. Perhaps they issue a limit of 5g vertical acceleration under porpoising, although measuring this accurately on a bumpy track may not be easy.

    Baku is also something of an outlier, having a very high top speed for a street circuit. Top speed in Canada will be lower, so perhaps there’s actually no need to change anything until this time next year?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156
    edited June 2022
    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    We are doing WAR by proxy. It's not working.
    Yeah, we need the full on, full fat, full monty: WAR. Mobilisation. Troop Trains. Internment for Remainers. Small boys running around with newspapers shouting “cor blimey it’s war guvnor”. Ladies handing out white feathers. Roger in a concentration camp doing broadcasts for the enemy. Militias forming in Kent. Rationing. Klaxons. WAR

    Certainly worked in 1939. Got rid of the last of the Depression.
    Mr Johnson has fluffed the chance to bring in rationing. "Food Strategy" [sic] as per leak, admittedly not final form one imagines.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    edited June 2022

    Sir James Anderson, GOAT

    Modern day Syd Barnes - who declined an England recall at the age of 47, and played first class cricket in his fifties.

    I'd probably pick Barnes in a best ever 11.
  • KeystoneKeystone Posts: 127
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    We are doing WAR by proxy. It's not working.
    Yeah, we need the full on, full fat, full monty: WAR. Mobilisation. Troop Trains. Internment for Remainers. Small boys running around with newspapers shouting “cor blimey it’s war guvnor”. Ladies handing out white feathers. Roger in a concentration camp doing broadcasts for the enemy. Militias forming in Kent. Rationing. Klaxons. WAR

    Certainly worked in 1939. Got rid of the last of the Depression.
    Worked for the US; impoverished the rest of the world for a decade or more.
    War is immensely destructive of economies, even if select groups do well out of it.
    Only attractive for those who have never seen the effects close up.

    To say nothing of the depressing likelihood that wars between nuclear armed states will result in far greater unpleasantness with a half-life of several thousand years.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
    Ms Cadwallader is part of the establishment?
    Are you so naïve - don’t you ever watch these shows where “they” leak to a journalist who will be keen to run with what they are leaking?

    Have a pint of reality, Mexi Pete.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
    It is also the world's only hygiene, as Marinetti pointed out.

    (Shortly before the Futurists were all but wiped out in WWI thereby changing their views on the beneficial nature of war.)
    Oh? Did they give their opinions via an ouija board?
    Somehow Marinetti staggered on until 1944, presumably much to his own disappointment.
  • MattW said:

    Hmmm.

    Cadwalladr vs Banks.

    I think an Appeal may be likely. It seems an untidy verdict. All sorts of odds and ends left hanging out.

    Am I right in thinking that the verdict basically says that Carole was speaking codswallop, but that even people who speak codswallop have a right to free speech?

    If so, it seems an all round good verdict?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
    Ms Cadwallader is part of the establishment?
    Are you so naïve - don’t you ever watch these shows where “they” leak to a journalist who will be keen to run with what they are leaking?

    Have a pint of reality, Mexi Pete.
    I think you have me confused with another gent.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    kyf_100 said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Bitcoin might have been a piss poor investment when it was priced at $70,000 but it isn't a pyramid scheme. Some of the fixed interest products attached to cryptocoins - well I can't see how those aren't pyramid schemes mind.

    A nephew did very well out of Bitcoin. Bought low on a rising market and sold at or near the top. Bought a house with the proceeds.
    It was always possible to trade BitCoin & make money. But every £1 you make has come from someone else buying in. It’s a kind of rolling Ponzi scheme, or a game of hot potato.
    In a traditional Ponzi scheme ever £1 you make has to come from someone else buying in.

    Bitcoin is worse than that. Bitcoin is so expensive to operate that its essentially like for every £1 you make £1.05 has to come from someone else buying in.

    Given enough publicity, there's plenty of people in the world who were willing to be the next to buy in. But eventually it always comes to an end.
    Since Bitcoin has come back from the dead far more times than Jesus, I'd give it a few more years before declaring the party over.

    The psychology of people like you really fascinates me. You're one of the most hardcore libertarians on this site, yet you don't see the value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant.

    You can argue that its true value is far less than its current value, but you seem to delight in every dip in the market and take every possible opportunity to crow that it's "dead" (hint: it's not).

    What is it about bitcoin that makes you so angry?

    Do you get angry about people paying $1800 for a bar of gold? Or 10k for a Rolex watch?
    The only person using the word "dead" is you. I have never used that word to the best of my recollection, all I have ever and consistently said is that it is worse than a pyramid scheme. Only you seem to be bothered by Bitcoins supposed "death" or not, I'm more bothered by whether its a scam or not. Scams can go on almost forever without ever dying if more people are able to fall victim to fraudsters.

    I do see the theoretical possible value in private money that is permissionless, decentralised and censorship resistant. The problem is that Bitcoin is not that. Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire so Bitcoin is neither censorship resistant, nor permissionless, nor decentralised and ultimately nor is it really private money either.

    I don't get angry about people paying for a bar of gold, or a Rolex watch. People aren't scammed into buying those as people are scammed into buying cryto "currencies".

    What makes me angry about Bitcoin is I don't like fraudsters and that is what Bitcoin has evolved into, at the cost of burning enough fuel to power a medium sized country.
    I would suggest that "eventually it all comes to an end" (your words) and "dead" are synonymous with each other.

    Gold is arguably the better private money - it's certainly more battle tested. But bitcoin is an attempt to do the same thing digitally. That's why it has value - the only question we haven't found out yet is what that value is.

    With regards to energy...

    We expend energy digging gold out of the ground (and storing it, err, back in the ground)
    The dollar is backed by gas guzzling warships and jet planes. And human life, when those things are used.

    People adorn their homes with Christmas lights every year around December.
    Drive cars daily, on journeys they could walk.
    Stream hours of endless crap on netflix, the carbon footprint of which is about 71g per hour.

    And yet bitcoin attracts far more ire than any of these things. I don't get it.
    It's because Bitcoin is a useless sack of shit.

    It cannot achieve any of its stated aims - by design.

    The good parts of bitcoin are not new, the new parts of bitcoin are not good.
    Always knew you were an ETH man.
    ETH is a double sack of shit.

    "Code is law". Lol. Get the fuck out of here.
  • KeystoneKeystone Posts: 127

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1536283375639592962


    Arron Banks
    @Arron_banks
    The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice. It’s likely I will appeal ..

    Hahahaha, go on Arron, waste more of your money, you fucking mug
    To be fair Arron though, he is standing up for what he believes in, and is up against the entire security and British establishment as he does it, which must be scary?
    You are a quite unusual LibDem in your sympathies, I'll give you that.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    eek said:


    Peter Schiff
    @PeterSchiff
    With #Bitcoin dropping below key support at $25K and #Ethereum below 1300, the combined market cap of nearly 20K #cryptos has broken below $1 trillion, from a record-high of $3 trillion. That's $2 trillion down, $1 trillion left to go. The last trillion will be the most painful.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    Nigelb said:

    This is becoming a serious issue for F1.
    It's unlikely that there will be agreement to address it, given the competitive advantage enjoyed by the couple of team s not so badly affected.

    https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/gasly-f1-needs-to-stop-drivers-ending-up-with-a-cane-at-30/10321682/
    ...Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he was "holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain" in the race, while team boss Toto Wolff said F1 needed to find a solution to prevent possible injuries amid fears it could force drivers to skip races.

    Gasly crossed the line fifth for AlphaTauri in Baku, recording his best result of the season so far, but admitted he had never found a race to be so "brutal" through his F1 career.

    "It's not healthy, that's for sure," Gasly said. "I've had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

    "The team is asking me, 'OK, we can compromise the setup?' and I'm compromising my health for the performance...

    I'm rather surprised that rough running, to that point, is quicker. Why is that?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156
    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.
    I do not agree at all. The responsibility lay with the aggressor. That is like trying to say that Zelensky should share the blame for Putin's actions. Besides, diplomacy is an imprecise art form. As with all aspects of leadership or difficult endeavour it is very easy to criticise in hindsight. Lord Carrington did the decent thing and resigned (remember when people used to do that?).The reality was that Mrs Thatcher took the difficult decisions to rectify the mistakes, and she had a resolve that few others would have matched.
    And after the Falklands War ended (more-or-less 40 years ago tomorrow) Mrs Thatcher resumed her Tory defence cuts, which is what prompted John Nott's walkout.
    As I recall, and as I read more recently, Portsmouth Royal Dockyard was in the process of [edit] being very substantially reduced when the war began - at which the entire workforce rallied round. Not that it did them much good once the war was over.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,851
    edited June 2022
    Ffs even the investigations into SKS are boring.
    Late registration of football tickets and director box gifts and failure to declare a few hundred quid book income.
    What a dull c***
    He has written to apologise for the 'oversight'
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,756
    edited June 2022

    MattW said:

    Hmmm.

    Cadwalladr vs Banks.

    I think an Appeal may be likely. It seems an untidy verdict. All sorts of odds and ends left hanging out.

    Am I right in thinking that the verdict basically says that Carole was speaking codswallop, but that even people who speak codswallop have a right to free speech?

    If so, it seems an all round good verdict?
    I got a 'Banks is such a prick it's actually quite difficult to defame him' vibe. We will all take what we want to from this, as ever.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    Nigelb said:

    This is becoming a serious issue for F1.
    It's unlikely that there will be agreement to address it, given the competitive advantage enjoyed by the couple of team s not so badly affected.

    https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/gasly-f1-needs-to-stop-drivers-ending-up-with-a-cane-at-30/10321682/
    ...Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he was "holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain" in the race, while team boss Toto Wolff said F1 needed to find a solution to prevent possible injuries amid fears it could force drivers to skip races.

    Gasly crossed the line fifth for AlphaTauri in Baku, recording his best result of the season so far, but admitted he had never found a race to be so "brutal" through his F1 career.

    "It's not healthy, that's for sure," Gasly said. "I've had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

    "The team is asking me, 'OK, we can compromise the setup?' and I'm compromising my health for the performance...

    I'm rather surprised that rough running, to that point, is quicker. Why is that?
    I think it lets them run the car closer to the ground, which improves the aerodynamics.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Construction, production and services all down.
    It isn't sector based. That's not good news whichever way you slice it.
    We'll be in recession heading into winter.
    With more huge energy hikes to come.
    Which points to the elephant in the room - this fucking government.

    We are in the early months of one of those generational economic crises that befall this country - this has the potential to be as damaging as the events of the 7-s oil shock, the 80s monetarism disaster, the 00s sub-prime crash.

    Our problem is two fold:
    One - a government congenitally incapable of accepting reality. Instead of analysing and understanding the situation they deny and lie. The ONS should not be having to write to the PM to insist he stops lying about the economy being good. His response in PMQs last week a great example of this - isn't everything I do marvellous?
    Two - a government politically unwilling to do anything to help. OK we have had governments like that before, but at least Thatcher and Howe were happy to accept reality and clearly state it was the price to pay to restructure the economy as part of their plan. Where is the Johnson plan?

    I still think what we are dubbing "CoL" for shorthand will sink the lot of them. Because ultimately they will continue to screw the economy and people's lives, and we know their reaction is to deny, to lie, then to sneer and blame the people on the receiving end. This time it won't only be Labour voters, it will be millions who voted for Boris to be better off.
    Completely agree with the first point. The reality is that we were barely recovering from the OO's financial collapse when Covid came along and blew our public finances out of the water. The only way we could afford the money spent on Covid was to print it, along with most other nations. The result is an increase in inflation. Our economy never got back to anything close to normal, hence the absurdly low interest rates for over a decade.

    We are far from alone in this dilemma, the markets are down today because US inflation has hit a 40 year high and interest rates are now expected to go up even faster, but we need policies that reduce the inevitable pain, not aggravate it. And we need a plan and a structure that guides us through day to day vicissitudes and at least gives the impression we know what we are doing.
    WAR
    War is the health of the state, as Bourne (Randolph not Jason) observed.
    It is also the world's only hygiene, as Marinetti pointed out.

    (Shortly before the Futurists were all but wiped out in WWI thereby changing their views on the beneficial nature of war.)
    Oh? Did they give their opinions via an ouija board?
    Somehow Marinetti staggered on until 1944, presumably much to his own disappointment.
    ¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Nigelb said:

    This is becoming a serious issue for F1.
    It's unlikely that there will be agreement to address it, given the competitive advantage enjoyed by the couple of team s not so badly affected.

    https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/gasly-f1-needs-to-stop-drivers-ending-up-with-a-cane-at-30/10321682/
    ...Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said he was "holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain" in the race, while team boss Toto Wolff said F1 needed to find a solution to prevent possible injuries amid fears it could force drivers to skip races.

    Gasly crossed the line fifth for AlphaTauri in Baku, recording his best result of the season so far, but admitted he had never found a race to be so "brutal" through his F1 career.

    "It's not healthy, that's for sure," Gasly said. "I've had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

    "The team is asking me, 'OK, we can compromise the setup?' and I'm compromising my health for the performance...

    I'm rather surprised that rough running, to that point, is quicker. Why is that?
    They want to be as close to the ground as possible, for aerodynamic reasons that gives them a higher cornering speed. Go too low though, and the airflow stalls under the car at high speed, which causes the bouncing.

    They can ease the driver discomfort by raising the ride height of the car, but that costs cornering speed.

    Professional drivers have a very high adrenaline-fuelled tolerance for pain, if it means the car goes faster!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,100
    edited June 2022

    MattW said:

    Hmmm.

    Cadwalladr vs Banks.

    I think an Appeal may be likely. It seems an untidy verdict. All sorts of odds and ends left hanging out.

    Am I right in thinking that the verdict basically says that Carole was speaking codswallop, but that even people who speak codswallop have a right to free speech?

    If so, it seems an all round good verdict?
    I haven't read all 400 paras. I'd say the introductory sections and the conclusions are worth the time. This in Press Gazette is said to be the best report:

    https://pressgazette.co.uk/carole-cadwalladr-arron-banks-libel/

    I find parts of the judge's reasoning peculiar, with some strange category judgements.

    Full Judgement here:
    https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Banks-v-Cadwalladr-130622-Judgment.pdf
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    MattW said:

    Hmmm.

    Cadwalladr vs Banks.

    I think an Appeal may be likely. It seems an untidy verdict. All sorts of odds and ends left hanging out.

    Am I right in thinking that the verdict basically says that Carole was speaking codswallop, but that even people who speak codswallop have a right to free speech?

    If so, it seems an all round good verdict?
    I /think/ the summary is:

    1) Carole was entitled to believe that her statement was true at the time she made it, due to the many examples of Banks’ contact with Russian officials & his statements about those meetings that were, at best, inaccurate (all this detailed in the judgement).
    2) When those statements were later demonstrated to be untrue, under the interpretation of their meaning decided by the court, the video should have been taken down as libellous, but wasn’t.

    Carole relied on a public interest defense for the first part, which was rightly upheld. For the latter, the court seems to have decided that any subsequent impact on Banks’ reputation was not sufficient to justify a settlement being imposed.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to tel me which one is the Tesla YTD Price graph and which one is the Bitcoin YTD graph




  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,175
    tlg86 said:

    mwadams said:

    tlg86 said:
    And it's cost Banks at least £750k, which is no bad thing.

    The judgement will be very interesting - I was waiting for it to be "over" before looking at it in any detail as the press is full of fluff until you get to the final outcome; and I don't think I'd realised it was focused on two particular statements (or I'd have been more bullish about CC's chances of winning.)

    As I said yesterday, I still think we need to revisit what's acceptable in terms of spattering ill-sourced accusations around in the press, however odious the target, and this makes that less rather than more likely, unless the judgement is very nuanced.
    Judgement and summary

    HTTPS://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/banks-v-cadwalladr
    Form the summary:

    The Judge accepted that, for the most part, Mr Banks’s evidence was truthful, and in particular his evidence on the issue of serious harm was open, honest and entailed no exaggeration [27]. But there were aspects of his evidence in relation to the public interest defence that the Judge found to be evasive and lacking in candour [28].

    Ms Cadwalladr evidently found the process of being cross-examined very stressful [30]-[31]. Although she made errors in her statement ([35]-[43]), and in her oral evidence [44], and over the course of her evidence became more evasive, the Judge found that the evidence Ms Cadwalladr gave was truthful [32]-[33].


    I think it's generous to say Carole made "errors" in her statement:

    https://order-order.com/2022/01/20/new-carole-cadwalladr-admits-minutes-after-swearing-that-her-witness-statement-true-that-it-is-inaccurate/
    The thing is it’s the judge’s view that counts, not yours.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Alistair said:

    Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to tel me which one is the Tesla YTD Price graph and which one is the Bitcoin YTD graph




    LOL!

    (Tesla is the bottom one).
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Alistair said:

    Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to tel me which one is the Tesla YTD Price graph and which one is the Bitcoin YTD graph




    Bottom is Telsa - but that's only because the US markets don't open for another hour.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,175

    dixiedean said:

    MaxPB said:

    I'm grimly enjoying the reports of "shock" contraction of the economy. Not the contraction but the idea that it's a shock. What did people expect? Prices up, taxes up, disposable income squeezed to breaking point and we are a consumer economy. This is the result of terrible government policy on energy, taxation and investment for 20+ years finally coming home to roost.

    It's a shock to those who have only been paying attention to the boosterite guff coming from government.
    They'd have been better off telling folk the position is dire from the start. Worked for Thatcher and Cameron.
    People aren't daft
    It’s only the fact we stopped doing the testing programme that unluckily tipped us into the red.

    There’s only two news stories today, government tidying up of the EUs Brexit mess and Sir Beer Korma under investigation for more criminality and greed. The fact governments policy dealing with illegal migration has been damaged by left winger is tomorrows news story. Nothing else to see here, move along now.
    Manufacturing and construction were both in the red, which are unrelated to the testing programme.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    tlg86 said:

    mwadams said:

    tlg86 said:
    And it's cost Banks at least £750k, which is no bad thing.

    The judgement will be very interesting - I was waiting for it to be "over" before looking at it in any detail as the press is full of fluff until you get to the final outcome; and I don't think I'd realised it was focused on two particular statements (or I'd have been more bullish about CC's chances of winning.)

    As I said yesterday, I still think we need to revisit what's acceptable in terms of spattering ill-sourced accusations around in the press, however odious the target, and this makes that less rather than more likely, unless the judgement is very nuanced.
    Judgement and summary

    HTTPS://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/banks-v-cadwalladr
    Form the summary:

    The Judge accepted that, for the most part, Mr Banks’s evidence was truthful, and in particular his evidence on the issue of serious harm was open, honest and entailed no exaggeration [27]. But there were aspects of his evidence in relation to the public interest defence that the Judge found to be evasive and lacking in candour [28].

    Ms Cadwalladr evidently found the process of being cross-examined very stressful [30]-[31]. Although she made errors in her statement ([35]-[43]), and in her oral evidence [44], and over the course of her evidence became more evasive, the Judge found that the evidence Ms Cadwalladr gave was truthful [32]-[33].


    I think it's generous to say Carole made "errors" in her statement:

    https://order-order.com/2022/01/20/new-carole-cadwalladr-admits-minutes-after-swearing-that-her-witness-statement-true-that-it-is-inaccurate/
    The thing is it’s the judge’s view that counts, not yours.
    Absolutely! :)
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    eek said:

    Alistair said:

    Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to tel me which one is the Tesla YTD Price graph and which one is the Bitcoin YTD graph

    Bottom is Telsa - but that's only because the US markets don't open for another hour.
    Yah, I should have trimmed off the last couple of days - made it rather obvious.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,156
    Alistair said:

    Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to tel me which one is the Tesla YTD Price graph and which one is the Bitcoin YTD graph




    Is the abscissa/ordinate intersection at y=0?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    Were I the judge, I would take into account:

    a) the huge amount of vitriol that Banks has tweeted against his opponents over many years, much of it loosely based on evidence; and
    b) the fact that he is a complete knob,

    and rule against him.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,883
    Sandpit said:



    Baku is also something of an outlier, having a very high top speed for a street circuit. Top speed in Canada will be lower, so perhaps there’s actually no need to change anything until this time next year?

    It'd be very easy to fix if the regulations didn't restrict them to incredibly crude suspension technology. Twin tube dampers, torsion bars, etc. Apart from the materials none of that would be out of place on an 80s F1 car. With active suspension it would relatively simple to dial out the porpoising.

    All they could do without ripping up the entire suspension rulebook is maybe ban heave springs which would force the teams to run more ride height and/or less spring rate.
This discussion has been closed.