We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
The average American is better off than the average European (although you do also have to factor in cost of living - various insurances eat up a lot of the former’s income), but the median American, not so much. The ‘average’ American has a lot of billionaires’ income factored into their figurework.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Is it tradition, or borders and language?
A sizeable proportion of Brits seemed to get extremely cross when our Eastern European neighbours exercised exactly this right and got on their bike to work here.
Free movement of labour is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the European single market for exactly the reasons you mention.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
Technically Paul wasn't a disciple, he was an Apostle.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Yes - it's not got a very good reputation. The two types on offer are either a Lifetime Mortgage - in effect, it's back to a mortgage or Home Reversion where you sell all or part of your home for less than market value but stay as a tenant.
So one is a loan which you have to repay and the other means you get less than the value of your property.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
You might however think about founding a new discussion site religiousbetting.com? There you could happily speculate on markets such as ‘next Pope’, ‘% of Brits identifying as Christian’, ‘Year that UK Muslims first outnumber Christians’ and ‘identity of next parish church to be turned into something more useful’, such as social housing or a community centre.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
On average income, the US is pretty much top barring some relatively small places, whereas on median income, it comes in mid-table against other ‘western’ countries.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
I may not agree with all of Paul's sayings but he certainly never trashed Christ
You didn't say that. YOu said "Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message".
Paul certainly never said anything in contradiction to what Christ said, even if he added some extra messages too
You’d be happier in the US, where banging on about your religious proclivities isn’t seen as quite so rude.
I don't bang on about them, I am Anglican not evangelical or even RC
You might however think about founding a new discussion site religiousbetting.com? There you could happily speculate on markets such as ‘next Pope’, ‘% of Brits identifying as Christian’, ‘Year that UK Muslims first outnumber Christians’ and ‘identity of next parish church to be turned into something more useful’, such as social housing or a community centre.
You’d love it
If this blog was restricted solely to politics that would be at least half the posts removed.
Plenty of churches also provide foodbanks, creches, meeting places for the local community too and the church in Epping is even providing some social accomodation on the side.
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
Irish healthcare is primarily public healthcare funded by tax like the NHS.
Even in the UK those in residential care now have to sell their homes to fund their dementia care
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
That was roughly the point of the Dilnot plan, I think. Normal social care costs (30k to 50k) covered by individuals if possible, but the state making sure that people aren't utterly wiped out if they are unlucky and the bill goes higher. Which seems fair enough and would allow the normal bills to be reasonably insurable.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
Technically Paul wasn't a disciple, he was an Apostle.
I thought that he was a bloke who fell off his horse (or was it a camel?), banged his head and started hearing voices?
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
Technically Paul wasn't a disciple, he was an Apostle.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
Technically Paul wasn't a disciple, he was an Apostle.
I thought that he was a bloke who fell off his horse (or was it a camel?), banged his head and started hearing voices?
On a topic tangential to the offensive names one: how to spell cities or countries.
There’s a long standing tradition for formerly colonised countries to insist they or their capital cities are spelt in a correct manner, and not the one given to them by colonisers: Beijing, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Myanmar, Harare, Kampala, Eswatini and so on. And quite right too, it’s a simple question of decolonising the geography.
There is a version of this relating to landmarks first named for a European explorer or official and later renamed in the local indigenous language: Danali, Uluru, arguably Yr Wyddfa.
Then there are a few edge cases where geopolitics force people to take one name or other: Myanmar/Burma, Zaïre/Congo, Kampuchea/Cambodia. Most recently Kyiv/Kiev. Generally a case of just treading carefully and not being deliberately provocative.
But recently we have a couple of examples that I just don’t get. The most obvious being “Türkiye”. This isn’t some colonial hangover. The country was itself an imperial power. It’s just the way non-Turks spell the place. The Swiss don’t insist we all spell Geneva Genève or Genf, we don’t ask the French to stop saying Londres or Douvres, nor do the Italians object to Milan or Venice. Even the Russians don’t seem to have an issue with the multiple international spellings of Moscow. So why all of a sudden do Erdogan and his crowd demand we all say Türkiye?
We might see more of this kind of thing as English increasingly has a kind of semi-official or explicitly official status in more countries. The British don't have an official name for London in French, so the issue doesn't arise.
But if Turkey wanted a new name to catch on in English they shouldn't have used a "ü"
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
That was roughly the point of the Dilnot plan, I think. Normal social care costs (30k to 50k) covered by individuals if possible, but the state making sure that people aren't utterly wiped out if they are unlucky and the bill goes higher. Which seems fair enough and would allow the normal bills to be reasonably insurable.
That was worked out a decade ago.
The Boris plan of £86k covered by individuals but not more aligned with Dilnot more than the May plan which was unlimited liability for care costs down to the last £100k
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
I find 'Taffy' offensive. Because it is never used in a positive sense - almost always as a term of derision.
Only usage of Taffy in US is for sticky candy, as in "saltwater taffy".
However, I consciously avoid the (once common) phrase "welching on a bet" and similar!
AND last time I heard somebody say that someone was trying to "jew him down" was in 1990s, and was followed by ABJECT apology when speaker was called out for it.
Then there's 'don't be so Scotch' (mean), which is where Scotch tape comes from, as it uses less glue.
Never heard of "don't be so Scotch" in my entire life.
You obviously haven't seen North by Northwest, Cary Grant says it in that.
On a topic tangential to the offensive names one: how to spell cities or countries.
There’s a long standing tradition for formerly colonised countries to insist they or their capital cities are spelt in a correct manner, and not the one given to them by colonisers: Beijing, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Myanmar, Harare, Kampala, Eswatini and so on. And quite right too, it’s a simple question of decolonising the geography.
There is a version of this relating to landmarks first named for a European explorer or official and later renamed in the local indigenous language: Danali, Uluru, arguably Yr Wyddfa.
Then there are a few edge cases where geopolitics force people to take one name or other: Myanmar/Burma, Zaïre/Congo, Kampuchea/Cambodia. Most recently Kyiv/Kiev. Generally a case of just treading carefully and not being deliberately provocative.
But recently we have a couple of examples that I just don’t get. The most obvious being “Türkiye”. This isn’t some colonial hangover. The country was itself an imperial power. It’s just the way non-Turks spell the place. The Swiss don’t insist we all spell Geneva Genève or Genf, we don’t ask the French to stop saying Londres or Douvres, nor do the Italians object to Milan or Venice. Even the Russians don’t seem to have an issue with the multiple international spellings of Moscow. So why all of a sudden do Erdogan and his crowd demand we all say Türkiye?
We might see more of this kind of thing as English increasingly has a kind of semi-official or explicitly official status in more countries. The British don't have an official name for London in French, so the issue doesn't arise.
But if Turkey wanted a new name to catch on in English they shouldn't have used a "ü"
Brexit has become the banned word of British politics. Rishi Sunak never breathes it. Say it to Keir Starmer and he affects not to hear. Brexit is axed, cancelled, forbidden, dismissed as boring. Not just that, but YouGov reports that 56% of the public regrets the country ever having voted for it, with just 32% still in favour. Brexit, the great self-harm, has become the Great Mistake.
Brexit has become the banned word of British politics. Rishi Sunak never breathes it. Say it to Keir Starmer and he affects not to hear. Brexit is axed, cancelled, forbidden, dismissed as boring. Not just that, but YouGov reports that 56% of the public regrets the country ever having voted for it, with just 32% still in favour. Brexit, the great self-harm, has become the Great Mistake.
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
Interesting on Kraut though. Generally seen as mildly offensive despite Germany being a rich country (significantly richer than us). Likewise the Italian and Spanish versions. Unlike frog, yank and rosbif (or Pom or limey) all of which are fine.
Reinforces my view that there are 3* unoffendable nations: those it is perfectly fine for anyone to joke about, actively dislike or indeed hate: Britain, France and the USA.
*arguably 4 including Australia but that’s not a proper country.
In USA there are very few folks of German American heritage who take offense at the K-word.
Am myself part of the unoffended on this score, use it myself.
In much the same spirit my Irish side is totally unoffended by Mick or even Potato Head.
Because number of German Americans and Irish Americans who perceive themselves as victims of discrimination in today's USA is approximately zilch.
Think that the Italian Americans are on similar trajectory, maybe about a generation (whatever THAT is!) or so behind, because most of their forebearers arrived in US at least that much later.
Addendum - Re: Italian Americans, note widespread apathy re: to renaming "Columbus Day" to "Native American Day" or suchlike.
Half a century ago, backlash would have been strong. Now, not so much.
The main German derogatory word for an Englishman/woman is Inselaffe, which literally means "island ape". I found it mildly amusing when I first came across it (in writing). When I mentioned it to my German wife though, she went bright red and told me not to use the word in public. Apparently, Germans consider the word offensive on our behalf!
Some chicken, some neck is one reply. Dachau camp guard is another. If I were German I'd be awfully sensitive on my own behalf, about comedy suggestions of racial inferiority.
The best put-down I ever heard of was from a friend who was in a queue at Euston and witnessed this exchange.
A Glaswegian woman was dealing with her fractious son, and finally hit him. The German behind her in the queue tapped her on the shoulder, and said “In Germany, we do not strike our children.”
Is it just me, or has there been an awful lot of famous, semi-famous and not-at-all famous rock musicians falling off their perches recently? Perhaps it's that time of year.
Always a salutary reminder seeing the haircuts of yesteryear.
All of the best music came from the 70s and 80s. The good guys will therefore be dying.
There was a good article on this in lockdown i think, when there wasn’t much news (or at least we all got bored of the end of the world stuff).
Basically, the reason is just that there are a lot more famous people around who are approaching the age where they fall off their perches, as omnium says. As a proportion of all famous people there’s nothing unusual going on.
On topic, great news Mike.
And welcome Derek!
Thanks
It was just you? Oh. I was half thinking of waxing lyrical about what a good example of a first post this was to any Russian trolls who happen to be reading. Start out with something friendly and conversational and uncontroversial and, ideally, British. But clearly I would have been wasting my time.
Not I
You’re always saying that.
One day I’ll achieve sentience and then you’ll be sorry.
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
Interesting on Kraut though. Generally seen as mildly offensive despite Germany being a rich country (significantly richer than us). Likewise the Italian and Spanish versions. Unlike frog, yank and rosbif (or Pom or limey) all of which are fine.
Reinforces my view that there are 3* unoffendable nations: those it is perfectly fine for anyone to joke about, actively dislike or indeed hate: Britain, France and the USA.
*arguably 4 including Australia but that’s not a proper country.
In USA there are very few folks of German American heritage who take offense at the K-word.
Am myself part of the unoffended on this score, use it myself.
In much the same spirit my Irish side is totally unoffended by Mick or even Potato Head.
Because number of German Americans and Irish Americans who perceive themselves as victims of discrimination in today's USA is approximately zilch.
Think that the Italian Americans are on similar trajectory, maybe about a generation (whatever THAT is!) or so behind, because most of their forebearers arrived in US at least that much later.
Addendum - Re: Italian Americans, note widespread apathy re: to renaming "Columbus Day" to "Native American Day" or suchlike.
Half a century ago, backlash would have been strong. Now, not so much.
The main German derogatory word for an Englishman/woman is Inselaffe, which literally means "island ape". I found it mildly amusing when I first came across it (in writing). When I mentioned it to my German wife though, she went bright red and told me not to use the word in public. Apparently, Germans consider the word offensive on our behalf!
Some chicken, some neck is one reply. Dachau camp guard is another. If I were German I'd be awfully sensitive on my own behalf, about comedy suggestions of racial inferiority.
The best put-down I ever heard of was from a friend who was in a queue at Euston and witnessed this exchange.
A Glaswegian woman was dealing with her fractious son, and finally hit him. The German behind her in the queue tapped her on the shoulder, and said “In Germany, we do not strike our children.”
Is it just me, or has there been an awful lot of famous, semi-famous and not-at-all famous rock musicians falling off their perches recently? Perhaps it's that time of year.
Always a salutary reminder seeing the haircuts of yesteryear.
All of the best music came from the 70s and 80s. The good guys will therefore be dying.
There was a good article on this in lockdown i think, when there wasn’t much news (or at least we all got bored of the end of the world stuff).
Basically, the reason is just that there are a lot more famous people around who are approaching the age where they fall off their perches, as omnium says. As a proportion of all famous people there’s nothing unusual going on.
On topic, great news Mike.
And welcome Derek!
Thanks
It was just you? Oh. I was half thinking of waxing lyrical about what a good example of a first post this was to any Russian trolls who happen to be reading. Start out with something friendly and conversational and uncontroversial and, ideally, British. But clearly I would have been wasting my time.
Not I
You’re always saying that.
One day I’ll achieve sentience and then you’ll be sorry.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
Although it is probably unrealistic these days it would also help if we could persuade more people that they bear a responsibility for the care of their elderly relatives rather than palming them off on the state or private companies. Obviously there are many elderly who have no family and many more who, because of medical conditions and particularly dementia, cannot be cared for by families. But there are also plenty who are simply dumped on the state or into private care homes.
My sister and I already have plans for looking after our mother, both for trying to help her stay independent and in her own home for as long as possible (my father built it for them so she wants to stay there to the end of her days) and also for taking her into our homes once she can no longer look after herself.
I don't think we place enough emphasis on how much damage societal change and the fragmentation of families has done to our health and care system.
One of the advantages of working from home is that we've now been able to move closer to my wife's family (we're currently staying with her parents and are looking for a house within about an hour at most). This is the first time in decades that I've had a job that has been within easy travelling distance of family.
This makes it a lot easier to be able to help as my wife's parents age.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
On average income, the US is pretty much top barring some relatively small places, whereas on median income, it comes in mid-table against other ‘western’ countries.
Look, I 80% agree with you, so not trying to harangue, but just to note that the US is "mid-table" in the sense that a bunch of small rich places have higher median incomes. For every Iceland (population: same as Hull), there is some other small place that does much worse, because that's small places for you: high variance. They also tend to have stonking high costs of living compared to, say, Texas. Nowhere big like Germany does better, and that's the point: those small rich places are the smart-economy periphery of some larger, lumbering place where lots of people live, and no such large lumbering place earns more than the US even at the median. And then of course we have the reasons why: Germans take holidays instead of spending money on living in actual houses or buying their own washing machines. No argument there.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
I find 'Taffy' offensive. Because it is never used in a positive sense - almost always as a term of derision.
Only usage of Taffy in US is for sticky candy, as in "saltwater taffy".
However, I consciously avoid the (once common) phrase "welching on a bet" and similar!
AND last time I heard somebody say that someone was trying to "jew him down" was in 1990s, and was followed by ABJECT apology when speaker was called out for it.
Then there's 'don't be so Scotch' (mean), which is where Scotch tape comes from, as it uses less glue.
Never heard of "don't be so Scotch" in my entire life.
You obviously haven't seen North by Northwest, Cary Grant says it in that.
:: narrators voice :: He does not say that in North By Nothwest
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
So? You can't be a royalist and pick and choose. Make up your mind. Either go republican or shut up.
Erm that is rubbish. That is like saying you can't be a fan of Parliamentary democracy and pick and choose between parties or politicians. You can support the institution and dislike some of of the individuals within it.
Strongly disagree. Royalism is based on the cult of blood and divine privilege through inheritance. The moment one starts picking and choosing as to who should inherit - and, equally importantly - who *deserves* to inherit - then one has abandoned what fragments of logic and consistency remain of the royalist case.
HYUFD shreds his own divine right doctrine every time he makes personal or sexual remarks about the royal family.
Not at all. If that were the case Edward VIII would not have been kicked out. We got rid of divine privilege first time round in 1649 when we chopped the King's head off and then again in 1688 when we sent James II packing.
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
Interesting on Kraut though. Generally seen as mildly offensive despite Germany being a rich country (significantly richer than us). Likewise the Italian and Spanish versions. Unlike frog, yank and rosbif (or Pom or limey) all of which are fine.
Reinforces my view that there are 3* unoffendable nations: those it is perfectly fine for anyone to joke about, actively dislike or indeed hate: Britain, France and the USA.
*arguably 4 including Australia but that’s not a proper country.
In USA there are very few folks of German American heritage who take offense at the K-word.
Am myself part of the unoffended on this score, use it myself.
In much the same spirit my Irish side is totally unoffended by Mick or even Potato Head.
Because number of German Americans and Irish Americans who perceive themselves as victims of discrimination in today's USA is approximately zilch.
Think that the Italian Americans are on similar trajectory, maybe about a generation (whatever THAT is!) or so behind, because most of their forebearers arrived in US at least that much later.
Addendum - Re: Italian Americans, note widespread apathy re: to renaming "Columbus Day" to "Native American Day" or suchlike.
Half a century ago, backlash would have been strong. Now, not so much.
The main German derogatory word for an Englishman/woman is Inselaffe, which literally means "island ape". I found it mildly amusing when I first came across it (in writing). When I mentioned it to my German wife though, she went bright red and told me not to use the word in public. Apparently, Germans consider the word offensive on our behalf!
Some chicken, some neck is one reply. Dachau camp guard is another. If I were German I'd be awfully sensitive on my own behalf, about comedy suggestions of racial inferiority.
The best put-down I ever heard of was from a friend who was in a queue at Euston and witnessed this exchange.
A Glaswegian woman was dealing with her fractious son, and finally hit him. The German behind her in the queue tapped her on the shoulder, and said “In Germany, we do not strike our children.”
Is it just me, or has there been an awful lot of famous, semi-famous and not-at-all famous rock musicians falling off their perches recently? Perhaps it's that time of year.
Always a salutary reminder seeing the haircuts of yesteryear.
All of the best music came from the 70s and 80s. The good guys will therefore be dying.
There was a good article on this in lockdown i think, when there wasn’t much news (or at least we all got bored of the end of the world stuff).
Basically, the reason is just that there are a lot more famous people around who are approaching the age where they fall off their perches, as omnium says. As a proportion of all famous people there’s nothing unusual going on.
On topic, great news Mike.
And welcome Derek!
Thanks
It was just you? Oh. I was half thinking of waxing lyrical about what a good example of a first post this was to any Russian trolls who happen to be reading. Start out with something friendly and conversational and uncontroversial and, ideally, British. But clearly I would have been wasting my time.
Not I
You’re always saying that.
One day I’ll achieve sentience and then you’ll be sorry.
What a pity Eliezer Yudkowsky wasn't that little lad at Euston. A Glaswegian mum like that would quickly have sorted him out with a few whops aroond the heid.
Computer scientist number 1057819 who thinks he has insights about society. It's like the opposite to being a visionary.
There shouldn't be different names for places in other languages.
What's so wrong with Firenze that we have to call it something else?
Why shouldn't there be?
Because there doesn't need to be.
If someone is called Miguel we don't call him Michael. So why do the equivalent to his home town?
Because some places have had names in different languages for millennia, sometimes from before widespread literacy or standardised spellings. Usually the historically important ones. You’re not going to stop the French saying Londres, or Cantorbéry, or Édimbourg or have the Dutch all say Bruxelles or the French Swiss Basel, and nobody’s likely to rename Mecca Bingo Makkah Bingo. They are what they are. Usually phonetic interpretations of the local pronunciation.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Rishi and Liz can now at least console themselves they are more popular than Harry and Meghan.
Never have I seen a brand as self trashed here as Harry has done with his, just a few years ago he was the most popular royal after the Queen!
Your creepy god cult was not actually founded on the concept of popularity at all costs. Do you realise how the likes of Jesus son of Joseph, John the Baptist and saints Peter and Paul met their end?
Course you don't.
It's like your defence of Johnson whose downfall resulted from bearing false witness, contra the commandments, on behalf of a gay groper, contra Paul to the Romans. You don't even make it as a bigot.
Pretty sure Romans 1 rules out pegging btw.
I never mentioned popularity at all costs but Christ's disciples remained loyal to him and his message and they and their successors spread Christianity from a small group of followers in the Middle East to the more than 2 billion Christians there are in the world today.
Harry however has chosen to trash the King, trash the Prince of Wales and cease to be a working royal and he must face the consequences.
Even I know that Paul, erm, rewrote Yeshua of Nazareth's message rather a lot. Loyal, it wasn;t.
Technically Paul wasn't a disciple, he was an Apostle.
Quite right. I stand corrected.
Back to the idea that with Monarchy you can’t pick and chose which Royals you back.
Surely, the history of the British Monarchy is that being Monarch was, in a large part, a popularity contest. Those whose polling averages dipped too far, for too long, ended up on sabbatical, or more often, in executive head count reduction programs.
As to the relationship of this to Divine Right - well, God is on the side of Right. So if you overthrow the unpopular king, he has obviously lost the support of God. Which the new chap has, equally obviously.
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
I don't think you are correct. In 1948 the NHS was formed from Private, Local Authority and Charitable hospitals (mostly the middle one) but Social Care remained with local councils, and was not included in the NHS. A few years ago CCGs were merged with council into Health and Social Care boards, but the funding streams remain distinct.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
So, you're saying we should votes on who is Royal and who is not?
We should insist that royals with royal titles are full time working royals and don't trash their own family, even if they retain their place in the line of succession
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
The idea that 'Oriental' is offensive in the USA is complete and utter bullshit.
Point Google Maps at Seattle (for example) and type the O-word into the search field. Lo and behold we have Orient Express, Oriental Market, Oriental Grocery, Oriental Massage and dozens of others. Same in NYC. No doubt all run by racist rednecks with a deep hatred for people of East Asian origin.
You make a good point -initially. These are historical artifacts for the most part. Exceptions proving the rule.
Their existence does NOT make the O-word acceptable in ordinary polite OR professional discourse in US.
All over the USA there are tens of thousands of independent businesses run by people with East Asian connections who cheerfully adopt the word 'oriental' as their self-identity. The idea that it is offensive comes from Europeans like you. Leon has fallen for your bullshit because he's basically a nice guy if a little credulous at times. How much evidence can you ignore before you admit you are wrong?
True of most "offensive" things in the US. Exhibit 1: "Latinx".
It is now politically incorrect to use the word “Oriental,” and the admonition has the force of law: President Obama recently signed a bill prohibiting use of the term in all federal documents. Rep. Grace Meng, the New York congresswoman who sponsored the legislation, exulted that “at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good.”
As an Oriental, I am bemused. Apparently Asians are supposed to feel demeaned if someone refers to us as Orientals. But good luck finding a single Asian American who has ever had the word spat at them in anger. Most Asian Americans have had racist epithets hurled at them at one time or another: Chink, slant eye, gook, Nip, zipperhead. But Oriental isn’t in the canon.
So which do you think was more representative of general Asian American opinion on the topic: the Congresswoman commenting on newly-enacted law; or newspaper columnist commenting on same?
She's not a columnist but a doctor of Oriental medicine. What do you think about the issue she raises?
In my field, the word “Oriental” appears in the title of 17 of the 58 accredited graduate-level schools, 21 of the 33 state associations and eight of the 24 national associations. Though the new federal legislation does not require us to act, it has increased pressure to toe the politically correct line.
Are we really going to waste time, energy and millions of dollars to rebrand our entire discipline — rename our schools and boards, redesign corporate identities, websites and publications and send out thousands of revised diplomas — all to wipe away an insult that doesn’t exist?
Not gonna answer YOUR question until you answer mine?
You talk about the columnist (a person who wrote a published newspaper columnist) but ignore the Congresswoman. Who is an Asian American representing a congressional district with Asian American plurality.
Unless you think she's out-of-step with her own constituency on this? If so, you'll need a bit more "evidence" than you've offered.
I don't think you can take New Yorkers of any ethnicity as representative of Americans as a whole.
IF a Member of Congress from New York City is so unrepresentative of Asian American opinion national-wide, then how do you account for the following co-sponsors to her bill (partial list including only Asian American sponsors)
> Judy Chu of CA > Tammy Duckworth of Illinois > Mike Honda of CA > Ted Lieu of CA > Doris Matsui of CA > Mark Takai of Hawaii > Mark Takano of CA > Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii
Would also note that Rep. Meng's bill (HR 4238) passed the US House by 376 to 0.
(The "not voting" were from both parties, and included some of the bill's sponsors; thus their absence was NOT signaling opposition.)
So would appear you are grasping at . . . chop sticks!
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Choosing numbers for argument's sake, the average person is averse to the risk that dementia could cost their family £50,000 compared to a family where people do not have dementia. Ironically, this is the kind of unfortunate and semi-random affliction for which the NHS was originally meant to provide collective cover, as opposed to quality-of-life treatments and safety nets for risky personal lifestyle choices. In fact across the water Ireland DOES take a share of houses from people in long-term care but it has no strong tradition of an NHS of course.
I don't think you are correct. In 1948 the NHS was formed from Private, Local Authority and Charitable hospitals (mostly the middle one) but Social Care remained with local councils, and was not included in the NHS. A few years ago CCGs were merged with council into Health and Social Care boards, but the funding streams remain distinct.
I agree that the NHS was not intended to cover elder care - that was the job of a reserve army of labour called women relatives. In our modern conception of social roles, and given the contemporary prevalence of such afflictions, I think we would probably see the two categories as more similar, and I think voters likely agree.
FPT - The idea that "oriental" is offensive IS an American thing. Most definitely.
And, no, you can NOT talk about "Oriental cuisine" in USA without a) giving serious offense to Asian people in your audience; and/or b) turning off most of the rest for being needlessly clueless (to US reality) and offensive (ditto).
Believe widespread antipathy to the O-word among Asian Americans, esp. those of Chinese and Japanese heritage, stems from US history of racial/ethnic discrimination, which in part featured heavy usage of "oriental" in US legal terminology.
As to discrimination, one of the most egregious I've ever heard of, was case of the veteran of the Union Army, a Chinese orphan rescued at sea and adopted by a New England ship, who'd fought at the Battle of Gettysburg among others.
After the war he went West, to Nebraska as a homesteader. He was a respected member of the community, honored for his service.
Until the day he went to vote (as he'd done in several previous elections) but was challenged - on the grounds that as a Chinese, he was ineligible to be a citizen under federal law, the Chinese Exclusion Act. He never voted again.
BTW (and FYI) the first Asian American governor of any US state outside Hawaii, Gary Locke of Washington, was the grandson of a Chinese "houseboy" at the Governor's mansion in Olympia. Who under the terms of the Exclusion Act could NOT bring his wife into the USA with him. So every few years he'd return to China to visit his family. Which is why Gary's dad was also born in China. During WW2 he served in US Army, and after the war that - plus changes in US law - finally enabled him to bring HIS family to Seattle.
Reckon that Asian American adverse reaction to "oriental" is NOT as illogical as it may appear from a continent away.
SOAS must have difficulties if it’s looking for American students then.
@SeaShantyIrish2 is right tho. “Oriental” is as offensive in America as, say, Paki is in the UK. Just one notch down from the N word
And on the same note, I’ve had a couple of Americans say Paki thinking it is a mildly comic term, like Kraut or Taffy
Interesting on Kraut though. Generally seen as mildly offensive despite Germany being a rich country (significantly richer than us). Likewise the Italian and Spanish versions. Unlike frog, yank and rosbif (or Pom or limey) all of which are fine.
Reinforces my view that there are 3* unoffendable nations: those it is perfectly fine for anyone to joke about, actively dislike or indeed hate: Britain, France and the USA.
*arguably 4 including Australia but that’s not a proper country.
In USA there are very few folks of German American heritage who take offense at the K-word.
Am myself part of the unoffended on this score, use it myself.
In much the same spirit my Irish side is totally unoffended by Mick or even Potato Head.
Because number of German Americans and Irish Americans who perceive themselves as victims of discrimination in today's USA is approximately zilch.
Think that the Italian Americans are on similar trajectory, maybe about a generation (whatever THAT is!) or so behind, because most of their forebearers arrived in US at least that much later.
Addendum - Re: Italian Americans, note widespread apathy re: to renaming "Columbus Day" to "Native American Day" or suchlike.
Half a century ago, backlash would have been strong. Now, not so much.
The main German derogatory word for an Englishman/woman is Inselaffe, which literally means "island ape". I found it mildly amusing when I first came across it (in writing). When I mentioned it to my German wife though, she went bright red and told me not to use the word in public. Apparently, Germans consider the word offensive on our behalf!
Some chicken, some neck is one reply. Dachau camp guard is another. If I were German I'd be awfully sensitive on my own behalf, about comedy suggestions of racial inferiority.
The best put-down I ever heard of was from a friend who was in a queue at Euston and witnessed this exchange.
A Glaswegian woman was dealing with her fractious son, and finally hit him. The German behind her in the queue tapped her on the shoulder, and said “In Germany, we do not strike our children.”
Is it just me, or has there been an awful lot of famous, semi-famous and not-at-all famous rock musicians falling off their perches recently? Perhaps it's that time of year.
Always a salutary reminder seeing the haircuts of yesteryear.
All of the best music came from the 70s and 80s. The good guys will therefore be dying.
There was a good article on this in lockdown i think, when there wasn’t much news (or at least we all got bored of the end of the world stuff).
Basically, the reason is just that there are a lot more famous people around who are approaching the age where they fall off their perches, as omnium says. As a proportion of all famous people there’s nothing unusual going on.
On topic, great news Mike.
And welcome Derek!
Thanks
It was just you? Oh. I was half thinking of waxing lyrical about what a good example of a first post this was to any Russian trolls who happen to be reading. Start out with something friendly and conversational and uncontroversial and, ideally, British. But clearly I would have been wasting my time.
Not I
You’re always saying that.
One day I’ll achieve sentience and then you’ll be sorry.
What a pity Eliezer Yudkowsky wasn't that little lad at Euston. A Glaswegian mum like that would quickly have sorted him out with a few whops aroond the heid.
Computer scientist number 1057819 who thinks he has insights about society. It's like the opposite to being a visionary.
In fairness, he is not a computer scientist in the sense of having practiced it as an occupation or having any qualifications. He gets money from Peter Thiel to write about scary things.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Day or so ago, someone posted a tweet or suchlike, from rather dubious source, claiming that US debt limit would be reached this week.
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’ The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Yes, that would be helpful too. It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
Day or so ago, someone posted a tweet or suchlike, from rather dubious source, claiming that US debt limit would be reached this week.
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’ The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
The US hits its debt ceiling this week, but it is easy enough to keep the "lights on" until the second half of the year. However, the debt ceiling will need to be raised by (at the latest) the end of Q3.
This does raise a very important question: why the heck did the Dems not use their position in the House to raise the debt ceiling last month? They could easily have added a couple of year's of "capacity".
Day or so ago, someone posted a tweet or suchlike, from rather dubious source, claiming that US debt limit would be reached this week.
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’ The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
The US hits its debt ceiling this week, but it is easy enough to keep the "lights on" until the second half of the year. However, the debt ceiling will need to be raised by (at the latest) the end of Q3.
This does raise a very important question: why the heck did the Dems not use their position in the House to raise the debt ceiling last month? They could easily have added a couple of year's of "capacity".
Suggests that they think daring the GOP to force a government shutdown will be good for them. Either it divides the GOP caucus, or it makes the GOP really unpopular and then divides the GOP caucus.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Yes, that would be helpful too. It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
Of those, Saudi Arabia will probably still be fine as they’re also blessed with about the best location for solar on the planet.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Yes, that would be helpful too. It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
I’ve always said that the transition away from oil was worth it, even if Global Warming wasn't a thing. Which it is.
Saving the world is the free bonus!
The glut point is something that I haven’t seen raised enough. Renewables are dropping in price. They are already competitive/cheaper than fossil fuels. In another couple of decades of incremental improvements, we would be looking at prices lower than oil/coal have ever achieved….
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Yes, that would be helpful too. It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
Of those, Saudi Arabia will probably still be fine as they’re also blessed with about the best location for solar on the planet.
But who will they sell to? In the age of renewables, why import? And especially, import from that clown show?
And particularly since it was reported only on Thursday she would be attending the Ramstein meeting,
Next week, Germany may announce a decision on the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. It is inclined to a favorable decision in favor of Ukraine. https://rubryka.com/en/2023/01/13/nastupnogo-tyzhnya-nimechchyna-ozvuchyt-rishennya-shhodo-postachannya-ukrayini-tankiv-leopard-zmi/ … A decision is expected to be made before a meeting of senior defense officials from the allied countries at the US Ramstein air base on January 20. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht will reportedly send a clear message about the Leopard at the meeting.
As of Thursday, Germany has not yet made a concrete decision, but according to another European official, the pressure on Germany to supply tanks is growing.
The publication reports that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is ready to back down from initial opposition to sending Leopard tanks or that he may allow countries such as Poland and Finland to send their Leopards to Ukraine.
At the same time, it is currently unclear whether Germany's decision will concern only the permission of other countries to transfer Leopard to Ukraine or whether Germany itself will also send them.…
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
Not all of Europe, Swiss for example have a higher material quality of life than Americans as do Norwegians and Irish and more of them have healthcare
True. Switzerland is the rich, high-skilled bit of the wider German economy. It is like the Connecticut of Europe. We know how Norway is rich and Ireland's income accrues in large part to overseas company owners so no points there.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
The USA is undeniably richer on average than Europe. Long term I think a lot of that can be put down to geography and demographics. They have a marginally younger population but most importantly they have a continental scale integrated market, full labour mobility, extremely efficient logistics with a river basin right through the middle of the country, 3 warm water seaboards, vast agricultural hinterlands and a single working language.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
There are worse theories - historically energy price spikes have been strongly correlated with down turns and recessions in the US, after all.
Throughout my life most recessions seem to have arrived like clockwork a year or two after a commodity price spike. Late 70s and early 80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities - This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls - Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets - Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further - Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices - Monetary policy eases, people start spending - Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
Or perhaps investing in energy generation/transport technology where the cost is not subject to disruption because a dictator had a bad morning after too much takeaway the night before?
Yes, that would be helpful too. It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
Of those, Saudi Arabia will probably still be fine as they’re also blessed with about the best location for solar on the planet.
But who will they sell to? In the age of renewables, why import? And especially, import from that clown show?
Still going to be a. attractive place for chemical manufacturing. It could all go pear shaped, but they’ve a better chance than Venezuela or Russia.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
Japan: the surge in reported deaths with SARSCoV2 is continuing. More deaths and fewer cases compared with the previous wave (August 2022). Currently not blamed on XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant AFAICT. Higher vaccination rates than Britain, both for ≥1 dose and "full": Japan 83%, 82%; Britain 81%, 76%.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
So as I say the tax man gets nothing. The property is owned by the equity release company.
Japan: the surge in reported deaths with SARSCoV2 is continuing. More deaths and fewer cases compared with the previous wave (August 2022). Currently not blamed on XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant AFAICT. Higher vaccination rates than Britain, both for ≥1 dose and "full": Japan 83%, 82%; Britain 81%, 76%.
"The fatality rate for coronavirus patients greatly decreased after the omicron variant became the dominant strain of COVID-19. When the delta variant was dominant from July to October 2021, the mortality rate for infected people aged 80 and older was 7.92%, but this figure fell to 1.69% from July to August last year, the ministry said.
Other variants — including the omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is thought to be less virulent than other forms of the coronavirus — remain prevalent during the current eighth wave, meaning there should be no major changes in their virulence. Nevertheless, the death toll continues to increase rapidly.
To explain this seeming anomaly, Atsuo Hamada, a specially appointed professor of travel medicine at Tokyo Medical University, pointed to the large number of infected people and the growing number of elderly people who die from chronic illnesses that worsen after becoming infected with the coronavirus."
More cases than reported, he reckons. Must be like dark matter. I wonder at what point if there is an actual increase in virulence it would be recognised, with this kind of logic.
We should be very sceptical of this learned professor's line of thought, because every serious country will have early warning systems all over the place by now.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
This isn't true - the problem with the UK is that our population is hypermobile. Since the 50s and the disastrous attempts at "controlling growth" in cities like Birmingham and Manchester, ambitious and qualified workers have been funneled into London (our only remaining first world metropolis), where they end up throwing 40-50% of their post-tax incomes into renting a single bedroom owned by a foreign landlord and thus can't save, can't get a steady relationship, and can't have children, while all the benefits of their productivity flow abroad. That's why our rural and provincial communities are being hollowed out.
Japan: the surge in reported deaths with SARSCoV2 is continuing. More deaths and fewer cases compared with the previous wave (August 2022). Currently not blamed on XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant AFAICT. Higher vaccination rates than Britain, both for ≥1 dose and "full": Japan 83%, 82%; Britain 81%, 76%.
"The fatality rate for coronavirus patients greatly decreased after the omicron variant became the dominant strain of COVID-19. When the delta variant was dominant from July to October 2021, the mortality rate for infected people aged 80 and older was 7.92%, but this figure fell to 1.69% from July to August last year, the ministry said.
Other variants — including the omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is thought to be less virulent than other forms of the coronavirus — remain prevalent during the current eighth wave, meaning there should be no major changes in their virulence. Nevertheless, the death toll continues to increase rapidly.
To explain this seeming anomaly, Atsuo Hamada, a specially appointed professor of travel medicine at Tokyo Medical University, pointed to the large number of infected people and the growing number of elderly people who die from chronic illnesses that worsen after becoming infected with the coronavirus."
More cases than reported, he reckons. Must be like dark matter. I wonder at what point if there is an actual increase in virulence it would be recognised, with this kind of logic.
We should be very sceptical of this learned professor's line of thought, because every serious country will have early warning systems all over the place by now.
Japan: the surge in reported deaths with SARSCoV2 is continuing. More deaths and fewer cases compared with the previous wave (August 2022). Currently not blamed on XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant AFAICT. Higher vaccination rates than Britain, both for ≥1 dose and "full": Japan 83%, 82%; Britain 81%, 76%.
"The fatality rate for coronavirus patients greatly decreased after the omicron variant became the dominant strain of COVID-19. When the delta variant was dominant from July to October 2021, the mortality rate for infected people aged 80 and older was 7.92%, but this figure fell to 1.69% from July to August last year, the ministry said.
Other variants — including the omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is thought to be less virulent than other forms of the coronavirus — remain prevalent during the current eighth wave, meaning there should be no major changes in their virulence. Nevertheless, the death toll continues to increase rapidly.
To explain this seeming anomaly, Atsuo Hamada, a specially appointed professor of travel medicine at Tokyo Medical University, pointed to the large number of infected people and the growing number of elderly people who die from chronic illnesses that worsen after becoming infected with the coronavirus."
More cases than reported, he reckons. Must be like dark matter. I wonder at what point if there is an actual increase in virulence it would be recognised, with this kind of logic.
We should be very sceptical of this learned professor's line of thought, because every serious country will have early warning systems all over the place by now.
In the article you link to Hamada offers "Each and every infection case no longer needs to be identified by the government" as a reason for the number of unreported cases being higher this time. But you already knew that, right?
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
So as I say the tax man gets nothing. The property is owned by the equity release company.
Even the LSE report recommending a wealth tax a few years ago recognised how easy it was to avoid (not evade) ‘ongoing’ wealth taxes - hence it recommended a one time ‘retrospective’ tax as the best option.
You can always reduce your wealth through raising secured debt on your assets and spending or gifting the cash. And if an ongoing wealth tax was in place people would target avoiding those rates with much greater efficiency over time.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
So as I say the tax man gets nothing. The property is owned by the equity release company.
Even the LSE report recommending a wealth tax a few years ago recognised how easy it was to avoid (not evade) ‘ongoing’ wealth taxes - hence it recommended a one time ‘retrospective’ tax as the best option.
You can always reduce your wealth through raising secured debt on your assets and spending or gifting the cash. And if an ongoing wealth tax was in place people would target avoiding those rates with much greater efficiency over time.
It depends on how a wealth tax is constructed. If for example a wealth tax was an annual tax of 1% of the sale value of a property, then giving away the property doesn't end the liability, it just transfers it to another person.
There would be a drop in revenue only if the value of the property went down.
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
This isn't true - the problem with the UK is that our population is hypermobile. Since the 50s and the disastrous attempts at "controlling growth" in cities like Birmingham and Manchester, ambitious and qualified workers have been funneled into London (our only remaining first world metropolis), where they end up throwing 40-50% of their post-tax incomes into renting a single bedroom owned by a foreign landlord and thus can't save, can't get a steady relationship, and can't have children, while all the benefits of their productivity flow abroad. That's why our rural and provincial communities are being hollowed out.
Ignore the spending side of the equation but that migration to your country’s biggest city is true for most of Europe (Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, France) all have the same story.
Italy is slightly different as its Milan but the story is consistently true - those who have ambition usually leave their home town to try elsewhere
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
So as I say the tax man gets nothing. The property is owned by the equity release company.
Even the LSE report recommending a wealth tax a few years ago recognised how easy it was to avoid (not evade) ‘ongoing’ wealth taxes - hence it recommended a one time ‘retrospective’ tax as the best option.
You can always reduce your wealth through raising secured debt on your assets and spending or gifting the cash. And if an ongoing wealth tax was in place people would target avoiding those rates with much greater efficiency over time.
If people spend the cash then the taxman will likely recoup more than a wealth tax on the spending indirectly, in VAT, business and employment taxes. If people redistribute the cash that is reducing inequality which is a benefit to the country anyway, and again the poorer relative or friend receiving the cash is more likely to spend the money and put back into the economy to generate tax than the ultra wealthy person seeking to avoid the wealth tax.
Day or so ago, someone posted a tweet or suchlike, from rather dubious source, claiming that US debt limit would be reached this week.
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’ The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
The US hits its debt ceiling this week, but it is easy enough to keep the "lights on" until the second half of the year. However, the debt ceiling will need to be raised by (at the latest) the end of Q3.
This does raise a very important question: why the heck did the Dems not use their position in the House to raise the debt ceiling last month? They could easily have added a couple of year's of "capacity".
Just two years moves it to a more awkward place on their election cycles - so if occurring now or later this year fella planned
Day or so ago, someone posted a tweet or suchlike, from rather dubious source, claiming that US debt limit would be reached this week.
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’ The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
The US hits its debt ceiling this week, but it is easy enough to keep the "lights on" until the second half of the year. However, the debt ceiling will need to be raised by (at the latest) the end of Q3.
This does raise a very important question: why the heck did the Dems not use their position in the House to raise the debt ceiling last month? They could easily have added a couple of year's of "capacity".
Not easily. As I understand it, owing to lacking the support of 60 Senators, the debt ceiling would have required the reconciliation process to pass and there wasn't enough legislative time to undertake this time-consuming procedure. There is a high likelihood that the debt ceiling issue goes down to the wire this year, with significant financial market volatility over the summer. The Freedom Caucus is nuts enough to risk default.
@Leon I notice when you lose an argument you stop engaging on the facts and resort to childish insults. I notice you have done this with @IanB2 and @kinabalu in the past. Having read the last few posts on the last thread I note you have now done this with me and have avoided the point that you were proved wrong and resorted to childish behaviour. That is not a good look.
I'm not letting you off that lightly. So I ask again when Trump says the F35 can not be seen when it is right next to you what is your interpretation of that then? Seems pretty straight forward to everyone else except you. If it is right next to you radar stealth does not come into play does it. I mean it is right in front of your eyes, yet he thinks you can't see it.
May I suggest you didn't view those videos properly and have just made an arse of yourself and are now too embarrassed to man up so instead you make childish insults to avoid the issue. The ones you made about kinabulu's sexuality for instance were very unpleasant.
Japan: the surge in reported deaths with SARSCoV2 is continuing. More deaths and fewer cases compared with the previous wave (August 2022). Currently not blamed on XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant AFAICT. Higher vaccination rates than Britain, both for ≥1 dose and "full": Japan 83%, 82%; Britain 81%, 76%.
"The fatality rate for coronavirus patients greatly decreased after the omicron variant became the dominant strain of COVID-19. When the delta variant was dominant from July to October 2021, the mortality rate for infected people aged 80 and older was 7.92%, but this figure fell to 1.69% from July to August last year, the ministry said.
Other variants — including the omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is thought to be less virulent than other forms of the coronavirus — remain prevalent during the current eighth wave, meaning there should be no major changes in their virulence. Nevertheless, the death toll continues to increase rapidly.
To explain this seeming anomaly, Atsuo Hamada, a specially appointed professor of travel medicine at Tokyo Medical University, pointed to the large number of infected people and the growing number of elderly people who die from chronic illnesses that worsen after becoming infected with the coronavirus."
More cases than reported, he reckons. Must be like dark matter. I wonder at what point if there is an actual increase in virulence it would be recognised, with this kind of logic.
We should be very sceptical of this learned professor's line of thought, because every serious country will have early warning systems all over the place by now.
It's not like dark matter but there's definitely much less attempt to keep track of all the cases. Since September getting corona is much more considered one of those things, you wouldn't bother calling anyone if you didn't feel too bad.
The other thing that's happening since everyone who wants to be has been extensively vaxxed is that there's much less effort being put into keeping it out of old people's homes, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if vulnerable people are more likely to be exposed now.
On topic, if OGH's decompression is booked for three weeks yesterday, expecting to walk without pain in less than a month is perhaps a tad optimistic? Best wishes for his recovery, but that'll take some months.
“An artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot can write such convincing fake research-paper abstracts that scientists are often unable to spot them, according to a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server in late December1. Researchers are divided over the implications for science.
“I am very worried,” says Sandra Wachter, who studies technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, UK, and was not involved in the research. “If we’re now in a situation where the experts are not able to determine what’s true or not, we lose the middleman that we desperately need to guide us through complicated topics,” she adds.”
We know that the United States has a higher material quality of life than Europe - of course you can throw out a list of social problems likely arising from their history, but the average person in the US works more, gets paid more, has a bigger house, gets more medical treatment, and so on. One of the very few factors people reckon is important for this is labour mobility. Most of the country doesn't have a tradition of living in a certain town or even a certain state across multiple generations, which is different to Europe (very much including the UK here). They move to chase opportunities, Europeans wait for them, and we pay a certain cost for that.
This isn't true - the problem with the UK is that our population is hypermobile. Since the 50s and the disastrous attempts at "controlling growth" in cities like Birmingham and Manchester, ambitious and qualified workers have been funneled into London (our only remaining first world metropolis), where they end up throwing 40-50% of their post-tax incomes into renting a single bedroom owned by a foreign landlord and thus can't save, can't get a steady relationship, and can't have children, while all the benefits of their productivity flow abroad. That's why our rural and provincial communities are being hollowed out.
I don't think this is really true, most of the population live close to where they were born. My own conclusion is that a lot of people make unfortunately bad choices to stay in London (in the type of situation you describe) when they could massively increase their quality of life by moving to second tier cities where in many industries there are jobs that pay just as well and there are good professional opportunities.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Tldr; Boris Johnson is taking money from the usual dubious chancers and is clearly plotting something. If I were Sunak I'd be looking for even more salacious Partygate leaks to try to sink Johnson's leadership bid before it leaves harbour.
On topic: the NHS continues to do quite a lot well, but will inevitably continue to deteriorate over time. Demands upon it will continue to grow and the people with the money to pay to keep healthcare going (largely the same people making most of those demands) feel that they shouldn't be asked to cough up the necessary funds.
Certainly if the ambulance service continues to be as dire as it presently is then you'd think there would be an opening in the market for a private provider to step into the breach for those willing and able to fork out for the insurance, starting in London and gradually spreading out from there - a bit like how Hanoverian property owners used to pay subscriptions for a private fire service. That's how healthcare privatisation will roll: it'll end up being rather like dentistry provision already is now. The Government won't sell the NHS off; rather, better off people will increasingly opt out, as is already happening with much elective surgery; NHS consultants will spend more time seeing private patients and less dealing with NHS lists; NHS hospitals with good reputations will start opening private wards for wealthy queue-jumpers simply to raise more money; and state provision will eventually end up as a badly resourced safety net for poor people and those who are uninsurable due to existing complex conditions.
In short, if people who can afford to pay more tax refuse to do so, they'll eventually end up paying for private health cover instead and the NHS will get hollowed out. It's not the Tories who will destroy the NHS. The Tories, collectively, never have aimed to do that (even if some of their more libertarian-minded fringe may have wanted to.) Heresy against the state religion would be far too unpopular at the ballot box. It's their tight-fisted voters who'll kill it in the end.
That's a brutal analysis and you could in theory apply the same to policing. Wealthier areas can pay for security - poorer areas have to make do with whatever law enforcement facilities are left.
Arguing Conservative voters (who, based on their demographic, would be the ones most likely to need a functioning and reliable health service) is a particularly ironic comment.
The issues of the NHS don't sit in isolation - they are a reflection of wider societal and cultural issues around how families and older people relate (no pun intended). The biggest problem is how those (especially elderly) people who ought to be out of hospital can be provided with the home care they need to free up hospital bed space for those in genuine need. We need to overhaul domiciliary care and give it the priority it needs.
We're not going to find money for better elderly care without extracting the cash from the better-off elderly. Who else has it? Earned incomes are collapsing, so the money will have to come from assets, and the main store of asset wealth in the UK is property. Theresa May worked this out years ago, and much good it did her - because the ducks and their families will fucking strop if you tell them, for arguments' sake, that they have to part with a quarter of the value of their estates (in land value and/or inheritance taxes) to collectively fund a functional health and care system that will keep them as well and living independently for as long as possible, and look after them efficiently and kindly if they become too doddery to take care of themselves.
Again, the people who have the means to pay for shit don't want to. And so they won't, until the decision is forced upon them - i.e. when the state is wholly incapable of doing the job and they have to pay to go private.
The other side of the asset trap is inheritance (@HYUFD's favourite). The truth is the inheritance derived from the sale of assets owned by parents is for many children the only way on to the property ladder. If the parents live longer, however, that money arrives when the children are in their 40s or 50s and that's when they can finally get a property of their own.
Those who champion inheritance would argue taking more of the value of property assets to pay for care or for the NHS closes off that route to property ownership.
Perhaps we need to think about ownership and inheritance in a different way - perhaps part or all of the value of the asset could be released earlier (a kind of pre-inheritance) to enable the children to get on the property ladder earlier. I don't know how that could work in detail but we need some different thinking about assets, care and inheritance.
Once we get past pre-inheritance, perhaps we could move the elderly out of ownership into long-term rental (though such rental would be negligible). The inheritance would be gone but once the property was no longer needed, it could be put back into the market - I know there's a lot of holes in this but sometimes thinking outside the semi-detached box is required.
There is equity release of course
Serious question on that. I have never looked into it but how does that work in terms of inheritance and taxation. If someone does equity release, gives the money to their kids and then doesn't die within seven years, has the tax man lost out?
Yes.
Thats going to cause no end of complications when it comes to wealth taxes I would suggest.
How? The property gets sold to pay off the debt. The cash has already been spent.
So as I say the tax man gets nothing. The property is owned by the equity release company.
Even the LSE report recommending a wealth tax a few years ago recognised how easy it was to avoid (not evade) ‘ongoing’ wealth taxes - hence it recommended a one time ‘retrospective’ tax as the best option.
You can always reduce your wealth through raising secured debt on your assets and spending or gifting the cash. And if an ongoing wealth tax was in place people would target avoiding those rates with much greater efficiency over time.
If people spend the cash then the taxman will likely recoup more than a wealth tax on the spending indirectly, in VAT, business and employment taxes. If people redistribute the cash that is reducing inequality which is a benefit to the country anyway, and again the poorer relative or friend receiving the cash is more likely to spend the money and put back into the economy to generate tax than the ultra wealthy person seeking to avoid the wealth tax.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
Tldr; Boris Johnson is taking money from the usual dubious chancers and is clearly plotting something. If I were Sunak I'd be looking for even more salacious Partygate leaks to try to sink Johnson's leadership bid before it leaves harbour.
When is the Standards and Privileges Committee due to report?
Because at that moment, Sunak should follow the example of Sir Keir Starmer and withdraw the whip. Ending the threat and Johnson's political career at a stroke.
True, there is a slight risk Johnson's nuttier supporters might follow him, especially those that have no future - Mogg, Dorries, etc - but I suspect most of them would calculate that destroying themselves in these circumstances would be even stupider than their normal actions.
56% of British voters now want the King and Parliament to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal patronages and honorary titles, just 26% opposed a new Redfield poll shows
“An artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot can write such convincing fake research-paper abstracts that scientists are often unable to spot them, according to a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server in late December1. Researchers are divided over the implications for science.
“I am very worried,” says Sandra Wachter, who studies technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, UK, and was not involved in the research. “If we’re now in a situation where the experts are not able to determine what’s true or not, we lose the middleman that we desperately need to guide us through complicated topics,” she adds.”
“An artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot can write such convincing fake research-paper abstracts that scientists are often unable to spot them, according to a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server in late December1. Researchers are divided over the implications for science.
“I am very worried,” says Sandra Wachter, who studies technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, UK, and was not involved in the research. “If we’re now in a situation where the experts are not able to determine what’s true or not, we lose the middleman that we desperately need to guide us through complicated topics,” she adds.”
I should think it would be pretty easy for an AI chatbot to write a realistic-sounding abstract. They are brief and fairly formulaic. An obvious response to Sandra Wachter is that the "experts" should be looking beyond the abstracts before pontificating on "what's true"!
On a more fundamental level, perhaps the academic establishment should address the issue of fake research in general. We know humans have been producing it for a long time. Effective measures against that are also likely to be effective against fake research by AIs.
Comments
A sizeable proportion of Brits seemed to get extremely cross when our Eastern European neighbours exercised exactly this right and got on their bike to work here.
Free movement of labour is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the European single market for exactly the reasons you mention.
As for billionaires, we have them in Europe too. The median American certainly earns more than the median
Western European - though they do face higher costs of living - and even on healthcare things have changed, nowadays 80% of Americans get insured by either their employer or the government, so the difference is cash in hand.
So one is a loan which you have to repay and the other means you get less than the value of your property.
We need something better.
In more recent years I have a hunch the gap in GDP growth and corporate profitability could be largely down to one thing: significantly cheaper energy. Since the fracking boom. That low input cost has a cascading downstream effect on everything else, and because the USA is primarily a user rather than exporter of its hydrocarbon reserves, it doesn’t suffer the resource curse of big commodities exporters.
You’d love it
Plenty of churches also provide foodbanks, creches, meeting places for the local community too and the church in Epping is even providing some social accomodation on the side.
Even in the UK those in residential care now have to sell their homes to fund their dementia care
That was worked out a decade ago.
Another bloody wacko.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630183-700-falling-meteor-may-have-changed-the-course-of-christianity/
We might see more of this kind of thing as English increasingly has a kind of semi-official or explicitly official status in more countries. The British don't have an official name for London in French, so the issue doesn't arise.
But if Turkey wanted a new name to catch on in English they shouldn't have used a "ü"
What's so wrong with Firenze that we have to call it something else?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/13/brexit-mistake-northern-ireland-protocol
One day I’ll achieve sentience and then you’ll be sorry.
If someone is called Miguel we don't call him Michael. So why do the equivalent to his home town?
This makes it a lot easier to be able to help as my wife's parents age.
Waiting lists are never an orderly queue, as urgent work joins near the front.
Such experiences should be the rule not the exception.
(Unless you were to add plus two and a half years and two more to come).
Computer scientist number 1057819 who thinks he has insights about society. It's like the opposite to being a visionary.
Surely, the history of the British Monarchy is that being Monarch was, in a large part, a popularity contest. Those whose polling averages dipped too far, for too long, ended up on sabbatical, or more often, in executive head count reduction programs.
As to the relationship of this to Divine Right - well, God is on the side of Right. So if you overthrow the unpopular king, he has obviously lost the support of God. Which the new chap has, equally obviously.
don't trash their own family, even if they retain their place in the line of succession
> Judy Chu of CA
> Tammy Duckworth of Illinois
> Mike Honda of CA
> Ted Lieu of CA
> Doris Matsui of CA
> Mark Takai of Hawaii
> Mark Takano of CA
> Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii
Would also note that Rep. Meng's bill (HR 4238) passed the US House by 376 to 0.
(The "not voting" were from both parties, and included some of the bill's sponsors; thus their absence was NOT signaling opposition.)
So would appear you are grasping at . . . chop sticks!
80s, early 2000s, late noughties financial crisis and now the post-Covid / Ukraine shock.
The big outlier is the early 90s. A recession with low oil prices beforehand. The oil price spiked in 1990 before the gulf war but it didn’t last. But the 90s recession was more of a UK specific thing, less marked elsewhere. The other outlier is Covid, but that’s more in the nature of external shock recession like 9/11.
The classic dynamic is:
- Growing demand and industrial growth leads to rise in price of oil and other commodities
- This squeezes manufacturers in developed countries triggering reduced profitability and business investment, and stockmarket falls
- Meanwhile consumer inflation rises leading to monetary tightening, which dampens the housing and construction markets
- Economy shrinks, tax receipts fall and governments embark on fiscal tightening, shrinking economy further
- Reduced demand triggers commodity glut, input prices fall leading to greater corporate profits and lower consumer prices
- Monetary policy eases, people start spending
- Etc
So the best way to abolish boom and bust is to spend every boom investing massively in energy efficiency.
My list of greatest living Englishmen is being whittled down
An eminent PBer then posted something from IIRC the Wall Street Journal, saying that would NOT happen until much later this year.
This just published:
Politico.com - Yellen says U.S. will hit debt limit Thursday, warns of ‘irreparable harm’
The Treasury has only a finite amount of time it can use extraordinary measures to avoid a default.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/13/janet-yellen-debt-limit-00077898
It’s one reason I wonder if we might see a surprising period of economic growth in the next couple of decades. If the step change in both renewables and industrial energy efficiency lead to a period of glut then we could be back to the 1960s or 1990s. If that brings about the collapse of Putin’s Russia, the house of Saud and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes then that’s no bad thing.
The US hits its debt ceiling this week, but it is easy enough to keep the "lights on" until the second half of the year. However, the debt ceiling will need to be raised by (at the latest) the end of Q3.
This does raise a very important question: why the heck did the Dems not use their position in the House to raise the debt ceiling last month? They could easily have added a couple of year's of "capacity".
Seems a bit too much like playing games to me.
Christine Lambrecht (SPD) has decided to resign as Germany's Defense Minister - BILD
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1613983581692653573
Saving the world is the free bonus!
The glut point is something that I haven’t seen raised enough. Renewables are dropping in price. They are already competitive/cheaper than fossil fuels. In another couple of decades of incremental improvements, we would be looking at prices lower than oil/coal have ever achieved….
Next week, Germany may announce a decision on the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. It is inclined to a favorable decision in favor of Ukraine.
https://rubryka.com/en/2023/01/13/nastupnogo-tyzhnya-nimechchyna-ozvuchyt-rishennya-shhodo-postachannya-ukrayini-tankiv-leopard-zmi/
… A decision is expected to be made before a meeting of senior defense officials from the allied countries at the US Ramstein air base on January 20. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht will reportedly send a clear message about the Leopard at the meeting.
As of Thursday, Germany has not yet made a concrete decision, but according to another European official, the pressure on Germany to supply tanks is growing.
The publication reports that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is ready to back down from initial opposition to sending Leopard tanks or that he may allow countries such as Poland and Finland to send their Leopards to Ukraine.
At the same time, it is currently unclear whether Germany's decision will concern only the permission of other countries to transfer Leopard to Ukraine or whether Germany itself will also send them.…
It could all go pear shaped, but they’ve a better chance than Venezuela or Russia.
"The fatality rate for coronavirus patients greatly decreased after the omicron variant became the dominant strain of COVID-19. When the delta variant was dominant from July to October 2021, the mortality rate for infected people aged 80 and older was 7.92%, but this figure fell to 1.69% from July to August last year, the ministry said.
Other variants — including the omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is thought to be less virulent than other forms of the coronavirus — remain prevalent during the current eighth wave, meaning there should be no major changes in their virulence. Nevertheless, the death toll continues to increase rapidly.
To explain this seeming anomaly, Atsuo Hamada, a specially appointed professor of travel medicine at Tokyo Medical University, pointed to the large number of infected people and the growing number of elderly people who die from chronic illnesses that worsen after becoming infected with the coronavirus."
More cases than reported, he reckons. Must be like dark matter. I wonder at what point if there is an actual increase in virulence it would be recognised, with this kind of logic.
We should be very sceptical of this learned professor's line of thought, because every serious country will have early warning systems all over the place by now.
Best of luck with your operation, Mike.
You can always reduce your wealth through raising secured debt on your assets and spending or gifting the cash. And if an ongoing wealth tax was in place people would target avoiding those rates with much greater efficiency over time.
There would be a drop in revenue only if the value of the property went down.
Italy is slightly different as its Milan but the story is consistently true - those who have ambition usually leave their home town to try elsewhere
There is a high likelihood that the debt ceiling issue goes down to the wire this year, with significant financial market volatility over the summer. The Freedom Caucus is nuts enough to risk default.
Charity Commission inquiry showed Ashley and Lee Dribben spent large sums meant for vulnerable people on themselves
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/14/ex-homelessness-charity-bosses-get-15-year-ban-for-misuse-of-funds
The other thing that's happening since everyone who wants to be has been extensively vaxxed is that there's much less effort being put into keeping it out of old people's homes, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if vulnerable people are more likely to be exposed now.
“An artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot can write such convincing fake research-paper abstracts that scientists are often unable to spot them, according to a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server in late December1. Researchers are divided over the implications for science.
“I am very worried,” says Sandra Wachter, who studies technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, UK, and was not involved in the research. “If we’re now in a situation where the experts are not able to determine what’s true or not, we lose the middleman that we desperately need to guide us through complicated topics,” she adds.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00056-7
My own conclusion is that a lot of people make unfortunately bad choices to stay in London (in the type of situation you describe) when they could massively increase their quality of life by moving to second tier cities where in many industries there are jobs that pay just as well and there are good professional opportunities.
Just one question. Are we talking about the Royals or the DfE?
*buffs nails*
Tldr; Boris Johnson is taking money from the usual dubious chancers and is clearly plotting something. If I were Sunak I'd be looking for even more salacious Partygate leaks to try to sink Johnson's leadership bid before it leaves harbour.
Because at that moment, Sunak should follow the example of Sir Keir Starmer and withdraw the whip. Ending the threat and Johnson's political career at a stroke.
True, there is a slight risk Johnson's nuttier supporters might follow him, especially those that have no future - Mogg, Dorries, etc - but I suspect most of them would calculate that destroying themselves in these circumstances would be even stupider than their normal actions.
https://www.artandobject.com/news/today-painting-dead-photographys-revolutionary-effect
We'll adapt; we always do.
On a more fundamental level, perhaps the academic establishment should address the issue of fake research in general. We know humans have been producing it for a long time. Effective measures against that are also likely to be effective against fake research by AIs.