What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
Fair enough - good response.
You like what you believe in; your views happen to coincide with Russian trolls but so be it.
Exactly. Likewise Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Myra Hindley etc. I believe what I believe in due to my own life experiences, moral compass, political and moral hinterland, sense of justice, and belief in what works. My views are changeable, but by new, relevant information, not by someone else jumping on board for what could be any reason of their own. That would be insupportable, not to mention intellectually lazy.
I am curious what about your own life experiences makes you so keen to buy into the Russian side of events like MH17 etc
Luckyguy did explain recently that he has a weakness for conspiracy theories. He also appears to have a mild animus against the USA.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
The latter.
When one of the UK independent oil companies decided to develop a field West of Shetlands about a decade ago and it went wrong (as they do rather often) they ended up costing them somewhere in the region of £2 billion. When the risks are that high no one is going to touch it if the potential profits aren't substantially higher.
I can remember when West of Shetlands was looked at when I worked in the industry. Shell and BP considered a joint venture, so high was the risk/cost.
He did concede to me yesterday re A-Level results for required for Russell Group unis which was gracious.
Thanks CHB, I was genuinely interested to see if HYUFD would ever admit he's wrong (since there are numerous situations where he clearly is wrong and refuses to admit it).
As your exchange yesterday so eloquently notes, arguing with HYUFD is like arguing with a toddler. His (almost) constant refusal to admit whenever he's wrong, which he often is, is why people pile in on him.
Rubbish. We all have our way of posting on PB and if you can't get another poster to realise that you are right by painting them into a corner when the only alternatives are accepting that you are right, changing the subject, or going ad hom then you need to brush up on your posting skills.
I shall watch and learn from you next time you find yourself opposite HYUFD in his painted corner.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
You'd end up with smaller companies, which would probably have higher percentage profits individually. So over all profits would go up.
Is that a bad thing? It's perhaps inefficient, I grant you.
It's not the profits that bother me, it's the idea of corporate power diminishing states' abilities to set good policy.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
Fair enough - good response.
You like what you believe in; your views happen to coincide with Russian trolls but so be it.
Exactly. Likewise Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Myra Hindley etc. I believe what I believe in due to my own life experiences, moral compass, political and moral hinterland, sense of justice, and belief in what works. My views are changeable, but by new, relevant information, not by someone else jumping on board for what could be any reason of their own. That would be insupportable, not to mention intellectually lazy.
I am curious what about your own life experiences makes you so keen to buy into the Russian side of events like MH17 etc
Luckyguy did explain recently that he has a weakness for conspiracy theories. He also appears to have a mild animus against the USA.
I do (as I've elaborated above), but we're all prepared to indulge in conspiracy theories if they're conspiracies perpetrated by the other side. I try to be equally cynical about both sides, and for the most part, I tend to be vindicated.
He did concede to me yesterday re A-Level results for required for Russell Group unis which was gracious.
Thanks CHB, I was genuinely interested to see if HYUFD would ever admit he's wrong (since there are numerous situations where he clearly is wrong and refuses to admit it).
As your exchange yesterday so eloquently notes, arguing with HYUFD is like arguing with a toddler. His (almost) constant refusal to admit whenever he's wrong, which he often is, is why people pile in on him.
Rubbish. We all have our way of posting on PB and if you can't get another poster to realise that you are right by painting them into a corner when the only alternatives are accepting that you are right, changing the subject, or going ad hom then you need to brush up on your posting skills.
I shall watch and learn from you next time you find yourself opposite HYUFD in his painted corner.
Only after you have managed to snatch the pebble from my hand.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
Fair enough - good response.
You like what you believe in; your views happen to coincide with Russian trolls but so be it.
Exactly. Likewise Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Myra Hindley etc. I believe what I believe in due to my own life experiences, moral compass, political and moral hinterland, sense of justice, and belief in what works. My views are changeable, but by new, relevant information, not by someone else jumping on board for what could be any reason of their own. That would be insupportable, not to mention intellectually lazy.
I am curious what about your own life experiences makes you so keen to buy into the Russian side of events like MH17 etc
It is in my nature to adjust to new paradigms very quickly and assimilate them into my world view. That can be a benefit, where I have adjusted to new facts when others are struggling in denial, but it can also lead me up the garden path of believing something quickly when I should have more caution.
'I believe everything. When I'm told something true it saves me a lot of time thinking about it. I admit the approach has limitations when I'm told something false'?
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
It must figure to some extent. Eg I wouldn't give the PB equivalent of Hitler a 'like' even for a really solid post. That doesn't make me a drip.
I would, and I think it does.
Me too, to be fair. I'm often surprised when I see who wrote a post I've liked (not always obvious when there are lots of quotes or a long post). Even yours, not that infrequently, although we're some way apart on most things.
I'd probably want the PB equivalent of Hitler banned (assuming the Hitlerism spilled over into posts here) but failing that I'd probably like a good post without noticing the poster and would be unlikely to unlike if I later noticed.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
It is however worth remembering he is also the only poster on here - or at least, the only one I know of - who has taken Ukrainian refugees into his home.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
Nige has a point - there is a massive dichotomy in DA's views on these matters.
Then again, there's almost certainly massive dichotomies in my views (I want peace, but I want Ukraine to beat Russia, which a pacifist acquaintance says is inconsistent). There are almost certainly dichotomies in your views as well.
The people to worry about are those who have no dichotomies; whose views of the world are unsullied by the messiness the real world abounds in.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
Fair enough - good response.
You like what you believe in; your views happen to coincide with Russian trolls but so be it.
Exactly. Likewise Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Myra Hindley etc. I believe what I believe in due to my own life experiences, moral compass, political and moral hinterland, sense of justice, and belief in what works. My views are changeable, but by new, relevant information, not by someone else jumping on board for what could be any reason of their own. That would be insupportable, not to mention intellectually lazy.
I am curious what about your own life experiences makes you so keen to buy into the Russian side of events like MH17 etc
It is in my nature to adjust to new paradigms very quickly and assimilate them into my world view. That can be a benefit, where I have adjusted to new facts when others are struggling in denial, but it can also lead me up the garden path of believing something quickly when I should have more caution.
'I believe everything. When I'm told something true it saves me a lot of time thinking about it. I admit the approach has limitations when I'm told something false'?
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
Wouldn't swans of colour more likely be Labour supporters?
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
It’s yet another example of @Topping’s class anxiety. Which I have finally deciphered
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
Wouldn't swans of colour more likely be Labour supporters?
There is a Labour Party initiative to give black swans more of a leg up in life.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
The latter.
When one of the UK independent oil companies decided to develop a field West of Shetlands about a decade ago and it went wrong (as they do rather often) they ended up costing them somewhere in the region of £2 billion. When the risks are that high no one is going to touch it if the potential profits aren't substantially higher.
I can remember when West of Shetlands was looked at when I worked in the industry. Shell and BP considered a joint venture, so high was the risk/cost.
The rewards are very high and much of the issue with the company I refer to was poor due diligence. They bought into a field development as the operator without making sure the whole thing was viable - and against the advice of their own experts. That, combined with massive overruns in construction of the topsides, left them in a very bad place. But yes, even when everything is done properly the risks are immensely high. Just to drill a single well West of Shetlands will cost you north of £100 million even if nothing goes wrong.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
Fair enough - good response.
You like what you believe in; your views happen to coincide with Russian trolls but so be it.
Exactly. Likewise Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Myra Hindley etc. I believe what I believe in due to my own life experiences, moral compass, political and moral hinterland, sense of justice, and belief in what works. My views are changeable, but by new, relevant information, not by someone else jumping on board for what could be any reason of their own. That would be insupportable, not to mention intellectually lazy.
I am curious what about your own life experiences makes you so keen to buy into the Russian side of events like MH17 etc
Luckyguy did explain recently that he has a weakness for conspiracy theories. He also appears to have a mild animus against the USA.
I do (as I've elaborated above), but we're all prepared to indulge in conspiracy theories if they're conspiracies perpetrated by the other side. I try to be equally cynical about both sides, and for the most part, I tend to be vindicated.
Well you were proved wrong on MH17 (which was pretty obvious at the time). For the most part, conspiracy theories are not amenable to being proved right or wrong, as that is their nature.
But I ought to have commended your honesty in acknowledging the tendency, and do so now.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
It must figure to some extent. Eg I wouldn't give the PB equivalent of Hitler a 'like' even for a really solid post. That doesn't make me a drip.
I would, and I think it does.
Me too, to be fair. I'm often surprised when I see who wrote a post I've liked (not always obvious when there are lots of quotes or a long post). Even yours, not that infrequently, although we're some way apart on most things.
I'd probably want the PB equivalent of Hitler banned (assuming the Hitlerism spilled over into posts here) but failing that I'd probably like a good post without noticing the poster and would be unlikely to unlike if I later noticed.
We don't know who here might be living a life of screen that hurts other people. The nearest thing we have is people we have deep philosophical differences with, or people that have made personal attacks on us (as much as any attack is personal here). I have liked peoples' posts in the last 48 hours who have attacked me and continue to do so. If I agree, I agree.
It's a day with D in it so we need to talk about trans .
Interesting piece arguing that the Scottish Gov attempt to give exactly the same rights to for want to Gender Recognition by self-ID as the current process has undermined protection for trans people. Quite an interesting analogy with disability and Blue Badges:
Let me offer an analogy that might be helpful to Sturgeon: blue badges are issued to disabled people who need extra flexibility in where they can park their car. There are processes that applicants must follow to get a blue badge. They cost £10 for starters – more expensive than a GRC, but let’s not dwell on that – and the local council conducts an assessment to decide if you are eligible.
Now let’s say that some progressive politicians decide those processes are unnecessary bureaucracy, or even demeaning to disabled people. They decide instead to offer blue badges to anyone who chooses to self-identify as disabled. The incentive to do so is obvious, as is the inevitable chaos. Traffic would snarl to a halt as those who wanted to park more easily filled out the paperwork to be allowed to do so.
Who suffers? Ultimately, everyone – parking is usually restricted for good reason – but specifically those who needed the extra flexibility. The privilege that they required is brought into disrepute by those who merely wanted it. Sturgeon has done something similar to trans rights.
I qualify as double disabled whenever campaigners want to big up the numbers in Parliament to make the Government do what they want - I wear glasses all the time and I have Type I diabetes. I quite like the prospect of getting a Blue Badge by self-ID, but the processes are (correctly) different and are an evaluation based on context, rather than the process of qualifying to be included in the "disabled" category for some activists.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
It's a day with D in it so we need to talk about trans .
Interesting piece arguing that the Scottish Gov attempt to give exactly the same rights to for want to Gender Recognition by self-ID as the current process has undermined protection for trans people. Quite an interesting analogy with disability and Blue Badges:
Let me offer an analogy that might be helpful to Sturgeon: blue badges are issued to disabled people who need extra flexibility in where they can park their car. There are processes that applicants must follow to get a blue badge. They cost £10 for starters – more expensive than a GRC, but let’s not dwell on that – and the local council conducts an assessment to decide if you are eligible.
Now let’s say that some progressive politicians decide those processes are unnecessary bureaucracy, or even demeaning to disabled people. They decide instead to offer blue badges to anyone who chooses to self-identify as disabled. The incentive to do so is obvious, as is the inevitable chaos. Traffic would snarl to a halt as those who wanted to park more easily filled out the paperwork to be allowed to do so.
Who suffers? Ultimately, everyone – parking is usually restricted for good reason – but specifically those who needed the extra flexibility. The privilege that they required is brought into disrepute by those who merely wanted it. Sturgeon has done something similar to trans rights.
I qualify as double disabled whenever campaigners want to big up the numbers in Parliament to make the Government do what they want - I wear glasses all the time and I have Type I diabetes. I quite like the prospect of getting a Blue Badge by self-ID, but the processes are (correctly) different and are an evaluation based on context, rather than the process of qualifying to be included in the "disabled" category for some activists.
I cannot read the paywalled article but just on the disabled parking front, I note that the parking bays nearest the supermarket entrance are not filled by single drivers self-declaring they have a toddler in tow. Maybe things are different where other PBers live and shop.
And what is the big prize for falsely claiming to be trans? Sporting accolades, but the various authorities now seem to have this covered. An easier time in prison, perhaps, and there I would expect that some criminals (a class not best characterised by scrupulous honesty) would take advantage. But in general life, there are not even more convenient trans-only parking spaces.
It may well be that "genuine" trans rights, say for those who have undergone surgery, are undermined but so much of this debate is so silly as to pass most people by.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
It is however worth remembering he is also the only poster on here - or at least, the only one I know of - who has taken Ukrainian refugees into his home.
I don’t. Not any more. He hasn’t posted a single shred of evidence to support his fairly extravagant claims
By contrast I give you photos of my Swedish knife sommelier in Bangkok where I have been stranded in the middle of a free £600 per head paired wine tasting Menu thanks to my whore monger swinging American friend bailing out during the amuse-bouche due to projectile vomiting in the Finnish blondewood loos
@duraace is very entertaining. But I don’t believe a word he says. Not any more. We need photos, minimum
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
It is however worth remembering he is also the only poster on here - or at least, the only one I know of - who has taken Ukrainian refugees into his home.
I don’t. Not any more. He hasn’t posted a single shred of evidence to support his fairly extravagant claims
By contrast I give you photos of my Swedish knife sommelier in Bangkok where I have been stranded in the middle of a free £600 per head paired wine tasting Menu thanks to my whore monger swinging American friend bailing out during the amuse-bouche due to projectile vomiting in the Finnish blondewood loos
@duraace is very entertaining. But I don’t believe a word he says. Not any more. We need photos, minimum
You haven't, however, ever posted any images of these beautiful flint dildos you knap for a living. How can we be sure you're not (in this case) the one projecting a fantasy life as a creator of artisan sex toys through PB?
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
An election on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum feels like the sort of crap, panic stricken gimmick Sunak could be talked into doing. Save Brexit and all that shit.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
It is however worth remembering he is also the only poster on here - or at least, the only one I know of - who has taken Ukrainian refugees into his home.
I don’t. Not any more. He hasn’t posted a single shred of evidence to support his fairly extravagant claims
By contrast I give you photos of my Swedish knife sommelier in Bangkok where I have been stranded in the middle of a free £600 per head paired wine tasting Menu thanks to my whore monger swinging American friend bailing out during the amuse-bouche due to projectile vomiting in the Finnish blondewood loos
@duraace is very entertaining. But I don’t believe a word he says. Not any more. We need photos, minimum
No, I think he's pretty consistent - and that almost certainly includes not pandering to your whims.
It's a day with D in it so we need to talk about trans .
Interesting piece arguing that the Scottish Gov attempt to give exactly the same rights to for want to Gender Recognition by self-ID as the current process has undermined protection for trans people. Quite an interesting analogy with disability and Blue Badges:
Let me offer an analogy that might be helpful to Sturgeon: blue badges are issued to disabled people who need extra flexibility in where they can park their car. There are processes that applicants must follow to get a blue badge. They cost £10 for starters – more expensive than a GRC, but let’s not dwell on that – and the local council conducts an assessment to decide if you are eligible.
Now let’s say that some progressive politicians decide those processes are unnecessary bureaucracy, or even demeaning to disabled people. They decide instead to offer blue badges to anyone who chooses to self-identify as disabled. The incentive to do so is obvious, as is the inevitable chaos. Traffic would snarl to a halt as those who wanted to park more easily filled out the paperwork to be allowed to do so.
Who suffers? Ultimately, everyone – parking is usually restricted for good reason – but specifically those who needed the extra flexibility. The privilege that they required is brought into disrepute by those who merely wanted it. Sturgeon has done something similar to trans rights.
I qualify as double disabled whenever campaigners want to big up the numbers in Parliament to make the Government do what they want - I wear glasses all the time and I have Type I diabetes. I quite like the prospect of getting a Blue Badge by self-ID, but the processes are (correctly) different and are an evaluation based on context, rather than the process of qualifying to be included in the "disabled" category for some activists.
I cannot read the paywalled article but just on the disabled parking front, I note that the parking bays nearest the supermarket entrance are not filled by single drivers self-declaring they have a toddler in tow. Maybe things are different where other PBers live and shop.
And what is the big prize for falsely claiming to be trans? Sporting accolades, but the various authorities now seem to have this covered. An easier time in prison, perhaps, and there I would expect that some criminals (a class not best characterised by scrupulous honesty) would take advantage. But in general life, there are not even more convenient trans-only parking spaces.
It may well be that "genuine" trans rights, say for those who have undergone surgery, are undermined but so much of this debate is so silly as to pass most people by.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
It’s yet another example of @Topping’s class anxiety. Which I have finally deciphered
LOL. Here's the exchange yesterday:
Me: posts list of pubs I have been to.
You: What a POSH list how POSH that really is a POSH list all those pubs are POSH.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
How long can he survive with his "I wasn't backed by Kolomoisky" line, when everyone knows he was?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
I’m in a super posh new Bangkok restaurant having a FREE zillion course tasting nu-nordic menu with paired wines helmed by a 3 star chef
And my dining partner has just puked up the first course - a poached oyster with scarlet caviar and has fled the building
Wtf do I do? It’s all free. I can’t eat 98 courses and drink 428 wines. But I can’t offend them
True story. Is this the most first world of first world problems??
Anyone who has an oyster poached deserves to go home early. Poaching an oyster is like putting ice in one's scotch.
No need to put ice in your scotch if the Coke was in the fridge beforehand.
Crazy talk. You need to save the coke for your expensive French red wine.
Actually, if it is very warm, an ice cube of spring water in a cask strength scotch is far from a stupid idea.
Many of the flavour compounds in Scotch whisky are oil based. Cold will tend to close down the oils (imagine it like ice in a glass of Pernod), and therefore limit the flavour, whereas a drop of water will open them up. But if you just want a glass of Scotch as a cool drink, and you want to ease off the flavour and the abv, it's fine to add ice, I just wouldn't do it to something expensive that I wanted to sip and savour.
By the way, dry ginger is a better mixer for Scotch than coke in my opinion (and many others) with ice and squeezed lime. Scotch has a subtler and less syruppy/sappy flavour than bourbon, and can be swamped by coke.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
The latter.
When one of the UK independent oil companies decided to develop a field West of Shetlands about a decade ago and it went wrong (as they do rather often) they ended up costing them somewhere in the region of £2 billion. When the risks are that high no one is going to touch it if the potential profits aren't substantially higher.
I can remember when West of Shetlands was looked at when I worked in the industry. Shell and BP considered a joint venture, so high was the risk/cost.
The rewards are very high and much of the issue with the company I refer to was poor due diligence. They bought into a field development as the operator without making sure the whole thing was viable - and against the advice of their own experts. That, combined with massive overruns in construction of the topsides, left them in a very bad place. But yes, even when everything is done properly the risks are immensely high. Just to drill a single well West of Shetlands will cost you north of £100 million even if nothing goes wrong.
I created a bit of a comedy - I worked at one of the two companies in question. I was working on a rather crude capacity and supply chain model. I rather idly copy and pasted some generally available price numbers into the model and it started telling me guesstimates for profitability, for the venture.
I showed it to my boss. He passed it on....
It turned out that no-one had been able to come up with rough cost figures for the joint venture. The numbers I had created were too secret for me to know, or anyone in the organisation about 4 levels above me.
I’m in a super posh new Bangkok restaurant having a FREE zillion course tasting nu-nordic menu with paired wines helmed by a 3 star chef
And my dining partner has just puked up the first course - a poached oyster with scarlet caviar and has fled the building
Wtf do I do? It’s all free. I can’t eat 98 courses and drink 428 wines. But I can’t offend them
True story. Is this the most first world of first world problems??
Anyone who has an oyster poached deserves to go home early. Poaching an oyster is like putting ice in one's scotch.
No need to put ice in your scotch if the Coke was in the fridge beforehand.
Crazy talk. You need to save the coke for your expensive French red wine.
Actually, if it is very warm, an ice cube of spring water in a cask strength scotch is far from a stupid idea.
I take my whisky (whisper it) neat with two ice cubes which I like as they gently melt. My whisky of choice is Glengoyne btw and I have a bottle of cask strength something or other given to me as a gift which I have never opened.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
Indeed. Peppa Pig waves his curly tail in agreement.
His?
Have I been very confused about the sex of a cartoon pig for years or has PP gone* woke and embraced transgender characters?
*or was it always woke? I can't tell, but given Johnson's love for PP I assume not.
This is why I keep out of gender specific politics. Like Starmer, I am unsure of how to correctly determine gender characteristics, hence my unforgiveable Peppa Pig error.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
It must figure to some extent. Eg I wouldn't give the PB equivalent of Hitler a 'like' even for a really solid post. That doesn't make me a drip.
That post seems to suggest that there IS a PB equivalent of Hitler. Wow, that is quite a revelation. Is he is a Scottish Nationalist by any chance?
Not any more now Rod Crosby has gone.
There are some who sail a bit close to the wind, but not that close.
Ah, the swing back advocate? I remember him. I wasn't aware he was into leather wellies, world domination and genocide though.
Was a holocaust denier and antisemite. A disgusting individual.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Those with a mortgage however have to make higher mortgage repayments every time rates rise if not on a fixed rate
Aren't most people on fixed rate mortgages - the only people likely to be on variable rates will have either mortgages so small that the cost of fixing them makes little sense or those whose fixed rate have expired since Truss revealed the true state of things and have been waiting for fixed rate mortgage rates to decrease a bit
Shedloads run out every year though so a % will get plastered. One of mine runs out jan next year. Lots only fix 2 years at a time. I am sorry I only took 5 at the time.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
An election on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum feels like the sort of crap, panic stricken gimmick Sunak could be talked into doing. Save Brexit and all that shit.
Highlighting Brexit is the very last thing Sunak will want to be doing at the next GE.
Black-led businesses could be given more support to procure lucrative government contracts by a future Labour government as the party refines its offer to ethnic minority voters ahead of the next election.
Labour’s race equality task force, led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, hopes to ensure that black-led groups get the chance to access a fair share of the billions of pounds paid out each year through government contracts, according to The Voice newspaper.
The Guardian understands that the task force, co-chaired by Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds, has also proposed introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for firms with more than 250 staff, with the aim of closing the existing gap on salaries.
Task force member and human rights lawyer Jacqueline Mckenzie told the newspaper: “There are no black firms that currently benefit at all [from government contracts], African heritage firms.”
Do they not get access or a fair crack at these contracts at the moment ?
Are there any obstacles to them participating in the procurement process.
On the face of it this seems fair.
Sounds like a dire idea , just what you would expect from Labour. Pur ewindow dressing and sure to cause issues when people ar ebeing favoured over others. There should b eno regard to race or colour in a procurement process.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
It’s yet another example of @Topping’s class anxiety. Which I have finally deciphered
LOL. Here's the exchange yesterday:
Me: posts list of pubs I have been to.
You: What a POSH list how POSH that really is a POSH list all those pubs are POSH.
Me: Er, I don't really go to pubs any more.
You: You are obsessed by class.
It was the most ridiculously insecure and obvious list of obviously posh pubs. The GRENADIER
Black-led businesses could be given more support to procure lucrative government contracts by a future Labour government as the party refines its offer to ethnic minority voters ahead of the next election.
Labour’s race equality task force, led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, hopes to ensure that black-led groups get the chance to access a fair share of the billions of pounds paid out each year through government contracts, according to The Voice newspaper.
The Guardian understands that the task force, co-chaired by Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds, has also proposed introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for firms with more than 250 staff, with the aim of closing the existing gap on salaries.
Task force member and human rights lawyer Jacqueline Mckenzie told the newspaper: “There are no black firms that currently benefit at all [from government contracts], African heritage firms.”
Do they not get access or a fair crack at these contracts at the moment ?
Are there any obstacles to them participating in the procurement process.
On the face of it this seems fair.
Sounds like a dire idea , just what you would expect from Labour. Pur ewindow dressing and sure to cause issues when people ar ebeing favoured over others. There should b eno regard to race or colour in a procurement process.
Completely agree. And if we're about to start doing favours in the procurement process, how about we start with companies that are based in the UK and pay their taxes here, not skip all that and go straight to selecting by skin colour?
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
cf all the hugely rich socialists (on PB).
Fundamental misunderstanding there Topping.
Being rich and left-wing is not hypocritical, any more than being poor and right-wing is.
I’m in a super posh new Bangkok restaurant having a FREE zillion course tasting nu-nordic menu with paired wines helmed by a 3 star chef
And my dining partner has just puked up the first course - a poached oyster with scarlet caviar and has fled the building
Wtf do I do? It’s all free. I can’t eat 98 courses and drink 428 wines. But I can’t offend them
True story. Is this the most first world of first world problems??
Anyone who has an oyster poached deserves to go home early. Poaching an oyster is like putting ice in one's scotch.
No need to put ice in your scotch if the Coke was in the fridge beforehand.
Crazy talk. You need to save the coke for your expensive French red wine.
Actually, if it is very warm, an ice cube of spring water in a cask strength scotch is far from a stupid idea.
I take my whisky (whisper it) neat with two ice cubes which I like as they gently melt. My whisky of choice is Glengoyne btw and I have a bottle of cask strength something or other given to me as a gift which I have never opened.
I love Glengoyne! Also favourite of the late Queen Mum Gor' bless 'er.
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
What would have led to that? The complainant withdrawing her statement? Mishandling of evidence by the police? New evidence coming to light?
Seems very odd indeed to drop the charges after this length of time without saying why. So I'm guessing (2) is a serious possibility.
Apparently they're back together. That shouldn't stop a prosecution, but I guess the CPS think it's unlikely to be successful with her saying "it was all a mistake etc etc"
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
What would have led to that? The complainant withdrawing her statement? Mishandling of evidence by the police? New evidence coming to light?
Seems very odd indeed to drop the charges after this length of time without saying why. So I'm guessing (2) is a serious possibility.
I'm not sure it really should matter - he's officially not guilty and the FA shouldn't interfere with that, should it?
Edit: just saw your edit. There's ample precedent in US sports leagues for players being banned on the strength of accusations, sometimes even when there's not even a charge. I'm not sure it would be helpful to import this particular trend.
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
An election on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum feels like the sort of crap, panic stricken gimmick Sunak could be talked into doing. Save Brexit and all that shit.
Highlighting Brexit is the very last thing Sunak will want to be doing at the next GE.
Brexit still has a constituency. Note how Starmer will go nowhere near the issue.
A Brexit election could be a forlorn attempt to reweave the capitalist warp and chav weft of their 2019 electoral coalition.
I am not saying it'll work. I am just saying I could see them trying it.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
It’s yet another example of @Topping’s class anxiety. Which I have finally deciphered
LOL. Here's the exchange yesterday:
Me: posts list of pubs I have been to.
You: What a POSH list how POSH that really is a POSH list all those pubs are POSH.
Me: Er, I don't really go to pubs any more.
You: You are obsessed by class.
It was the most ridiculously insecure and obvious list of obviously posh pubs. The GRENADIER
lol
Every pub on the list I used to go to often and for various reasons the nature of which would bore you senseless but are pretty straightforward eg I or friends lived locally.
You are fixated on The Grenadier which actually is not that great a pub as you usually have to stay outside and there is nowhere to sit and you stare at the mews garages. But some friends and I go there a few times a year, again for various very boring reasons.
You then identified the list as "posh" and went off on one about it and then @kini jumped in about the poshness. And then you told me I am obsessed by class.
Woke Welsh RU bans innocent old favourite just because it glorifies wife-murdering. Tsk, what's the world coming to?
The WRU are in a misogynistic spot of bother at the moment (among other things). When the swamp is full, fishing out Delilah and throwing her to the dogs does seem like tokenism...although the lyrics aren't very "me too" now are they?
"I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind She was my woman As she deceived me, I watched and went out of my mind...
At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door She stood there laughing I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more"
We have a bit of stalking and homicidal domestic violence thrown in. It hasn't really stood up to the sensitivities of the 21st Century.
Anyway, I'm off to view some episodes of 'til death us do part.
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
What would have led to that? The complainant withdrawing her statement? Mishandling of evidence by the police? New evidence coming to light?
Seems very odd indeed to drop the charges after this length of time without saying why. So I'm guessing (2) is a serious possibility.
I'm not sure it really should matter - he's officially not guilty and the FA shouldn't interfere with that, should it?
Edit: just saw your edit. There's ample precedent in US sports leagues for players being banned on the strength of accusations, sometimes even when there's not even a charge. I'm not sure it would be helpful to import this particular trend.
I'm not a lawyer but it would appear to me to be undue restraint of trade.
Heck, the courts even reversed Roy Meadow being struck off after he'd effectively admitted committing perjury in multiple criminal cases.
Looking at all the posts, I am starting to wonder how many have been generated by ChatGPT.
Some may have been generated by ChatGPT but then again some may not.
Some people have complained that "ChatGPT is at capacity right now" when they have innocently tried to use it to create witty posts that prove HYUFD is wrong or ToryGuy83 is a Russian sympathiser, but then again others have not.
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
An election on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum feels like the sort of crap, panic stricken gimmick Sunak could be talked into doing. Save Brexit and all that shit.
Highlighting Brexit is the very last thing Sunak will want to be doing at the next GE.
Brexit still has a constituency. Note how Starmer will go nowhere near the issue.
A Brexit election could be a forlorn attempt to reweave the capitalist warp and chav weft of their 2019 electoral coalition.
I am not saying it'll work. I am just saying I could see them trying it.
It will *only* work if there's some Brexit progress to show for it. You might say 'there will never be any progress', but an easy move would be to remove VAT on domestic fuel. Can't do that in the EU.
But if there's been no progress on anything, and it's another 'get Brexit done (this time we promise)' they will be punished.
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
What would have led to that? The complainant withdrawing her statement? Mishandling of evidence by the police? New evidence coming to light?
Seems very odd indeed to drop the charges after this length of time without saying why. So I'm guessing (2) is a serious possibility.
I'm not sure it really should matter - he's officially not guilty and the FA shouldn't interfere with that, should it?
Edit: just saw your edit. There's ample precedent in US sports leagues for players being banned on the strength of accusations, sometimes even when there's not even a charge. I'm not sure it would be helpful to import this particular trend.
Although on checking in more detail, it does seem there's video evidence against him (which makes dropping the charges even more bizarre) so I suppose the FA could say he's brought the sport into disrepute.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
cf all the hugely rich socialists (on PB).
Fundamental misunderstanding there Topping.
Being rich and left-wing is not hypocritical, any more than being poor and right-wing is.
It sort of is. A rich left-winger could give all their money to the poor. Or make voluntary contributions to HMRC. Or...
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
What is the collective wisdom of PBers as to the most likely date of the next general election? My question is prompted by the possibility of standing in North East Bedfordshire as an independent against the incumbent Conservative. Quite a number of people have suggested that I should do so. It might be interesting.
Oct 2024 is my guess. Not the ridiculous Jan 25, but also max time for black swans to come to the rescue of the Tories.
I’ve thought the same for a while. They will wait as long as possible but will go before the depths of winter both to avoid another election close to the holiday season and because clinging on to the very end looks so desperate. They will have the advantage of being able to make definite preparations for the campaign while the opposition is still guessing. Autumn 2024 also allows any giveaways in the spring 2024 budget to be on tap.
An election on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum feels like the sort of crap, panic stricken gimmick Sunak could be talked into doing. Save Brexit and all that shit.
Highlighting Brexit is the very last thing Sunak will want to be doing at the next GE.
Brexit still has a constituency. Note how Starmer will go nowhere near the issue.
A Brexit election could be a forlorn attempt to reweave the capitalist warp and chav weft of their 2019 electoral coalition.
I am not saying it'll work. I am just saying I could see them trying it.
Well yes, they are stupid enough.
Maybe it would rally a few of the sit-on-their-hands where's-our-tax-cuts waverers but it's more likely to be a negative for them.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
On what grounds?
Good afternoon
The CPS have said there is no longer a chance of a successful prosecution
I assume there must have been a material change in the evidence
"In this case a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. In these circumstances, we are under a duty to stop the case."
Its all very messy situation. Anybody who heard the leaked tape, it sounded awful. But, if you remember he got in trouble last year when he was seen taking the woman in question out and about for the day (obviously against his bail conditions), but seemingly she was there through her own free will.
I’m in a super posh new Bangkok restaurant having a FREE zillion course tasting nu-nordic menu with paired wines helmed by a 3 star chef
And my dining partner has just puked up the first course - a poached oyster with scarlet caviar and has fled the building
Wtf do I do? It’s all free. I can’t eat 98 courses and drink 428 wines. But I can’t offend them
True story. Is this the most first world of first world problems??
Anyone who has an oyster poached deserves to go home early. Poaching an oyster is like putting ice in one's scotch.
No need to put ice in your scotch if the Coke was in the fridge beforehand.
Crazy talk. You need to save the coke for your expensive French red wine.
Actually, if it is very warm, an ice cube of spring water in a cask strength scotch is far from a stupid idea.
I take my whisky (whisper it) neat with two ice cubes which I like as they gently melt. My whisky of choice is Glengoyne btw and I have a bottle of cask strength something or other given to me as a gift which I have never opened.
Good taste Topping , Glengoyne is very nice. I also like Glenrothes.
I’m in a super posh new Bangkok restaurant having a FREE zillion course tasting nu-nordic menu with paired wines helmed by a 3 star chef
And my dining partner has just puked up the first course - a poached oyster with scarlet caviar and has fled the building
Wtf do I do? It’s all free. I can’t eat 98 courses and drink 428 wines. But I can’t offend them
True story. Is this the most first world of first world problems??
Anyone who has an oyster poached deserves to go home early. Poaching an oyster is like putting ice in one's scotch.
No need to put ice in your scotch if the Coke was in the fridge beforehand.
Crazy talk. You need to save the coke for your expensive French red wine.
Actually, if it is very warm, an ice cube of spring water in a cask strength scotch is far from a stupid idea.
I take my whisky (whisper it) neat with two ice cubes which I like as they gently melt. My whisky of choice is Glengoyne btw and I have a bottle of cask strength something or other given to me as a gift which I have never opened.
Good taste Topping , Glengoyne is very nice. I also like Glenrothes.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
On what grounds?
Good afternoon
The CPS have said there is no longer a chance of a successful prosecution
I assume there must have been a material change in the evidence
N0, my question was 'on what grounds tlg86 thinks 'the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life'.
Sorry I misread your post
If the CPS have dropped all charges then in law he is innocent and banning him would seem bizarre
Because there is evidence in the public domain. John Terry was found not guilty in a court of law, but that didn't stop the FA deciding that they thought he was guilty.
The big pressure is on Man Utd. Do they really want him in the club?
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
It must figure to some extent. Eg I wouldn't give the PB equivalent of Hitler a 'like' even for a really solid post. That doesn't make me a drip.
That post seems to suggest that there IS a PB equivalent of Hitler. Wow, that is quite a revelation. Is he is a Scottish Nationalist by any chance?
Not any more now Rod Crosby has gone.
There are some who sail a bit close to the wind, but not that close.
Ah, the swing back advocate? I remember him. I wasn't aware he was into leather wellies, world domination and genocide though.
Was a holocaust denier and antisemite. A disgusting individual.
Missed him. But what planet are such people on?
Although many millions non Jews also inhumanly killed by the German fascists as they pushed into Ukraine and Russia, it isn’t the Shoah because rounding up reds and shooting them in the head and throwing them in a pit is very different than sadisticly targeting a race of people and taking out their teeth fillings and experimenting on them and making jewellery out of their spines.
Don’t use the word Holocaust to refer to the Shoah btw, that Greek term makes no etymological sense in describing this and is actually an insult to Jews if what your meaning as ritually sacrificed is the very opposite of the truth of what happened ☹️
I think it’s got to be more respectful to Jewish people to use the word they have chosen, not Christian europeanising terminology the Jews themselves moved on from many decades ago
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
cf all the hugely rich socialists (on PB).
Fundamental misunderstanding there Topping.
Being rich and left-wing is not hypocritical, any more than being poor and right-wing is.
It sort of is. A rich left-winger could give all their money to the poor. Or make voluntary contributions to HMRC. Or...
Hypocrisy is very human.
Is it worse to have ideals and fail to fully live up to them? or to have no ideals or moral code?
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Oops, I see LuckyGuy has fallen for giving a Russian troll a like. Says it all really.
I like posts I feel have made a good point; who the point has been made by doesn’t figure in my decision - that would make me a weak-minded drip.
That's true.
It's the fact that you think like a Russia troll, that is concerning.
But we live in a free society so you, Dura, McClusky, Corbyn and the rest of your fellow travellers are free to think as you do. It's part of what makes us better than the Russians.
I think that's a little unfair to Dura_Ace, who I would never accuse of being a Russian troll. If anything, he has a better view into the Russian mindset than any of us. I may disagree with him on some things, but he appears genuine.
I wouldn't accuse him of being a Russian troll, I would instead suggest he is what in the Cold War would have been called a "useful idiot". He seems to truly swallow, believe and regurgitate the bullshit that the Russian trolls spout.
Though for Dura it could just be a contrarian desire to be different.
It is pragmatism and perspective. Something that the PB warriors on here mostly lack.
No just smart arse contrarianism. It is a bit sad. It is similarly stupid to his claim on the one hand to be a green while boasting about his love of high performance cars and fondness for exceeding the speed limit. At one stage he was an interesting, if somewhat bombastic poster, but now he is just ludicrous and implausible.
Nige calm the farm. You sound like someone who wears a sheepskin coat and driving gloves and I'm sure you don't do that.
It is an amusing image of sartorial ineptitude, but I am not sure I understand your point. I like performance cars, and have owned a few, but I would not simultaneously claim to be a "Green", unless I had eaten one of @Leon 's poached oysters
Could one not just claim to be a 'hypocritical green'? (Asking for a friend).
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
cf all the hugely rich socialists (on PB).
Fundamental misunderstanding there Topping.
Being rich and left-wing is not hypocritical, any more than being poor and right-wing is.
It sort of is. A rich left-winger could give all their money to the poor. Or make voluntary contributions to HMRC. Or...
I disagree. Politics is where you create the system under which individuals operate. Within the system people can strive to do as well for themselves as they can. So for instance I want the system to help the poor at the expense of the rich, while within that system I want to do as well as I can to provide for myself and my family. I don't see a contradiction, especially as it is only by changing things at a systemic level that you can make a material difference for a meaningful number of people.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
On what grounds?
Good afternoon
The CPS have said there is no longer a chance of a successful prosecution
I assume there must have been a material change in the evidence
N0, my question was 'on what grounds tlg86 thinks 'the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life'.
Sorry I misread your post
If the CPS have dropped all charges then in law he is innocent and banning him would seem bizarre
Because there is evidence in the public domain. John Terry was found not guilty in a court of law, but that didn't stop the FA deciding that they thought he was guilty.
The big pressure is on Man Utd. Do they really want him in the club?
Suspect Man U wrote him off long ago,
This must actually be devastating to the young lady and her family. ☹️
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
COVID vaccine - "Sorry, we've made a million doses. No more this year."
Since Mike gave me the tip I have never looked back from Xiaomi.
£170 for the three-below-flagship model which is perfect for me.
The Chinese government thank you for your data....
Xi Jinping or Mark Zuckerberg. Tough call.
You can choose not to give Zuckerberg your info. And there are levels to info collected, Tik Tok for example is basically malware on your phone, it basically captures everything you do in and out of the app.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
OK, so let's agree that the quality of Guardian news reporting is atrocious .
I think the identification of profits to which taxes can be applied is perhaps a missing element of any debate, as this is an outrage bus.
I think part of the context wrt Shell is that UK profits are already taxed at a high rate. The last number I saw was quite a bit higher than normal Corp. Tax due to an increased tax for oil companies, and then a windfall tax on top of that.
I can see the argument for a tax on windfall gains unrelated to the basic business operation - by analogy we give support to eg Renewables to prime the pump. But it needs to be very careful indeed - if we want to limit profit margins then what do we do with eg perfume companies, or software companies?
On your first paragraph, there are other media companies that I'd want to pick off first
I see the validity of your overall argument.
Okay, a thought experiment (I know there will be problems with this, I am interested in what they are): Rather than having a percentage tax rate on corporate profits, imagine a world in which any single company could make a maximum of, say, £1bn in profit each year.
Ignoring the impossibility of implementing such a scheme, would it fundamentally break the capitalist system, or would it simply reduce big companies' desires to take productive risks?
So take for example IPhones, say on a 1000£ phone they make 10£ profit . They have to stop selling IPhones onces sales reach 1 million and say sorry we aren't allowed to make more than a billion profit this year, maybe you will get to be one of the lucky million customers next year?
Can't see that working somehow
Do you not think that we might get more useful innovation (rather than having sixteen different camera lenses and a 1/2 mm thinner device) if the smartphone market was less captured by Apple?
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Apple have plenty of competitors as it is, it is not like we are short of companies that make phones. The only effect your cap on profits would have is to make any company in a market have to stop selling their product in the event it became to popular.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
COVID vaccine - "Sorry, we've made a million doses. No more this year."
I suspect as Apple probably make significantly more profit off an IPhone than 10£ they would just shoot up in price and become a status symbol for the very rich under maxh's cap we offer a brand new IPhone only 50k but we only sell 2000 a year sort of thing
Comments
Or ask them to put it in a doggy bag (or whatever their equivalent is).
Or find some other single diner and invite them to join you.
Anyway these taster menus are usually so tiny and unfilling that you probably need to eat two of them just to take the edge off your hunger.
Still, if I'm wrong don't forget to post your Mr Creosote photos!
He also appears to have a mild animus against the USA.
I'd complain if I were you.
It's not the profits that bother me, it's the idea of corporate power diminishing states' abilities to set good policy.
Christ I’m drunk and I’ve had about £400 worth of wine in 48 minutes
I'd probably want the PB equivalent of Hitler banned (assuming the Hitlerism spilled over into posts here) but failing that I'd probably like a good post without noticing the poster and would be unlikely to unlike if I later noticed.
Then again, there's almost certainly massive dichotomies in my views (I want peace, but I want Ukraine to beat Russia, which a pacifist acquaintance says is inconsistent). There are almost certainly dichotomies in your views as well.
The people to worry about are those who have no dichotomies; whose views of the world are unsullied by the messiness the real world abounds in.
It’s yet another example of @Topping’s class anxiety. Which I have finally deciphered
For the most part, conspiracy theories are not amenable to being proved right or wrong, as that is their nature.
But I ought to have commended your honesty in acknowledging the tendency, and do so now.
Unless its December in which case it needs to be turned into a mulled wine. Obviously.
Seems a bit pointless.
And coutelier, I think.
(Though TBF I did just have a gentle go at the G on the basis of 'News' reporting.)
Seriously though, you might love performance cars, feel that you giving them up would be of vanishing insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet still be in favour of a government diktat banning performance cars such that you didn't have to rely on your own paltry willpower but instead could rely on your desire not to be naughty and break the law?
Seems logically consistent to me (partly because its embarrasingly close to my own position, replacing performance cars with jumping out of a plane).
And what is the big prize for falsely claiming to be trans? Sporting accolades, but the various authorities now seem to have this covered. An easier time in prison, perhaps, and there I would expect that some criminals (a class not best characterised by scrupulous honesty) would take advantage. But in general life, there are not even more convenient trans-only parking spaces.
It may well be that "genuine" trans rights, say for those who have undergone surgery, are undermined but so much of this debate is so silly as to pass most people by.
I don’t. Not any more. He hasn’t posted a single shred of evidence to support his fairly extravagant claims
By contrast I give you photos of my Swedish knife sommelier in Bangkok where I have been stranded in the middle of a free £600 per head paired wine tasting Menu thanks to my whore monger swinging American friend bailing out during the amuse-bouche due to projectile vomiting in the Finnish blondewood loos
@duraace is very entertaining. But I don’t believe a word he says. Not any more. We need photos, minimum
https://twitter.com/holyrooddaily/status/1621118635648638977
But I do have Bypass Paywalls 1.80 installed.
In this case I suspect you need the author's original link:
https://t.co/87pGCKuNhk
Me: posts list of pubs I have been to.
You: What a POSH list how POSH that really is a POSH list all those pubs are POSH.
Me: Er, I don't really go to pubs any more.
You: You are obsessed by class.
By the way, dry ginger is a better mixer for Scotch than coke in my opinion (and many others) with ice and squeezed lime. Scotch has a subtler and less syruppy/sappy flavour than bourbon, and can be swamped by coke.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64488231
Woke Welsh RU bans innocent old favourite just because it glorifies wife-murdering. Tsk, what's the world coming to?
I showed it to my boss. He passed it on....
It turned out that no-one had been able to come up with rough cost figures for the joint venture. The numbers I had created were too secret for me to know, or anyone in the organisation about 4 levels above me.
Can't see that working somehow
lol
https://news.sky.com/story/manchester-united-footballer-mason-greenwood-has-all-charges-against-him-dropped-12801562
Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has had all charges against him dropped.
Personally, I think the FA should step in and ban the little **** for life.
Not particularly dissing iphones - they have their strengths - but I suspect the iphone would be even better if it had more competitors, which it would do if Apple only made a million of them a year.
Being rich and left-wing is not hypocritical, any more than being poor and right-wing is.
Hogan giving ‘very serious consideration’ to White House bid, says Trump won’t be GOP nominee
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3839423-hogan-giving-very-serious-consideration-to-white-house-bid-says-trump-wont-be-gop-nominee/
Seems very odd indeed to drop the charges after this length of time without saying why. So I'm guessing (2) is a serious possibility.
Edit - btw, I don't see how the FA can ban him for a non-playing matter without a criminal charge.
I'd charge her with wasting police time.
Edit: just saw your edit. There's ample precedent in US sports leagues for players being banned on the strength of accusations, sometimes even when there's not even a charge. I'm not sure it would be helpful to import this particular trend.
Yes, I know, the FA probably can't do that.
Big pressure on Man Utd. They were probably hoping he'd get done and that would be nice and easy for them. Not so now.
A Brexit election could be a forlorn attempt to reweave the capitalist warp and chav weft of their 2019 electoral coalition.
I am not saying it'll work. I am just saying I could see them trying it.
You are fixated on The Grenadier which actually is not that great a pub as you usually have to stay outside and there is nowhere to sit and you stare at the mews garages. But some friends and I go there a few times a year, again for various very boring reasons.
You then identified the list as "posh" and went off on one about it and then @kini jumped in about the poshness. And then you told me I am obsessed by class.
The CPS have said there is no longer a chance of a successful prosecution
I assume there must have been a material change in the evidence
"I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me, I watched and went out of my mind...
At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more"
We have a bit of stalking and homicidal domestic violence thrown in. It hasn't really stood up to the sensitivities of the 21st Century.
Anyway, I'm off to view some episodes of 'til death us do part.
Heck, the courts even reversed Roy Meadow being struck off after he'd effectively admitted committing perjury in multiple criminal cases.
Some people have complained that "ChatGPT is at capacity right now" when they have innocently tried to use it to create witty posts that prove HYUFD is wrong or ToryGuy83 is a Russian sympathiser, but then again others have not.
But if there's been no progress on anything, and it's another 'get Brexit done (this time we promise)' they will be punished.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/19723020
Chelsea captain John Terry has been banned for four matches and fined £220,000 for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand.
The Football Association found Terry guilty following a four-day hearing.
A spokesman for Terry said the player was "disappointed" the FA had reached a "different conclusion" to the "not guilty verdict of a court of law".
The ice cream is “smoked” with hay and wood. It is bewilderingly good
(Haven't I heard that sentence somewhere before?)
Maybe it would rally a few of the sit-on-their-hands where's-our-tax-cuts waverers but it's more likely to be a negative for them.
Personally if buying a product I want to buy one that suits my needs. If the ones that suits my needs aren't available because they have had to stop selling for the year then how does that help me?
Another example then...last company I worked at made software used in hospitals. If we came up with a new whizzo feature that made a hospital 5% more efficient on deployment that none of our competitors had thought of should we in your mind have said to hospitals clamouring to buy "sorry you will have to wait a year we reached our profit cap"
If the CPS have dropped all charges then in law he is innocent and banning him would seem bizarre
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-64502021
Its all very messy situation. Anybody who heard the leaked tape, it sounded awful. But, if you remember he got in trouble last year when he was seen taking the woman in question out and about for the day (obviously against his bail conditions), but seemingly she was there through her own free will.
COVID vaccine - "Sorry, we've made a million doses. No more this year."
£170 for the three-below-flagship model which is perfect for me.
The big pressure is on Man Utd. Do they really want him in the club?
Although many millions non Jews also inhumanly killed by the German fascists as they pushed into Ukraine and Russia, it isn’t the Shoah because rounding up reds and shooting them in the head and throwing them in a pit is very different than sadisticly targeting a race of people and taking out their teeth fillings and experimenting on them and making jewellery out of their spines.
Don’t use the word Holocaust to refer to the Shoah btw, that Greek term makes no etymological sense in describing this and is actually an insult to Jews if what your meaning as ritually sacrificed is the very opposite of the truth of what happened ☹️
I think it’s got to be more respectful to Jewish people to use the word they have chosen, not Christian europeanising terminology the Jews themselves moved on from many decades ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX9iW7n9qWQ - homage to Anne Frank
Is it worse to have ideals and fail to fully live up to them? or to have no ideals or moral code?
This must actually be devastating to the young lady and her family. ☹️