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The Dems now favourites for the US Senate – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,007
edited August 2022 in General
imageThe Dems now favourites for the US Senate – politicalbetting.com

We are not long off now the US Midterm elections in November when the expectation is that the Democrats will lose control of the House but possibly improve their position in the Senate. At the moment this is split 50:50 with the Vice President having the casting vote.

Read the full story here

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  • Options
    Betfair next prime minister
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    10 Rishi Sunak 10%
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932
    edited August 2022
    Second which is where the Republicans will be.

    - note this post was edited to reflect it's position.
  • Options
    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,969
    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,941

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.

    ISTR 4? of the last 6 by elections being lost by the favourite.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    "Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/tories-will-soon-regret-triple-lock-promises/

    The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
    I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.

    Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
    As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.

    I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
    It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
    A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.

    The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.

    And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
    Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
    If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.

    However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.

    As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.

    Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
    Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.

    An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.

    And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
    I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.

    And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
    Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?

    I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
    Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
    Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth

    Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
    Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.

    Is it your first?
    Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
    Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.

    That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
    Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet


    What a lovely dappled grey.
    Yeah he's nice, but a bit bumptious for the convalescent. Only 8 though so some chance of him steadying a bit.

  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,941
    edited August 2022
    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.
  • Options

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.

    If 4 of the last 10 elections have gone with the 40% underdog, then that would be exactly as predicted though.

    The problem is some people seem to take it as a binary favourite wins = success, but if the 60% favourite won 10/10 times then the markets would be a very poor indicator not a reliable one.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,943
    The GOP have 21 seats up in the Senate in November to just 14 for the Democrats. There is therefore a significant chance the Democrats not only maintain but increase their majority.

    That would match the pattern of the first term midterms of Trump and Obama in 2018 and 2010. Then the President's party lost the House but held the Senate
  • Options
    EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.

    If 4 of the last 10 elections have gone with the 40% underdog, then that would be exactly as predicted though.

    The problem is some people seem to take it as a binary favourite wins = success, but if the 60% favourite won 10/10 times then the markets would be a very poor indicator not a reliable one.
    Slight correction: they'd be a bloody fantastic indicator of the outcomes, but a poor one of the real pre-election likelihoods.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Facebook chatbot going well

    https://twitter.com/MNateShyamalan/status/1556795752726364165?t=e-4vi2P4kiDaaW1wGQFHCA&s=09

    Same result as the other 8 million attempts at this by other companies.
  • Options
    londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,174
    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,943
    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw
  • Options
    MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Earlier today on Sky a Rishi Rep was talking about 'knowing what needed to be done once the autumn OFGEM cap has been set'.

    Whoever wins they will miss another bus - changing the cap is one of the tools needing to be used.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,462
    FPT

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    I would rather live in 1980 than today. The music was better.
  • Options
    MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,936
    edited August 2022
    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw

    Was going to say leathers make sense on a motorcycle tho less so now Kevlar and stuff are out there. But he is wearing lounge suit trousers. With turn ups.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited August 2022
    FPT:
    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    .

    MISTY said:

    Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?

    I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included)
    People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done.
    Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required

    Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
    In Ireland, because they have installed more wind power per capita than us, and because of the way they structured the wind power subsidies, consumers will be receiving a rebate from the wind energy producers.

    Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
    Alternatively we could have kept coal and drilled for gas and oil for a while, until the new technology is actually ready and proven to work.

    If we had less wind power and burned more fossil fuels, then energy bills would be even more expensive. Duh.
    America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
    I think quite a bit of it is isolation from the world market, but that they are following Europe up in prices though perhaps a little less extremely - and that the current US / EU difference is exaggerated as pressures have not yet fed through in full.

    In Europe prices also tend to cross-subsidise other projects, such as Energiewende or our Green Levies.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,313

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,922
    The stand out bet was actually selling Republican majority on Betfair at 1.55, because then you got the extra kicker in Utah.

    It is far from impossible that the Republicans gain one net seat from the Dems, but lose Utah.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,915
    Saki airbase in Crimea has apparently suffered a few problems:

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,982
    HYUFD said:

    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw

    Trident 660. Not great, not terrible.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,922

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.

    Of course: 4-1 shots should come in roughly one in five times, because otherwise there wouldn't be a market and a price.

    FWIW, betting markets have tended to overstate the Dems chances in the US, mostly I suspect, because polls have tended to overstate the Dems support.

    The question is, has this been fixed?
  • Options
    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,141
    Just gonna post this for anyone having trouble keeping track of American politics

    image
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,922
    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    It raises a very interesting question: assuming Trump has broken the law, is it better he is protected from his crimes (to give the impression of impartiality), or is it better than he is subject to the same laws as the rest of us?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,245
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    "Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/tories-will-soon-regret-triple-lock-promises/

    The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
    I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.

    Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
    As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.

    I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
    It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
    A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.

    The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.

    And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
    Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
    If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.

    However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.

    As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.

    Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
    Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.

    An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.

    And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
    I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.

    And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
    Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?

    I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
    Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
    Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth

    Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
    Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.

    Is it your first?
    Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
    Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.

    That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
    Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet


    What a lovely dappled grey.
    Yeah he's nice, but a bit bumptious for the convalescent. Only 8 though so some chance of him steadying a bit.

    Nice solid sort. If not over then through sort of type.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,903
    rcs1000 said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    It raises a very interesting question: assuming Trump has broken the law, is it better he is protected from his crimes (to give the impression of impartiality), or is it better than he is subject to the same laws as the rest of us?
    I think the answer depends on your betting position for POTUS 24 at the time.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,922
    MattW said:

    FPT:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    .

    MISTY said:

    Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?

    I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included)
    People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done.
    Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required

    Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
    In Ireland, because they have installed more wind power per capita than us, and because of the way they structured the wind power subsidies, consumers will be receiving a rebate from the wind energy producers.

    Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
    Alternatively we could have kept coal and drilled for gas and oil for a while, until the new technology is actually ready and proven to work.

    If we had less wind power and burned more fossil fuels, then energy bills would be even more expensive. Duh.
    America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
    I think quite a bit of it is isolation from the world market, but that they are following Europe up in prices though perhaps a little less extremely - and that the current US / EU difference is exaggerated as pressures have not yet fed through in full.

    In Europe prices also tend to cross-subsidise other projects, such as Energiewende or our Green Levies.
    Ultimately, there is only limited LNG shipping capacity, and therefore the price cannot balance between the RoW and the US.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    "Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/tories-will-soon-regret-triple-lock-promises/

    The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
    I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.

    Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
    As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.

    I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
    It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
    A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.

    The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.

    And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
    Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
    If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.

    However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.

    As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.

    Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
    Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.

    An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.

    And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
    I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.

    And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
    Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?

    I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
    Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
    Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth

    Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
    Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.

    Is it your first?
    Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
    Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.

    That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
    Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet


    What a lovely dappled grey.
    Yeah he's nice, but a bit bumptious for the convalescent. Only 8 though so some chance of him steadying a bit.

    Nice solid sort. If not over then through sort of type.
    Goes over right enough. Been evented by Padraig McCarthy.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,372
    Andy_JS said:

    FPT

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    I would rather live in 1980 than today. The music was better.
    I second that - but mainly as I'd be four decades younger.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932
    Mortimer said:

    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

    It's still way less tax than if you were taking the money as income and being taxed via PAYE...

    At £50,001+
    15.05% Employer NI
    1.25% employer NI
    40% income tax.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,943
    MISTY said:
    The Democrats currently lead in GOP held Senate seats in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So even if the GOP gained the Democrats seat in Georgia they would retain control
  • Options
    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,141
    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    I totally get the argument about riling up the base but I think it's all too clever by half. "Party's likely presidential nominee subject to a federal search warrant and liable to be indicted for multiple easy-to-prove crimes" is going to be bad for the said party.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,372
    eek said:

    Second which is where the Republicans will be.

    - note this post was edited to reflect it's position.

    But not that of the apostrophe....
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,245
    edited August 2022
    IDS never struck me as a streetfighter kind of guy but then you do have to keep an eye on the Jock Guards they are forever surprising you.

    Here's a recent picture of their Sergeant Major.

  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,245
    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    "Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/tories-will-soon-regret-triple-lock-promises/

    The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
    I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.

    Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
    As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.

    I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
    It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
    A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.

    The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.

    And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
    Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
    If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.

    However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.

    As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.

    Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
    Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.

    An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.

    And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
    I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.

    And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
    Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?

    I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
    Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
    Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth

    Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
    Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.

    Is it your first?
    Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
    Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.

    That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
    Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet


    What a lovely dappled grey.
    Yeah he's nice, but a bit bumptious for the convalescent. Only 8 though so some chance of him steadying a bit.

    Nice solid sort. If not over then through sort of type.
    Goes over right enough. Been evented by Padraig McCarthy.
    Very nice - looks to have a bit of Grey Macha in him.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,372

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    I totally get the argument about riling up the base but I think it's all too clever by half. "Party's likely presidential nominee subject to a federal search warrant and liable to be indicted for multiple easy-to-prove crimes" is going to be bad for the said party.
    Note that law enforcement don't get to tell their story, for now.
    So the framing - and initial media reporting - has largely been of the aggrieved man-child type.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    It raises a very interesting question: assuming Trump has broken the law, is it better he is protected from his crimes (to give the impression of impartiality), or is it better than he is subject to the same laws as the rest of us?
    https://twitter.com/MNateShyamalan/status/1556795752726364165?t=XV1MEztKMsbKlmoCTRQ6Jw&s=09
  • Options
    FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,884

    Saki airbase in Crimea has apparently suffered a few problems:

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456

    That's surely outside HIMARS range. Have some more goodies made their way into Ukraine?
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,903
    MISTY said:
    I think the general will.



    With the legislature, federal court system and state courts all controlled by the GOP in and above GA, there's opportunity for epic shithousery.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Saki airbase in Crimea has apparently suffered a few problems:

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456

    That's surely outside HIMARS range. Have some more goodies made their way into Ukraine?
    Ukraine have Soviet era cruise missiles already
  • Options
    ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,910

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,462
    rcs1000 said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    It raises a very interesting question: assuming Trump has broken the law, is it better he is protected from his crimes (to give the impression of impartiality), or is it better than he is subject to the same laws as the rest of us?
    It goes without saying that everyone should be subjected to the same laws in the same way.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,941
    edited August 2022

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,943
    Pulpstar said:

    MISTY said:
    I think the general will.



    With the legislature, federal court system and state courts all controlled by the GOP in and above GA, there's opportunity for epic shithousery.
    Georgia would go GOP well before Arizona and Wisconsin do
  • Options
    MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited August 2022
    Nigelb said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    I totally get the argument about riling up the base but I think it's all too clever by half. "Party's likely presidential nominee subject to a federal search warrant and liable to be indicted for multiple easy-to-prove crimes" is going to be bad for the said party.
    Note that law enforcement don't get to tell their story, for now.
    So the framing - and initial media reporting - has largely been of the aggrieved man-child type.
    But that's Trump's narrative. Why play to it?

    Why not just say, run if you like matey, we're confident we will beat you again on the politics. Knock yourself out. Hell I double dare you. I'll even pay your hairspray bill.

    That's the way to beat Trump, surely?
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,733
    HYUFD said:

    The GOP have 21 seats up in the Senate in November to just 14 for the Democrats. There is therefore a significant chance the Democrats not only maintain but increase their majority.

    That would match the pattern of the first term midterms of Trump and Obama in 2018 and 2010. Then the President's party lost the House but held the Senate

    The 2018 cycle was very hard for the Dems in the Senate with too many defences in Trump winning states . The Dems should have done better in 2020 re the Senate and were saved by Georgia .

  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TOPPING said:

    IDS never struck me as a streetfighter kind of guy but then you do have to keep an eye on the Jock Guards they are forever surprising you.

    Here's a recent picture of their Sergeant Major.

    Would not want to be in a mano a mano no rules fight wearing a beard like that.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    edited August 2022
    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
  • Options
    FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,884
    edited August 2022
    Alistair said:

    Saki airbase in Crimea has apparently suffered a few problems:

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456

    That's surely outside HIMARS range. Have some more goodies made their way into Ukraine?
    Ukraine have Soviet era cruise missiles already
    Amazed they have any left, although perhaps they have a chance to be more effective since the radar hits.

    The US were umming and ahhing about ATACMS though...

    Would that not put the Crimean bridge in range? If anyone were so inclined.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,313
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    Personally I'm livid that this situation exists, regardless of how much of our own money the Government is going to give us to soften the blow.

    However, I also believe it'll be less bad than advertised, and I'm glad it's making us have a serious conversation on energy security, domestic oil and gas production, storage etc., which otherwise wouldn't have happened.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,590
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    IDS never struck me as a streetfighter kind of guy but then you do have to keep an eye on the Jock Guards they are forever surprising you.

    Here's a recent picture of their Sergeant Major.

    Would not want to be in a mano a mano no rules fight wearing a beard like that.
    In the Crimean, the main enemy was the British Army and Government, supply services thereof. He'd want to stay alive and warm even before he worried as to how to get at the official enemy!

    https://www.rct.uk/collection/2500206/colour-sergeant-william-mcgregor
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,915

    Alistair said:

    Saki airbase in Crimea has apparently suffered a few problems:

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456

    That's surely outside HIMARS range. Have some more goodies made their way into Ukraine?
    Ukraine have Soviet era cruise missiles already
    Amazed they have any left, although perhaps they have a chance to be more effective since the radar hits.

    The US were umming and ahhing about ATACMS though...
    Could be good old partisans, although that's perhaps unlikely at an airbase.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.
  • Options
    edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,141
    edited August 2022
    MISTY said:

    Nigelb said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    I totally get the argument about riling up the base but I think it's all too clever by half. "Party's likely presidential nominee subject to a federal search warrant and liable to be indicted for multiple easy-to-prove crimes" is going to be bad for the said party.
    Note that law enforcement don't get to tell their story, for now.
    So the framing - and initial media reporting - has largely been of the aggrieved man-child type.
    But that's Trump's narrative. Why play to it?

    Why not just say, run if you like matey, we're confident we will beat you again on the politics. Knock yourself out. Hell I double dare you. I'll even pay your hairspray bill.

    That's the way to beat Trump, surely?
    The FBI's job isn't to beat Donald Trump in an election so the way to do that doesn't come into their decision. I suppose Biden could do some kind of 4-dimensional-chess analysis about news cycles and things ask his AG to tell the FBI to lay off, but that would be improper, and potentially get leaked, which sounds bad politically as well as ethically.

    But the point about the narrative is that Trump can tell whatever story he likes until such times as an indictment drops, but that changes if and when they indict, and when federal law enforcement brings the hammer down you generally don't want to be underneath it. At that point journalists download a very thorough case made in an authoritative-looking PDF, and however much the defendants may want to spin a different story their lawyers are telling them they need to STFU to avoid screwing up the defence.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,590

    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
    They had decks in 1980, HMS Belfast and the Discovery aside? I never knew.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited August 2022
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    I may have argued it previously.

    I would bear down on the cap (even fix it at the current level, or with a small increase), which would have a beneficial side effect of clobbering retail inflation quite significantly. And being clear political communication.

    Then offer supply-side support to keep companies above water where necessary. I'm quite tempted by a low interest rate (eg base rate or base + 1%) borrowing facility against assets to be paid back over 5 years.

    I'm not sure if we can buck world prices without upsetting our international contract arrangements. Though a levy or further windfall tax is perhaps attractive.

    The things confusing in the windfall tax is that media-idiots are failing to report existing measures such as higher taxes for the sector, and a windfall tax already having happened, and slinging mud at companies on the basis of worldwide profits.

    And it goes without saying that insulation programmes etc should have been beefed up and driven harder 18 months ago, but Big Chief Sitting Bullshitter Boris sat on his butt.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,313
    Carnyx said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
    They had decks in 1980, HMS Belfast and the Discovery aside? I never knew.
    I think a patio was pretty exotic back then.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,245
    Carnyx said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
    They had decks in 1980, HMS Belfast and the Discovery aside? I never knew.
    Talking about Maine one of the interesting things in the US is that out of the cities, everyone, but everyone has a porch. It is as much a vital part of American living as a TV in the corner for us Brits. Filthy rich or dirt poor in the rural areas everyone has a porch.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,733
    Interestingly an analyst on CNN just mentioned that the FBI search possibly couldn’t have been done later than yesterday as there are rules regarding the justice department doing something that could be seen as politically motivated within 90 days of elections .
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    The deck.


  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,129
    rcs1000 said:

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Conservatives winning in 2015, Trump becoming president, and the EU referendum going the way it did were all odds against.

    It'd be interesting to compare stats on whether general sports betting markets are better predictors of the future than political markets.

    Of course: 4-1 shots should come in roughly one in five times, because otherwise there wouldn't be a market and a price.

    FWIW, betting markets have tended to overstate the Dems chances in the US, mostly I suspect, because polls have tended to overstate the Dems support.

    The question is, has this been fixed?
    When a 10/1 shot comes in out of a big field with the fav at say 3s and 20/1 bar, this isn't a shock. But when a 10/1 shot beats the 1/10 fav in a 2 horse race, it is.

    I don't know quite where to go with this observation but I think it does have ramifications in how people view and describe how probable something is.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited August 2022

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    You didn't include it in the rent, then ? :wink:
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    MattW said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    I may have argued it previously.

    I would bear down on the cap (even fix it at the current level, or with a small increase), which would have a beneficial side effect of clobbering retail inflation quite significantly. And being clear political communication.

    Then offer supply-side support to keep companies above water where necessary - the dodgy ones having mainly gone through. I'm quite tempted by a low interest rate (eg base rate or base + 1%) borrowing facility against assets to be paid back over 5 years.

    I'm not sure if we can buck world prices without upsetting our international contract arrangements. Though a levy or further windfall tax is perhaps attractive.

    The things confusing in the windfall tax is that media-idiots are failing to report existing measures such as higher taxes for the sector, and a windfall tax already having happened, and slinging mud at companies on the basis of worldwide profits.

    And it goes without saying that insulation programmes etc should have been beefed up and driven harder 18 months ago, but Big Chief Sitting Bullshitter Boris sat on his butt.

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    You didn't include it in the rent, then ? :wink:
    Actually, you’re right. It *is* included in the rent.
    $2500 is my electricity bill, including aircon at full blast for a month or so.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,913

    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
    It was pretty bleak. In 1980 my family home had metal framed single glazed crittall windows and a thin wooden front door with single paned patterned glass running down the centre. Open coal fire in the dining room with a storage heater in the front room that Dad would set at less than 1 (of 6), and a coal fire for really cold days.
    My bedroom had no heat and faced north, my windows would be iced on the inside and my bed was warmed by a heated bulb in a cage called a 'glo baby' plus several teddies. Twin tub for washing day.
    And that was standard fayre, we werent poor by any means. Nor well off. Just normal.
    Anyone wanting that can have it.
  • Options
    Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,524
    On living standards in 1980, I can't but wonder whether some posters are mistaking 1980 for 1950. As I recall, living standards were pretty good in 1980.

    I'd just left university in 1980. I had my first, very low-paid, job. I recall thinking I had plenty of money. Beer was cheap, food was fine, and I don't recall worrying about my rent (I lived in a comfortable 1-bed flat in Leeds). Many of my contemporaries ran a car. Not a life of luxury, which I wouldn't expect at that age, but certainly not a life of penury. I don't recall worrying about money much at all, nor having to make agonising decisions on spending.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,915
    ""As you understood, missiles with a range of 200-300 km are already in our arsenal and are being used, - former Ministry of Internal Affairs, Viktor Andrusiv on destruction of Russian airfield in Crimea"

    https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1556995028521828354
  • Options
    FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,045
    Mortimer said:

    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

    Yes I come across that all the time. Obviously if you pay yourself through a company your main bill will be corporation tax. It's not obvious why people on similar income levels should pay far more tax than you do. And I don't think hundreds of thousands of people equates to an 'almighty tax grab on middle England.'
  • Options
    Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,379
    nico679 said:

    Interestingly an analyst on CNN just mentioned that the FBI search possibly couldn’t have been done later than yesterday as there are rules regarding the justice department doing something that could be seen as politically motivated within 90 days of elections .

    Not sure how the FBI were allowed 5o interfere in the 2020 elections on trumps side then?
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited August 2022

    MattW said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    I may have argued it previously.

    I would bear down on the cap (even fix it at the current level, or with a small increase), which would have a beneficial side effect of clobbering retail inflation quite significantly. And being clear political communication.

    Then offer supply-side support to keep companies above water where necessary - the dodgy ones having mainly gone through. I'm quite tempted by a low interest rate (eg base rate or base + 1%) borrowing facility against assets to be paid back over 5 years.

    I'm not sure if we can buck world prices without upsetting our international contract arrangements. Though a levy or further windfall tax is perhaps attractive.

    The things confusing in the windfall tax is that media-idiots are failing to report existing measures such as higher taxes for the sector, and a windfall tax already having happened, and slinging mud at companies on the basis of worldwide profits.

    And it goes without saying that insulation programmes etc should have been beefed up and driven harder 18 months ago, but Big Chief Sitting Bullshitter Boris sat on his butt.

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    You didn't include it in the rent, then ? :wink:
    Actually, you’re right. It *is* included in the rent.
    That's a potential ouch.

    I'd get your letting agent to have a look at the fine print of the agreement, to see if there is any kind of limit or similar. Potentially it could be a blank cheque on your account.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    edited August 2022

    On living standards in 1980, I can't but wonder whether some posters are mistaking 1980 for 1950. As I recall, living standards were pretty good in 1980.

    I'd just left university in 1980. I had my first, very low-paid, job. I recall thinking I had plenty of money. Beer was cheap, food was fine, and I don't recall worrying about my rent (I lived in a comfortable 1-bed flat in Leeds). Many of my contemporaries ran a car. Not a life of luxury, which I wouldn't expect at that age, but certainly not a life of penury. I don't recall worrying about money much at all, nor having to make agonising decisions on spending.

    I wasn’t alive in 1950, so no I am not getting confused. Now admittedly we were not well off, but on the other hand we managed to buy a house and move out of rental accommodation, so we were better off than some.

    Anyway, my point is not that 1980 was somehow unliveable, but rather than living standards have improved a lot more than some posters want to credit.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,903
    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MISTY said:
    I think the general will.



    With the legislature, federal court system and state courts all controlled by the GOP in and above GA, there's opportunity for epic shithousery.
    Georgia would go GOP well before Arizona and Wisconsin do
    GA is trending the hardest Dem of all states - but it's legislature above and courts are all completely GOP. It's the ripest ECVs to steal for the GOP.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,313
    MattW said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    I may have argued it previously.

    I would bear down on the cap (even fix it at the current level, or with a small increase), which would have a beneficial side effect of clobbering retail inflation quite significantly. And being clear political communication.

    Then offer supply-side support to keep companies above water where necessary. I'm quite tempted by a low interest rate (eg base rate or base + 1%) borrowing facility against assets to be paid back over 5 years.

    I'm not sure if we can buck world prices without upsetting our international contract arrangements. Though a levy or further windfall tax is perhaps attractive.

    The things confusing in the windfall tax is that media-idiots are failing to report existing measures such as higher taxes for the sector, and a windfall tax already having happened, and slinging mud at companies on the basis of worldwide profits.

    And it goes without saying that insulation programmes etc should have been beefed up and driven harder 18 months ago, but Big Chief Sitting Bullshitter Boris sat on his butt.
    This seems sensible.

    I think it was actually Rishi's treasury that cracked down on insulation programmes etc. was it not? Obviously Boris could in theory have told Rishi to piss off.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,065

    On living standards in 1980, I can't but wonder whether some posters are mistaking 1980 for 1950. As I recall, living standards were pretty good in 1980.

    I'd just left university in 1980. I had my first, very low-paid, job. I recall thinking I had plenty of money. Beer was cheap, food was fine, and I don't recall worrying about my rent (I lived in a comfortable 1-bed flat in Leeds). Many of my contemporaries ran a car. Not a life of luxury, which I wouldn't expect at that age, but certainly not a life of penury. I don't recall worrying about money much at all, nor having to make agonising decisions on spending.

    Real per capita household disposable income was more than double its 1980 level in 2021. And more than 4x its 1955 level.
  • Options
    DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 24,242
    edited August 2022
    Apropos the discussion of betting markets and outcomes...

    Boris bets — sure things? (We've done the time value of money thing already.)

    Boris 1.03 not to be leader at the next general election, which might not be settled till January 2005 and there is an outside chance he will have been re-elected by then. Or it might be settled this September. You can never be sure with Betfair.

    Boris 1.02 not to be leader at the next party conference which is 2nd to 5th October.

    Boris 1.01 to leave office in 2022.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,590

    The deck.


    Oh, the deck is new? Sorry. Had thought it was an Original Feature.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    The problem with Liz Truss' and her tax cuts is she keeps (deliberately?) conflating two outcomes.
    Firstly, to encourage growth in the economy. This is entirely plausible.
    And secondly, and in tandem, to help with the CofL crisis. This is unarguably true. But it does nowt at all in the immediate term for those most in need of help.
    So she's always answering a subtly different question to the one being asked.

    Here is my carefully considered insight:

    Liz doesn't get it!
    I think it's highly likely that in the event that energy prices rise as high as is currently predicted, the Government will step in with some form of assistance. At the moment, we don't know exactly what will happen, so it seems fair not to have a totally fleshed out policy of what that assistance will be.

    On a related note, I think it would probably be a good idea to decouple any cash grant from energy - ie. people don't have to use it to purchase energy. Otherwise it's a pure bung to energy companies. It will save energy, because those who prefer an extra jumper and to spend it on food etc., will be able to do so.

    Yeah. It needs to discourage use as much as possible.
    I never quite got why a flat £400 was chosen?
    It goes to everyone equally. Billionaires, second and third home owners. And single folk like me with a tiny energy efficient flat, which will cover the leccy entirely.
    Surely a %age discount off everyone's bills would have been just as easy to administer? And encourage lower use?
    Combined with a bung to the lowest paid?
    Of course. As matt w notes. They could always change the cap as well.
    I may have argued it previously.

    I would bear down on the cap (even fix it at the current level, or with a small increase), which would have a beneficial side effect of clobbering retail inflation quite significantly. And being clear political communication.

    Then offer supply-side support to keep companies above water where necessary - the dodgy ones having mainly gone through. I'm quite tempted by a low interest rate (eg base rate or base + 1%) borrowing facility against assets to be paid back over 5 years.

    I'm not sure if we can buck world prices without upsetting our international contract arrangements. Though a levy or further windfall tax is perhaps attractive.

    The things confusing in the windfall tax is that media-idiots are failing to report existing measures such as higher taxes for the sector, and a windfall tax already having happened, and slinging mud at companies on the basis of worldwide profits.

    And it goes without saying that insulation programmes etc should have been beefed up and driven harder 18 months ago, but Big Chief Sitting Bullshitter Boris sat on his butt.

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    You didn't include it in the rent, then ? :wink:
    Actually, you’re right. It *is* included in the rent.
    That's a potential ouch.

    I'd get your letting agent to have a look at the fine print of the agreement, to see if there is any kind of limit or similar. Potentially it could be a blank cheque on your account.
    Its fine. The rent comes every month, with electricity itemised separately. There is no bill for heating.

    Of course, rent, food, and education are all more expensive, the latter grossly more so.
  • Options
    MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,936
    MaxPB said:

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
    @MaxPB sorry to hear about the health troubles, wishing you all the best and zero stress.

    One thing I've not quite got my head around - how do people have energy bills anywhere near the cap now?

    Mine combined for the shop (with 3 employees) and my flat are about 1/3rd of the current cap.

    Do people just leave the heating on all day and night?!
  • Options
    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,966
    Dura_Ace said:

    HYUFD said:

    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw

    Trident 660. Not great, not terrible.
    IDS 68, not great, terrible.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,845
    edited August 2022
    Carnyx said:

    The deck.


    Oh, the deck is new? Sorry. Had thought it was an Original Feature.
    It’s “new” as in circa 1986.
    My dad built it; badly.

    I think the roof post-dates us.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,372
    MISTY said:

    Nigelb said:

    MISTY said:

    Jolly decent of the FBI to make a horse race of this with Trump home raid.

    Fired up the Repub base a treat. Even the moderates are miffed.

    I totally get the argument about riling up the base but I think it's all too clever by half. "Party's likely presidential nominee subject to a federal search warrant and liable to be indicted for multiple easy-to-prove crimes" is going to be bad for the said party.
    Note that law enforcement don't get to tell their story, for now.
    So the framing - and initial media reporting - has largely been of the aggrieved man-child type.
    But that's Trump's narrative. Why play to it?

    Why not just say, run if you like matey, we're confident we will beat you again on the politics. Knock yourself out. Hell I double dare you. I'll even pay your hairspray bill.

    That's the way to beat Trump, surely?
    Of course.
    But you are talking as if the FBI/Attorney General and the Democratic party are one and the same thing; they are not.
    Biden was very likely not told about the raid until it happened. It's not something the President gets to sign off on.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,913

    Carnyx said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Posters claiming that “1980 wasn’t so bad” are truly the pits.

    If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.

    On the other hand - I got a Scalextric set for xmas that year. So it wasn't all bad.
    Relatedly, I was just looking at a property listing for the house I grew up in. Pretty much unmodernised since my family sold it, and we certainly put next to no money into it.

    Pretty sure no posters would willingly return to a 1980s level of comfort, with no heating, mouldy ceilings and window frames, and a rickety death trap masquerading as a “deck”.
    They had decks in 1980, HMS Belfast and the Discovery aside? I never knew.
    I think a patio was pretty exotic back then.
    Yeah, decks were something fancy arsed yanks or antipodeans might have
  • Options
    MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,936
    edited August 2022

    Mortimer said:

    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

    Yes I come across that all the time. Obviously if you pay yourself through a company your main bill will be corporation tax. It's not obvious why people on similar income levels should pay far more tax than you do. And I don't think hundreds of thousands of people equates to an 'almighty tax grab on middle England.'
    Perhaps because

    1) They get holiday pay, sick pay and the like, which we don't.
    2) They're not risking their money creating jobs, bringing money into the economy (exports) and serving as tax collectors for the revenue (VAT).
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,372

    On living standards in 1980, I can't but wonder whether some posters are mistaking 1980 for 1950. As I recall, living standards were pretty good in 1980.

    I'd just left university in 1980. I had my first, very low-paid, job. I recall thinking I had plenty of money. Beer was cheap, food was fine, and I don't recall worrying about my rent (I lived in a comfortable 1-bed flat in Leeds). Many of my contemporaries ran a car. Not a life of luxury, which I wouldn't expect at that age, but certainly not a life of penury. I don't recall worrying about money much at all, nor having to make agonising decisions on spending.

    I wasn’t alive in 1950, so no I am not getting confused. Now admittedly we were not well off, but on the other hand we managed to buy a house and move out of rental accommodation, so we were better off than some.

    Anyway, my point is not that 1980 was somehow unliveable, but rather than living standards have improved a lot more than some posters want to credit.
    Quite.
    "As I recall, living standards were pretty good in 1980" might well be an accurate recollection. But that wouldn't have been the experience of quite a large percentage of the population.
    Apart from anything else, life expectancy was about 5 years less.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,733
    edited August 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    MISTY said:
    I think the general will.



    With the legislature, federal court system and state courts all controlled by the GOP in and above GA, there's opportunity for epic shithousery.
    One saving grace is new Secretaries of State don’t normally get sworn in until January and if Raffensberger wins again he’ll still be overseeing the 2024 GE . The governor certifies the results but can’t interfere with the election itself in Georgia , Raffensberger has a lot more power in that respect . What’s clear though is that state legislature and other branches of state government are going to be much more important now given more likely attempts by the GOP to try and steal another election .
  • Options
    VerulamiusVerulamius Posts: 1,435
    Mortimer said:

    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

    Companies with small profits will still be taxed at 19%. The full rate of 25% will only apply if profits are more than £250k.

    I think that only 10% of companies will be within the full 25% rate.

    So not many micro businesses will be helped by Truss.
  • Options
    Mortimer said:

    MaxPB said:

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
    @MaxPB sorry to hear about the health troubles, wishing you all the best and zero stress.

    One thing I've not quite got my head around - how do people have energy bills anywhere near the cap now?

    Mine combined for the shop (with 3 employees) and my flat are about 1/3rd of the current cap.

    Do people just leave the heating on all day and night?!
    It's the billing cycle.

    Cheapest tariffs are the ones where you have to pay by direct debit.

    So you ring up say Scottish Power and they estimate your bill for the next 12 months at say £3,000.

    They insist you spread the cost of the bill evenly over the year with a monthly DD of £250 per month.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited August 2022
    MaxPB said:

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
    I'm currently being told anything between about 2k and 4k by my supplier, and being offered a fixed price 12 month contract which at estimated usage would be payments of £300 per month. OTOH they had to refund me £700 last January for overestimating the electric usage by 100%+.

    But if I get a handle on the gas usage this winter (which means reduce it by two thirds), with Rishi's handouts and the £600 or so solar FIT payments I could end up making a profit. Current total summer bills are under £50 a month.

    It's so all over the place that I can't call any of it beyond the end of the quarter.

    Has anyone blamed it all on Brexit yet? :smile:
  • Options
    Report slams UK plan to become 'science superpower' by 2030
    Lords cite 'frequent' policy changes, lack of metrics, post-Brexit funding as top issues

    How's the UK doing in its ambitions to become a sci-tech "superpower" by 2030? According to a report by the Lords Science and Technology Committee, it's currently on track to make the phrase an "empty slogan."

    The peers, headed by committee chair Julia King (Baroness Brown of Cambridge), an engineer with a PhD in fracture mechanics, said there were no "specific, measurable outcomes", no delivery plan, a short-termist outlook, and "frequent policy changes."

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/09/scitech_superpower/

    The House of Lords report, published last week, is at
    https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/193/science-and-technology-committee-lords/news/172576/unfocused-uk-science-and-technology-strategy-risks-science-superpower-becoming-an-empty-slogan/

  • Options
    Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,379
    Mortimer said:

    MaxPB said:

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
    @MaxPB sorry to hear about the health troubles, wishing you all the best and zero stress.

    One thing I've not quite got my head around - how do people have energy bills anywhere near the cap now?

    Mine combined for the shop (with 3 employees) and my flat are about 1/3rd of the current cap.

    Do people just leave the heating on all day and night?!
    It's not just the heating. If it were, we wouldn't have any energy bills at the moment. the bulk of the summer bill is lighting and appliances. Even our gas bill isn't zero because of water heating and standing charge.
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    On topic, wait for the terrible backlash against the Dems for Joe Biden personally telling the FBI to raid Mar-A-Lago.

    I mean these people alternate from telling us Joe Biden is dementia ridden or an evil genius.
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    Mortimer said:

    MaxPB said:

    My heating bill in New York is going to somewhere around the $2500 mark this year.

    I can only guess at what it would be in London, I think something like £6000.

    ~£3.7k expected for my house plus electricity.
    @MaxPB sorry to hear about the health troubles, wishing you all the best and zero stress.

    One thing I've not quite got my head around - how do people have energy bills anywhere near the cap now?

    Mine combined for the shop (with 3 employees) and my flat are about 1/3rd of the current cap.

    Do people just leave the heating on all day and night?!
    That's not how the cap works: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-is-the-energy-price-cap/
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    kjhkjh Posts: 10,573
    HYUFD said:

    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw

    Good on him, what with the Morgan he is doing the mid life crisis properly. As you may have noticed from recent posts I'm doing the same. Motor racing lessons, Pitts special flight, looking for a classic car. Almost down to the maximum weight I'm allowed for the flight with 2 weeks to go. Good incentive to lose weight. 7 kg off so far.
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    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Iain Duncan Smith rode a motorcycle in black leather to a Liz Truss even yesterday

    https://twitter.com/WJames_Reuters/status/1556932421148352512?s=20&t=vr3IgxdePEgmAEXvNcWAmw

    Good on him, what with the Morgan he is doing the mid life crisis properly. As you may have noticed from recent posts I'm doing the same. Motor racing lessons, Pitts special flight, looking for a classic car. Almost down to the maximum weight I'm allowed for the flight with 2 weeks to go. Good incentive to lose weight. 7 kg off so far.
    I'm glad my mid life crisis consists of wearing loafers.
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    FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,045
    Mortimer said:

    Mortimer said:

    @SouthamObserver - the Corp tax promise is MUCH cleverer that it first appears.

    There are a lot of Micro businesses with single proprietors or family ownership for whom Corp tax is their biggest tax bill. Indeed, going Ltd was encouraged for lots of small traders by, inter alia, James Gordon Brown. Most will be set up to take c.12.5k as income and the remainder as dividends.

    At present, the taxes on my assets are going to go up by around 25% next. It is another almightly tax grab on middle England.

    I know lots of Tory members have a similar set up. Hundreds of thousands of voters will too.

    Yes I come across that all the time. Obviously if you pay yourself through a company your main bill will be corporation tax. It's not obvious why people on similar income levels should pay far more tax than you do. And I don't think hundreds of thousands of people equates to an 'almighty tax grab on middle England.'
    Perhaps because

    1) They get holiday pay, sick pay and the like, which we don't.
    2) They're not risking their money creating jobs, bringing money into the economy (exports) and serving as tax collectors for the revenue (VAT).
    Possibly but it depends what you are doing. Sole traders don't get holiday pay or sick pay so far as I'm aware. Let's say you choose to freelance. Pay yourself through your own limited company, have your wife as a 50% shareholder and so you split the profits between you. I don't think 25% corporation tax which is in line with most other OECD countries is prohibitive to wealth generation.
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