One of the intended or unintended consequences of the collapse in interest rates after 2008 was it enabled those in work to clear off mortgage debt.
As an example, Mrs Stodge and I saw our mortgage rate collapse to 0.99% - that enabled us not only to pay off our mortgage debt but also to renovate the house borrowing against that mortgage (tell me where else you could borrow £50k at 1% interest).
I can't believe we were the only ones who did that - there must be hundreds of thousands of mortgage-free property owners sitting on assets which have appreciated far beyond inflation so are both cash rich and asset rich and, combined with money saved during the pandemic, must be helping keeping spending going and the economy still even slightly buoyant.
I'd go further - such individuals could live with a 5-10% drop in property values as their next move is likely to be a downsize rather than an upscale.
Yes, we've been fortunate - my parents were also fortunate in their property purchase - their house appreciated 35 times in 34 years and the original mortgage my father took out was fixed at 2.25% in 1966. Inflation and low interest rates are wonderful for asset growth and if your salary can keep pace with the former, so much the better.
On the other end, the US could do more to prevent "fetal alcohol syndrome": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorder (It's my impression that it is especially common among some Indian tribes, who alreay have enough problems.)
EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Labour activist Pete Willsman has been expelled by Labour for claiming the Israeli Embassy has "whipped up" anti-semitism allegations.
I haven't seen any studies on this, but it is my impression that legal immigrants to the US generally have IQs above our current average. And judging from the names of the National Merit scholars in this area, tend to have smart kids.
I am not wedded to the theory of poor people having less intelligent by any means, I suspect in fact that nurture is more important and I know in this country many poor parents do not see the value of education and push their children. First generation immigrants on the other hand do quite often....generalizations I know but its an alternative theory
France beating Australia is no more noteworthy than England beating Iran or Argentina beating, well, you get the picture.
Le stade Al Bayt 10 décembre
Angleterre 1 - 7 France
🇫🇷 🏴 🇫🇷
Australia has been independent since 1901, the idea they are English is ludicrous if you have ever watched an Ashes series! There are of course plenty of Scottish origin in Australia too.
The Falklands will no doubt be celebrating the Argentina defeat however
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The Tories won those of working age earning over £100k at the last general election.
However pensioners are always the Conservative Party's core vote, lose them and it effectively goes extinct.
About 19% of the UK population is over 65, enough to be the main opposition at most general elections at least on voteshare but less than 3% of the UK population earn more than £100k, ie no more than the Green Party and RefUK got at the last election
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The Tories won those of working age earning over £100k at the last general election
That's like 1.2m people or something. Not exactly a huge boast. The Tories should be winning a majority among higher tax payers but we're not because people like you want to protect your inheritance at the expense of growing the economy.
And it's not the party of pensioners, that's a fairly recent development. It is, well it was, the party of home owners. Until ~2005 home ownership was fairly evenly spread across all age groups. Since then it has correlated with age, hence Tory voting correlating with age.
France beating Australia is no more noteworthy than England beating Iran or Argentina beating, well, you get the picture.
Le stade Al Bayt 10 décembre
Angleterre 1 - 7 France
🇫🇷 🏴 🇫🇷
Australia has been independent since 1901, the idea they are English is ludicrous if you have ever watched an Ashes series! There are of course plenty of Scottish origin in Australia too.
The Falklands will no doubt be celebrating the Argentina defeat however
Vous êtes aussi attardé que votre ami le général Franco.
EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Labour activist Pete Willsman has been expelled by Labour for claiming the Israeli Embassy has "whipped up" anti-semitism allegations.
Pagan2 - I don't doubt that there are effects of both. And, again I can see it here in this Seattle suburb. Someone is paying for all those tutoring small businesses that have sprung up in this area, in recent years.
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The party of aspiration I supported is dead.
The problem is I can't see Labour of the Lib Dems being any better. But at least if the Tories lose, they might have a chance to rebuild.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The Tories won those of working age earning over £100k at the last general election
That's like 1.2m people or something. Not exactly a huge boast. The Tories should be winning a majority among higher tax payers but we're not because people like you want to protect your inheritance at the expense of growing the economy.
And it's not the party of pensioners, that's a fairly recent development. It is, well it was, the party of home owners. Until ~2005 home ownership was fairly evenly spread across all age groups. Since then it has correlated with age, hence Tory voting correlating with age.
Most over 39s own a property and the Tories won a landslide majority in 2019 winning just over 39s.
Home owenership is not as big a problem as made out, cultural concerns and economic competence are more the issue with those under 65
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
I've heard they're hiring like mad to fill development roles. If they can last out the next 3-6 months I wouldn't be surprised if they turn it around completely by the end of next year. I know someone who is still there and he said that it feels like a startup again. The glaring issue is that a startup doesn't usually have a $700m revenue line to maintain and mega clients to keep happy.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
That's not quite true... It's impossible to login to the advertiser's dashboard to actually, you know, spend money on Twitter.
Ah, I've just noticed that Prof James R Flynn died during Covid. December 2020
RIP. A nice, clever, amiable geezer
How many people died in that awful blur of plague and lockdown, and we didn't notice?
Relatedly, Flynn wrote a short treatise of political philosophy which posits that Justice, Freedom, Equality etc are fundamentally irreducible and irreconcilable and that all one can do is balance them this way and that, never reaching a stable equilibrium.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
That's not quite true... It's impossible to login to the advertiser's dashboard to actually, you know, spend money on Twitter.
Which is a bit mad because there's loads of bargain hungry companies who don't care about all of this and still want access to the huge audience twitter draws. I'd suggest it's priority one to fix and to fix content filtering for advertisers. With those two fixed they could easily last this out and watch big companies quietly reopen their Twitter advertising accounts just as they all did with Facebook after publicly quitting last summer.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
How much of the rise in house prices is down to more households having 2 incomes? Must be non-zero.
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The party of aspiration I supported is dead.
The problem is I can't see Labour of the Lib Dems being any better. But at least if the Tories lose, they might have a chance to rebuild.
There's no party of aspiration because the nation is no longer aspirational, it is entitled.
I'll not have a bad word said against Owen Paterson.
O-Patz was a contributory factor in the demise of Boris Johnson and for that we should all contribute to his legal fees.
Paterson himself was barely involved in Boris's demise. What undermined the Prime Minister was the plan by Charles Moore, Boris, JRM and other assorted Old Etonians to exploit Paterson's situation to change the rules in order to save Boris.
I haven't seen any studies on this, but it is my impression that legal immigrants to the US generally have IQs above our current average. And judging from the names of the National Merit scholars in this area, tend to have smart kids.
It's no surprise that immigrants are smarter and more ambitious on average - it takes some organisation and get-up-and-go to move to another country. (I was an immigrant myself for 10 years, to Germany, natch)
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The party of aspiration I supported is dead.
The problem is I can't see Labour of the Lib Dems being any better. But at least if the Tories lose, they might have a chance to rebuild.
There's no party of aspiration because the nation is no longer aspirational, it is entitled.
I would argue that we have only followed our role models in the house of commons
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
"Younger people are generally stupider. I think it's dietary."
+++
I had a drink with an academic friend yesterday. He was talking about the latest crop of students, 18 and 19, who are the first cohort really impacted by Covid and Lockdowns
He said it is horrifying. They are clueless and dim, AND their social skills are pitiful, they don't know how to interact, to flirt, charm, persuade. All they can do is scroll their phones, monotonously
He was already concerned by a decline in intelligence, but this has now - he told me - turned into a freefall
What have we done?
The only people that can afford more than one kid are the very rich and the very poor these days. There aren't very many of the very rich. Assuming that there is a genetic component to the intelligence (and yes its more complicated than that) I would suspect that the very poor tend towards the left of the intelligence bell curve. Over time then the apex of the bell curve will move downwards. cf the march of the idiots.
Is this true, no idea it does sound plausible however
That theory has been bandied around for about 300 years, so you're not new to it.
There doesn't seem to be much evidence for it actually impacting intelligence.
(With the proviso that, if it is correct, then it will be France that powers past its continental neighbours, for that is the only country in the world where graduates are more likely to have babies than non-graduates.)
That theory is called "dysgenic drift" and it too is very real
We do not have eugenic natal policies, nor does any western country. Quite the opposite
I'll not have a bad word said against Owen Paterson.
O-Patz was a contributory factor in the demise of Boris Johnson and for that we should all contribute to his legal fees.
Paterson himself was barely involved in Boris's demise. What undermined the Prime Minister was the plan by Charles Moore, Boris, JRM and other assorted Old Etonians to exploit Paterson's situation to change the rules in order to save Boris.
Excellently put. Paterson was an arrogant and stubborn fool, but you get those. They chose to try to make something of the circumstance he created, and cocked up.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
BAME might have included non-British white people (a polish acquaintance of mine felt so). I assume global majority would not? Eh, they're all the same I guess.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
You have to remember that they doubled their head count during COVID....when they saw their advertising drop and the product has seen very little innovation for years.
They are down to apparently 2750 or so, they managed with 3000-3500 for years with nobody suggesting the world was going to end.
Someone should start a to be a campaign that just mocks and ridicules the conservative party as being the party of greedy, self interested wealthy pensioners who just want to hoard their fortunes and turn the young in to a servant class. Because it increasingly feels like that is what they are.
The latest thing... street votes on planning permissions. This is actually a real law - not just a whim, it is actually part of the Levelling up and regeneration Bill, inserted by way of a government amendment. Planning applications are going to be decided by local referendums, meaning that planning permission can be voted down by NIMBYs. They are going to close down the whole development industry and all the jobs and economic activity it creates, in the middle of a recession, just like that. The conservative party has completely and utterly lost the plot.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
That's not quite true... It's impossible to login to the advertiser's dashboard to actually, you know, spend money on Twitter.
Which is a bit mad because there's loads of bargain hungry companies who don't care about all of this and still want access to the huge audience twitter draws. I'd suggest it's priority one to fix and to fix content filtering for advertisers. With those two fixed they could easily last this out and watch big companies quietly reopen their Twitter advertising accounts just as they all did with Facebook after publicly quitting last summer.
I'm sure they'll get it working, but it is spectacularly dumb to be actually turning away money at a time like this.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
You have to remember that they doubled their head count during COVID....when they saw their advertising drop and the product has seen very little innovation for years.
They are down to apparently 2750 or so, they managed with 3000-3500 for years with nobody suggesting the world was going to end.
At work I did read that Twitter are about to be taken the cleaners because their failure to remove copyrighted material.
I think entire films and tv series were being posted to Twitter in recent days, prior to Musk there was a department that enforced copyright protection, now there's nobody to enforce takedowns.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
I've heard they're hiring like mad to fill development roles. If they can last out the next 3-6 months I wouldn't be surprised if they turn it around completely by the end of next year. I know someone who is still there and he said that it feels like a startup again. The glaring issue is that a startup doesn't usually have a $700m revenue line to maintain and mega clients to keep happy.
On the other hand, startups can offer lots of share options. With Twitter the strike price is $44bn, which rather limits your upside.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
lol. Global Majority. I have no doubt @kinabalu will be using it daily
Does it include Chinese? Inuit? Jews? Cornish? Gays? What? Is it everyone who is a minority and is therefore in a majority because everyone is actually a minority?
God, I despise this shit. I'd like to dismiss it, but unfortunately, it matters
One of the intended or unintended consequences of the collapse in interest rates after 2008 was it enabled those in work to clear off mortgage debt.
As an example, Mrs Stodge and I saw our mortgage rate collapse to 0.99% - that enabled us not only to pay off our mortgage debt but also to renovate the house borrowing against that mortgage (tell me where else you could borrow £50k at 1% interest).
I can't believe we were the only ones who did that - there must be hundreds of thousands of mortgage-free property owners sitting on assets which have appreciated far beyond inflation so are both cash rich and asset rich and, combined with money saved during the pandemic, must be helping keeping spending going and the economy still even slightly buoyant.
I'd go further - such individuals could live with a 5-10% drop in property values as their next move is likely to be a downsize rather than an upscale.
Yes, we've been fortunate - my parents were also fortunate in their property purchase - their house appreciated 35 times in 34 years and the original mortgage my father took out was fixed at 2.25% in 1966. Inflation and low interest rates are wonderful for asset growth and if your salary can keep pace with the former, so much the better.
Wealth, like time, is a funny thing.
5-10% wouldn’t even take it back to pre-covid levels. You could live with 30-50% falls.
Bit concerned about twitter - not seen any breathless reporting of something stupid Musk has said or done for about 2 days, feels like the fun is over.
I've heard they're hiring like mad to fill development roles. If they can last out the next 3-6 months I wouldn't be surprised if they turn it around completely by the end of next year. I know someone who is still there and he said that it feels like a startup again. The glaring issue is that a startup doesn't usually have a $700m revenue line to maintain and mega clients to keep happy.
On the other hand, startups can offer lots of share options. With Twitter the strike price is $44bn, which rather limits your upside.
Fair value price is probably zero, wouldn't be surprised if they strike price follows fairly soon.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
Don't we end up down the UBI road again?
The problem with means tested or non-universal benefits for pensioners is that they are very bad at claiming them and many fall through the gaps.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
lol. Global Majority. I have no doubt @kinabalu will be using it daily
Does it include Chinese? Inuit? Jews? Cornish? Gays? What? Is it everyone who is a minority and is therefore in a majority because everyone is actually a minority?
God, I despise this shit. I'd like to dismiss it, but unfortunately, it matters
It really doesn't matter.
Its absurd terminology that is used by the absurd, to wind up the equally absurd.
For everyone else life goes on as normal with far more prosaic and real concerns than what words are used to irritate you, or the march of GPT3/4 or whatever else you are BRACING over tonight.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
I have a new word that I'm going to use to refer to those who are BAME or the global majority or who are Asian or White or Black or Inuit:
Ah, I've just noticed that Prof James R Flynn died during Covid. December 2020
RIP. A nice, clever, amiable geezer
How many people died in that awful blur of plague and lockdown, and we didn't notice?
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Comic genius.
… [photo snipped]…
Was he? TBT was funny but The Goodies was written by the other two, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, who were established comedy writers before and after.
Given how party preference is so radically skewed by age, the Tories must be more hated by the under 60s since any time in modern history.
Even during peak Major-sleaze the Tories attracted a decent slug of working age people and even students.
Think on that.
The Tories offer nothing for anyone under 50 who wants to get on in life and they've saddled graduates with £50k in debt or a 9% marginal tax on middling income.
There's no reason to vote for them and again, I've been going to member events recently, it's as bad as the stereotype. The members are largely old, out of touch and wildly selfish. For the party of low tax the members are absolutely in favour of higher taxes on working people if it ensures their pension benefits go up. I recently started a huge bust up by telling them that and telling them that the state pension is a benefit and the government should means test it so people with assets over £500k don't get it. I'm literally there to shit stir until we go back into opposition and they die so we can rebuild the party for working age people.
The party of aspiration I supported is dead.
The problem is I can't see Labour of the Lib Dems being any better. But at least if the Tories lose, they might have a chance to rebuild.
There's no party of aspiration because the nation is no longer aspirational, it is entitled.
You laid the blame for Truss's disastrous mini budget squarely on Truss and Kwarteng, which is where it belonged. Shame you seem to be spreading the blame for Sunak and Hunt's attempted asphyxiation of economic growth on 'the nation', 'the 'orrible retired Tories', or anyone else, save Sunak and Hunt, the sorry pair that you claimed would save the economy, despite every indication to the contrary.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
lol. Global Majority. I have no doubt @kinabalu will be using it daily
Does it include Chinese? Inuit? Jews? Cornish? Gays? What? Is it everyone who is a minority and is therefore in a majority because everyone is actually a minority?
God, I despise this shit. I'd like to dismiss it, but unfortunately, it matters
It really doesn't matter.
Its absurd terminology that is used by the absurd, to wind up the equally absurd.
For everyone else life goes on as normal with far more prosaic and real concerns than what words are used to irritate you, or the march of GPT3/4 or whatever else you are BRACING over tonight.
No. Wokeness matters (and this is another example of its menacing and endless stupidity), because it is so dangerous and corrosive
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
BAME might have included non-British white people (a polish acquaintance of mine felt so). I assume global majority would not? Eh, they're all the same I guess.
Whites are certainly in a small minority globally, probably less than 10% of humanity.
I'm not sure what their point is. That the UK population of whites should reflect the global average?
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
I have a new word that I'm going to use to refer to those who are BAME or the global majority or who are Asian or White or Black or Inuit:
I'm going with... "People"
I wonder if it will catch on.
I identify as a grain of salt Peter Panarchist Or a poly rubber puppy switch brat slut dharmasochist So, I said, "Fuck euphemism, your words are neophyte" I'm a single not a plural person so call me per for the night You're wrong if you hate me just 'cause I'm a word Smith and Wesson 'Cause I nicked this terminology from a Doris Lessing lesson
Musk has apparently managed to sack 75% of Twitter staff and almost nothing has gone wrong
The key missing word here is "yet". If you stop employing people to maintain a big office building, then for a while nothing much will seem wrong. But issues do start to crop up, and some of them will progress from "minor irritant" to "major expense" because nobody fixed the loose roof tile and the water ingress ruined the ceiling below...
Twitter, like any other company its size, undoubtedly had its fair share of employees who weren't achieving much, and employees who were working toward goals the new management no longer cares about. Has Musk's 75% chop caught all of those and not taken too many of the people quietly doing the equivalent of ensuring the roof isn't leaking? I'm dubious: keeping software working relies hugely on institutional knowledge in the heads of the people who develop and run it.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
For Nordic jollity, have you seen The Trip on Netflix? Bloody cracking.
I bet the Saudis wish they'd waited before buying Newcastle
Man U is one of the biggest soccer brands in the world, probably behind only Real, Barca and possibly Bayern
Liverpool and Man Utd up for sale...the Chinese aren't allowed to buy because Winnie the Pooh has told them not to be buying football club anymore, Russian aren't allowed anymore near anything, so Middle East or US Venture Capitalists I guess? Or Mr Ineos perhaps?
I bet the Saudis wish they'd waited before buying Newcastle
Man U is one of the biggest soccer brands in the world, probably behind only Real, Barca and possibly Bayern
Liverpool are bigger.
We may get a 1998 redux and someone like Sky* or Amazon may try and buy Liverpool or Manchester United so they can have a seat at the table in the sale of tv rights.
Ah, I've just noticed that Prof James R Flynn died during Covid. December 2020
RIP. A nice, clever, amiable geezer
How many people died in that awful blur of plague and lockdown, and we didn't notice?
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Comic genius.
… [photo snipped]…
Was he? TBT was funny but The Goodies was written by the other two, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, who were established comedy writers before and after.
So, not an ISIHAC aficionado? Pity is more appropriate than scorn.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
Don't we end up down the UBI road again?
The problem with means tested or non-universal benefits for pensioners is that they are very bad at claiming them and many fall through the gaps.
If they're falling through the gaps, they probably don't need it. People who genuinely need help, tend to claim it.
But yes, UBI is much better. The issue at the minute though is that we have ridiculously varying tax rates depending upon how income is earned, rather than how much is earned.
What is the tax rate paid by a pensioner, who owns a home without a mortgage, on £50k pa made up of £30k combined state and private pension and £20k of rental income per annum?
What is the tax rate paid by a graduate, who spends a grand plus a month in rent to that pensioner, on £50k pa paid subject to National Insurance, Tuition Fees etc?
Before we consider the latter has to pay rent and childcare costs, the tax system is completely borked.
This will get the great replacement theory lot raging...
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
lol. Global Majority. I have no doubt @kinabalu will be using it daily
Does it include Chinese? Inuit? Jews? Cornish? Gays? What? Is it everyone who is a minority and is therefore in a majority because everyone is actually a minority?
God, I despise this shit. I'd like to dismiss it, but unfortunately, it matters
Yeah it is laughably stupid. It is evidence of how groups of people can come up with stupid things if not challenged. I think the edifice crumbles though as soon as someone asks them about what they mean by the Global majority. My experience is that, despite all of this stuff, if you go to work in a woke inner London Council, it is generally better than working in a very white provincial Council which often just feels a lot like a weird time warp.
Someone should start a to be a campaign that just mocks and ridicules the conservative party as being the party of greedy, self interested wealthy pensioners who just want to hoard their fortunes and turn the young in to a servant class. Because it increasingly feels like that is what they are.
The latest thing... street votes on planning permissions. This is actually a real law - not just a whim, it is actually part of the Levelling up and regeneration Bill, inserted by way of a government amendment. Planning applications are going to be decided by local referendums, meaning that planning permission can be voted down by NIMBYs. They are going to close down the whole development industry and all the jobs and economic activity it creates, in the middle of a recession, just like that. The conservative party has completely and utterly lost the plot.
It's populism in its purist form. The underlying issue is that the Conservatives no longer have an anchor tying them to any particular beliefs. Belief systems can be good, bad or (more usually) mixed, but they give a certain consistency which is important in government. If you know that the Government will raise or cut taxes, be more pro-EU or less, more protectionist or free trade, you may approve or disapprove, but you can broadly plan on that basis. At present it is actually impossible to guess what they'll do next.
That, more than real or imagined incompetence, is why they need a spell in opposition - to decide what they are actually for.
"Younger people are generally stupider. I think it's dietary."
+++
I had a drink with an academic friend yesterday. He was talking about the latest crop of students, 18 and 19, who are the first cohort really impacted by Covid and Lockdowns
He said it is horrifying. They are clueless and dim, AND their social skills are pitiful, they don't know how to interact, to flirt, charm, persuade. All they can do is scroll their phones, monotonously
He was already concerned by a decline in intelligence, but this has now - he told me - turned into a freefall
What have we done?
The only people that can afford more than one kid are the very rich and the very poor these days. There aren't very many of the very rich. Assuming that there is a genetic component to the intelligence (and yes its more complicated than that) I would suspect that the very poor tend towards the left of the intelligence bell curve. Over time then the apex of the bell curve will move downwards. cf the march of the idiots.
Is this true, no idea it does sound plausible however
I see PB.com is going with full on eugenics theory tonight.
Didn't she support Jeremy Hunt for Leader yet can't stand his offering as Chancellor now? The contortions these Conservatives go through.
I think he was offering something very different at the time. He's either much more flexible than she is, or more likely she didn't have a path back to power by being more flexible like he did. For 2 years or so he gets to be a powerful politician, she'd have nothing additional.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
As I understand it the cost of living grants are only given to those on pension credit
As pensioners my wife and I are receiving the £400 energy rebate plus an increased winter fuel allowance of £600 (usually £300)
I have long since opposed the triple lock, but frankly it is no use labour, lib dem, and SNP supporters complaining about it as they are all champions of the triple lock
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
Don't we end up down the UBI road again?
The problem with means tested or non-universal benefits for pensioners is that they are very bad at claiming them and many fall through the gaps.
If they're falling through the gaps, they probably don't need it. People who genuinely need help, tend to claim it.
But yes, UBI is much better. The issue at the minute though is that we have ridiculously varying tax rates depending upon how income is earned, rather than how much is earned.
What is the tax rate paid by a pensioner, who owns a home without a mortgage, on £50k pa made up of £30k combined state and private pension and £20k of rental income per annum?
What is the tax rate paid by a graduate, who spends a grand plus a month in rent to that pensioner, on £50k pa paid subject to National Insurance, Tuition Fees etc?
Before we consider the latter has to pay rent and childcare costs, the tax system is completely borked.
It is often the most vulnerable who fail to claim.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
For Nordic jollity, have you seen The Trip on Netflix? Bloody cracking.
I’ll try to squeeze it into my tight schedule of interior decoration, move to the Med, The Crown et al.
Theoretically, I’m the master of all I survey. In brutal reality, I’m hitched to a Nordic feminist who is mistress of the bloody wheecher.
"On Wednesday the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill returns to the House of Commons. It contains a set of amendments proposed by Theresa Villiers, a former environment secretary, with the support of Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Damian Green, John Redwood, Tracey Crouch, Alicia Kearns and others. The effect will be to eviscerate the planning system as we know it by making all housing targets set by Whitehall purely advisory and removing the existing presumption in favour of development — in other words, scrapping the two core policies that tell councils they have to build, and punish them for not doing so."
Contemptible. If that goes through, the Tories deserve a landslide defeat.
Nimbies - disproportionately drawn from amongst, your guessed it, the serried ranks of the selfish old - will love it. Every sop to the grey vote *decreases* the likelihood of the Tories being flushed down the toilet. Expect a whole lot more of this kind of thing.
Nah, its self-defeating. Nimbies still only get 1 vote each, no matter how much they love the Tories. Tories appealling to Tories is like Labour appealling to Corbynites/SJW/Momentum etc
More people getting onto the property ladder gives a bigger pool of Tory voters. More people stuck renting or cohabiting in others homes, gives a bigger pool of Labour voters, even if those already voting Tory "love it".
It is always worth repeating at this juncture that about half of the entire electorate, accounting for age-related differences in turnout, is aged over 55. This cohort consists very largely of affluent homeowning pensioners, soon-to-be pensioners, and expectant heirs to pensioner property fortunes.
Today's Tory MPs realise, of course, that the young despise them, and that the problem will get worse as all those youthful have-nots age, but why should they care about that? They want to save their jobs now, not worry about what might happen in twenty years' time when most of the Boomers are dead.
There are lots of hard-up pensioners out there, and quite a few rich young and middle-aged people.
That's whataboutery. The average pensioner household now has, after housing costs, a higher disposable income than the average working household. Most pensioners are homeowners. QED.
State pension income is guaranteed to rise by inflation or more (depending on circumstances) by the triple lock, whereas most earned incomes are in real terms decline. Earned incomes are taxed to absolute fuck to service the Government's expenses (largely pensions, health and social care for pensioners, and a colossal debt racked up during the Covid lockdowns,) whilst taxation of property and inheritances is kept at rock bottom. Childcare costs are allowed to inflate out of control, whilst ministers persist with plans (even if briefly delayed) to cap social care costs so as to allow estates to be preserved. The supply of new homes is deliberately and systematically deprioritised and choked off, so that prices will be kept buoyant, to the advantage of existing owners (i.e. older people.) Even Brexit was a pure and simple case of the will of the aged trumping that of the young. The list goes on.
Yes, quite a lot of pensioners are hard-up and quite a lot of younger people are very comfortable, but taken as a whole the balance of society is ludicrously tilted in favour of the former and against the latter - and it's at the core of all of our problems as a nation. A country that sinks an ever-greater share of its wealth into servicing the care and interests of unproductive assets (houses) and unproductive people (the retired) is doomed to failure. Britain is doomed to failure. End of story.
No, it isn't whataboutery. Rich vs poor is not the same as young vs old. The software developer on £80,000 a year is better off than the pensioner on £10,000 a year, and is also better off than the shelf stacker on £20,000.
Rich isn't just about income which is the problem, we tax income far too much.
A young software developer with high taxes, tuition fees, exorbitantly high rent and childcare costs might be quite worse off than a pensioner with a moderate pension income that isn't taxed significantly and has no housing or childcare costs.
Rent can cost many tens of thousands nowadays of pretax income. Living rent-free doesn't change tax rates, but does change living expenses more than anything else imagineable.
At risk of going off-topic, especially while watching the soccerball, in the old days, when pensioners were young, childcare was free for most people. Mum stayed at home and took care of the children. The corollaries of this are that most households were single income, and most older women do not have generous private pensions.
You're completely missing the point. Deliberately or not.
On average 1 generous and 1 not-generous income with a mortgage-free home leaves more disposable income than 2 average worked for incomes subject to all taxes, plus tuition fees, plus rent, plus childcare etc
That's before we factor in the fact that the workers rent is on average going again to those who are living rent-free in their own home and that rent isn't taxed as heavily as going to work and paying National Insurance and Tuition Fees etc
And before we question how come 1 income was sufficient to buy a home in the past, but 2 incomes isn't today.
If the comparison is between those who hold assets or not, then that comparison can be made directly rather than going via a partially correlated factor like age. What is the average age for paying off mortgages, and how far below the state pension age is that? Sure, there are lots of well-off pensioners, but there are also a great many at the other end of the scale choosing whether to heat or eat, as the saying goes.
Yes some pensioners might be struggling, but as a class pensioners are not.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
As I understand it the cost of living grants are only given to those on pension credit
As pensioners my wife and I are receiving the £400 energy rebate plus an increased winter fuel allowance of £600 (usually £300)
I have long since opposed the triple lock, but frankly it is no use labour, lib dem, and SNP supporters complaining about it as they are all champions of the triple lock
£600 of winter fuel allowance is a cost of living grant.
One of them is going to those on pension credit, but as you yourself say, the winter fuel allowance which ought to be abolished has instead been doubled and who is paying for that? Not the untaxed (relatively) incomes of those who are well off pensioners, that's for sure.
I'll not have a bad word said against Owen Paterson.
O-Patz was a contributory factor in the demise of Boris Johnson and for that we should all contribute to his legal fees.
Paterson himself was barely involved in Boris's demise. What undermined the Prime Minister was the plan by Charles Moore, Boris, JRM and other assorted Old Etonians to exploit Paterson's situation to change the rules in order to save Boris.
Excellently put. Paterson was an arrogant and stubborn fool, but you get those. They chose to try to make something of the circumstance he created, and cocked up.
But shirley out of sync? At Paterson time Boris wasn't known to have done anything wrong, much. It wasn't to save Boris. It wasn't to save OP for his own sake (he was after all a comparative oik, went to Radley). It was simply an assertion that the rules didn't apply to Boris or to anyone on his side of the house.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
I bet the Saudis wish they'd waited before buying Newcastle
Man U is one of the biggest soccer brands in the world, probably behind only Real, Barca and possibly Bayern
Liverpool are bigger.
We may get a 1998 redux and someone like Sky* or Amazon may try and buy Liverpool or Manchester United so they can have a seat at the table in the sale of tv rights.
*Comcast.
I’m not sure that Liverpool is a bigger global brand than Man Utd.
Two suspected spies arrested in Stockholm after helicopter raid.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
For Nordic jollity, have you seen The Trip on Netflix? Bloody cracking.
I’ll try to squeeze it into my tight schedule of interior decoration, move to the Med, The Crown et al.
Theoretically, I’m the master of all I survey. In brutal reality, I’m hitched to a Nordic feminist who is mistress of the bloody wheecher.
Comments
As an example, Mrs Stodge and I saw our mortgage rate collapse to 0.99% - that enabled us not only to pay off our mortgage debt but also to renovate the house borrowing against that mortgage (tell me where else you could borrow £50k at 1% interest).
I can't believe we were the only ones who did that - there must be hundreds of thousands of mortgage-free property owners sitting on assets which have appreciated far beyond inflation so are both cash rich and asset rich and, combined with money saved during the pandemic, must be helping keeping spending going and the economy still even slightly buoyant.
I'd go further - such individuals could live with a 5-10% drop in property values as their next move is likely to be a downsize rather than an upscale.
Yes, we've been fortunate - my parents were also fortunate in their property purchase - their house appreciated 35 times in 34 years and the original mortgage my father took out was fixed at 2.25% in 1966. Inflation and low interest rates are wonderful for asset growth and if your salary can keep pace with the former, so much the better.
Wealth, like time, is a funny thing.
(It's my impression that it is especially common among some Indian tribes, who alreay have enough problems.)
He had been suspended by the party since 2019.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/veteran-labour-activist-pete-willsman-expelled-over-antisemitism-israel_uk_637d0d09e4b0e771d9590ee0?ax
The Falklands will no doubt be celebrating the Argentina defeat however
However pensioners are always the Conservative Party's core vote, lose them and it effectively goes extinct.
About 19% of the UK population is over 65, enough to be the main opposition at most general elections at least on voteshare but less than 3% of the UK population earn more than £100k, ie no more than the Green Party and RefUK got at the last election
And it's not the party of pensioners, that's a fairly recent development. It is, well it was, the party of home owners. Until ~2005 home ownership was fairly evenly spread across all age groups. Since then it has correlated with age, hence Tory voting correlating with age.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tLA2sVKD_ss
The problem is I can't see Labour of the Lib Dems being any better. But at least if the Tories lose, they might have a chance to rebuild.
O-Patz was a contributory factor in the demise of Boris Johnson and for that we should all contribute to his legal fees.
Home owenership is not as big a problem as made out, cultural concerns and economic competence are more the issue with those under 65
Which does make one question Twitter's employment policies, hitherto
Don't forget journalists alongside those politicians and footballers though!
Non refundable hotel and posh nosh booked the Saturday.
I didn't.
In their desire to reappraise continually current progressive terminology, the new Labour Westminster council has formally abolished the term BAME. Their replacement? “The global majority”.
https://order-order.com/2022/11/22/woke-westminster-unintentionally-declares-white-people-a-minority/
Its actually worse than BAME though, because what does it even mean.....its like Global North / South stuff, where it then has to be explained that certain countries in North / South aren't in the categories one would presume from the terminology.
Comic genius.
…
They are down to apparently 2750 or so, they managed with 3000-3500 for years with nobody suggesting the world was going to end.
The latest thing... street votes on planning permissions. This is actually a real law - not just a whim, it is actually part of the Levelling up and regeneration Bill, inserted by way of a government amendment. Planning applications are going to be decided by local referendums, meaning that planning permission can be voted down by NIMBYs. They are going to close down the whole development industry and all the jobs and economic activity it creates, in the middle of a recession, just like that. The conservative party has completely and utterly lost the plot.
But the benefits we're giving to pensioners - the triple locked pension, and repeated "cost of living" grants and the rest of it are going to all pensioners, the well off and the struggling alike.
If you want to argue for more redistribution to those who are struggling, then there's a case to be argued for that. I'm normally against that, except as a safety net, but I respect it.
But simply pandering to pensioners as a whole because they have voting strength, that's not redistributing to those who need it. Its redistributing in general from those who need it, to those who don't, on average. Its Sheriff of Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
If you want argue for redistribution to struggling pensioners, then lets hear some ideas about how that can be funded from other pensioners who have the wealth, live rent-free, childcare free and have incomes not subject to the full rates of tax including National Insurance and tuition fees rather than being funded by people who actually work for a living for a change.
Kane was walking with his right ankle lightly strapped, and with a slight limp, after England's 6-2 victory over Iran.
I think entire films and tv series were being posted to Twitter in recent days, prior to Musk there was a department that enforced copyright protection, now there's nobody to enforce takedowns.
Does it include Chinese? Inuit? Jews? Cornish? Gays? What? Is it everyone who is a minority and is therefore in a majority because everyone is actually a minority?
God, I despise this shit. I'd like to dismiss it, but unfortunately, it matters
Votes = triple lock = democracy, boo!
Is that about right?
The problem with means tested or non-universal benefits for pensioners is that they are very bad at claiming them and many fall through the gaps.
Its absurd terminology that is used by the absurd, to wind up the equally absurd.
For everyone else life goes on as normal with far more prosaic and real concerns than what words are used to irritate you, or the march of GPT3/4 or whatever else you are BRACING over tonight.
I'm going with... "People"
I wonder if it will catch on.
Have some optimism, man, we might salvage a draw from one of the game.
I'm not sure what their point is. That the UK population of whites should reflect the global average?
It's possible some do think that.
Or a poly rubber puppy switch brat slut dharmasochist
So, I said, "Fuck euphemism, your words are neophyte"
I'm a single not a plural person so call me per for the night
You're wrong if you hate me just 'cause I'm a word Smith and Wesson
'Cause I nicked this terminology from a Doris Lessing lesson
https://genius.com/Nofx-fuck-euphemism-lyrics
Twitter, like any other company its size, undoubtedly had its fair share of employees who weren't achieving much, and employees who were working toward goals the new management no longer cares about. Has Musk's 75% chop caught all of those and not taken too many of the people quietly doing the equivalent of ensuring the roof isn't leaking? I'm dubious: keeping software working relies hugely on institutional knowledge in the heads of the people who develop and run it.
Been spying for Russia since 2013 apparently.
Talking about lifetime sentences.
Apparently the Nordic countries are absolutely riddled with enemy agents. Scotland? Ditto. Lifetime sentences? Goodness no. They get cushy jobs at Pacific Quay.
Man U is one of the biggest soccer brands in the world, probably behind only Real, Barca and possibly Bayern
We may get a 1998 redux and someone like Sky* or Amazon may try and buy Liverpool or Manchester United so they can have a seat at the table in the sale of tv rights.
*Comcast.
But yes, UBI is much better. The issue at the minute though is that we have ridiculously varying tax rates depending upon how income is earned, rather than how much is earned.
What is the tax rate paid by a pensioner, who owns a home without a mortgage, on £50k pa made up of £30k combined state and private pension and £20k of rental income per annum?
What is the tax rate paid by a graduate, who spends a grand plus a month in rent to that pensioner, on £50k pa paid subject to National Insurance, Tuition Fees etc?
Before we consider the latter has to pay rent and childcare costs, the tax system is completely borked.
It is evidence of how groups of people can come up with stupid things if not challenged.
I think the edifice crumbles though as soon as someone asks them about what they mean by the Global majority.
My experience is that, despite all of this stuff, if you go to work in a woke inner London Council, it is generally better than working in a very white provincial Council which often just feels a lot like a weird time warp.
That, more than real or imagined incompetence, is why they need a spell in opposition - to decide what they are actually for.
As pensioners my wife and I are receiving the £400 energy rebate plus an increased winter fuel allowance of £600 (usually £300)
I have long since opposed the triple lock, but frankly it is no use labour, lib dem, and SNP supporters complaining about it as they are all champions of the triple lock
On the rest, totally agree.
Theoretically, I’m the master of all I survey.
In brutal reality, I’m hitched to a Nordic feminist who is mistress of the bloody wheecher.
https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/wheech_v1_n1
One of them is going to those on pension credit, but as you yourself say, the winter fuel allowance which ought to be abolished has instead been doubled and who is paying for that? Not the untaxed (relatively) incomes of those who are well off pensioners, that's for sure.
Er