I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Do politicians just have a problem when it comes to paying for RVs/Campervans?
Clarence Thomas's RV is a key part of the Supreme Court justice's just-folks persona. It's also a $267,230 luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else's money. https://nitter.net/nytimes/status/1687850963019636736#m
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
Re: "Jewish lightening" would strongly advise any PBer visiting the USA to PUT A LID on such anti-Semitic skunk-shit.
Unless of course you're hanging out with a bunch of neo-Nazis or such like.
Just about the only ones who would a) get the "joke"; and b) find it funnier than a rubber crutch.
We're all Doing The Work, Mr Irish
"Why did Hulu’s ‘The Bear’ refer to arson caused by ‘Jewish lightning’? While the term itself is an offensive Jewish stereotype, the show uses it as part of a story arc on restaurant’s staff no longer using pejorative language"
And you were using it for similar illustrative purposes ?
No
I was actually intrigued to see how many PBers might understand the phrase. That's why I used it
The miniature furore over THE BEAR using it has revealed that almost no one these days has encountered it, even Jewish people. Which I find surprising. I guess that is a good thing? It IS a slur, albeit very mild
In THE BEAR half the characters don't get it, and it has to be explained to them, as well
The phrase "to jew down" meaning "to attempt to get a lower price" was, at least in the late 1990s, still used somewhat. I heard it on my first visit to New York from an otherwise educated colleague, and had to ask what it meant:
Last time I personally heard someone say "Jew down" was in 1987, and the person who said it ended up having to apologize profusely, after the person it was said to pointed out, that his wife was (and still is) Jewish.
The phrase "Welsh on a bet" has lasted a wee bit longer on this side of the Atlantic (and Pacific) but only because few Americans who might use it, connect it with Wales or Welsh people, the degree of anti-Cambrian prejudice being practically nil in USA, certainly compared with UK!
I like how Americans say "English" when playing pool, which is what we call "Side".
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
Do politicians just have a problem when it comes to paying for RVs/Campervans?
Clarence Thomas's RV is a key part of the Supreme Court justice's just-folks persona. It's also a $267,230 luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else's money. https://nitter.net/nytimes/status/1687850963019636736#m
Am imagining the fun around the campfire, when Clarence Thomas parks his RV next to Nicola Sturgeon's RV.
AND also reckon that Anita Hill is feeling something akin to vindication?
After all, she DID point out that the future SCOTUS bench-warmer was (and still is) a scumbag.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He’s a better debater. I wouldn’t want either as president, FWIW - though either would be vastly preferable to Trump.
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
There's a new one opening up in Farnham, near me, later this year. 6 screens.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Finnish is supposed to be a hard language to learn, but from what you've posted it does sound nice, and is now in NATO so no worries Putin might try and take it.
Yes. Most of that is true of the Nordic countries more generally, which is basically why I've been keen to reproduce it in Britain.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
What do people think of the LSE? Would you encourage your children to study there? Or is it a corrupt hellhole beyond redemption?
We all remember what happened over Gaddafi and I've been recently following the thoughts of Economics professor Keyu Jin, who seems to be using her position to make a positive case for China, blame its tensions with the US on misunderstandings (only on the US side) and ignore anything inconvenient. Not easy when your father is the head of the AIIB I guess but can a professor really do their job if they can't think and speak freely?
Her recent book The New China Playbook got a rather icy review in the Guardian from Isabel Hilton.
I went to UCL, albeit nearly 20 years ago. I never met anyone interesting who went to the LSE whilst studying in London. There was one guy (friend of a friend) who went to work for an oil company. I think the downside of the LSE for undergraduate study is that it is just focussed on economics and social sciences. You don't really meet people who are studying other subjects, IE the arts, STEM subjects, medics etc unless you live with them. That plus the general problem of studying in London (very atomised, no real 'campus experience'). Obviously it is a great opportunity but I think it is a bit of a specialist place. It is some years off but I would not encourage my son to aim for the LSE, I think Oxford or Cambridge would be much better options. Plus I have an instinct that the social sciences as a whole are now fatally compromised due to political bias.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
My brother works for a Finnish company, and has spent time in Helsinki on training courses. He says they party like it's 1999 after work during the summer, even with the alcohol prices but were all clinically depressed during the winter. He actually avoided going on a course in December as he found it so bleak the last time he went during the winter.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Finnish is supposed to be a hard language to learn, but from what you've posted it does sound nice, and is now in NATO so no worries Putin might try and take it.
You have to do military service and they have conscription, for some people perhaps that would be a downside.
What do people think of the LSE? Would you encourage your children to study there? Or is it a corrupt hellhole beyond redemption?
We all remember what happened over Gaddafi and I've been recently following the thoughts of Economics professor Keyu Jin, who seems to be using her position to make a positive case for China, blame its tensions with the US on misunderstandings (only on the US side) and ignore anything inconvenient. Not easy when your father is the head of the AIIB I guess but can a professor really do their job if they can't think and speak freely?
Her recent book The New China Playbook got a rather icy review in the Guardian from Isabel Hilton.
My brother had a great time there followed by a highly successful career. His friends from there did equally well.
It was famously left wing once, but much less so now he says. Lots of foreign students even 40 years ago.
The comment from an academic on the Gaddafi case - where LSE extensively praised the “democracy that’s more democratic than all that voting shit” stuff from his son to he stars - comes to mind.
“I hope they sold their souls for money. The alternative is worse.”
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
The OED has what may be the same 1824 cite, containing "his Jewing disposition" but not "jew down".
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
In Eastern Europe, Uber Bolt and Lyft have been seamlessly integrated with local cab services - even in small towns - making it super easy to get around, for passengers, and super easy to find customers, for drivers
They are the future: black cabs are slowly reconciling with them
In London, the Gett app has revived Black Cabs.
A lot of companies are ok with getting one on expenses because of the unreliability of Uber and Bolt.
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
And never, ever pay attention to the kind of smartarse who looks on the internet for hard statistics on this sort of issue, and finds that those clever people are right
They are akin to those fraudsters who produce "graphs" of so-called "temperatures" to prove the climate is "warming" in the face of good solid anecdote about how it's often warmish in Spain in summer, so there.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
The OED has what may be the same 1824 cite, containing "his Jewing disposition" but not "jew down".
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
You seem to be saying that others' anecdotes are not reliable but yours are.
I'm at the cinema 25+ times per year, which is more than most people, and most of the time I go the theatre only has a handful of people. The only time it was almost packed for me this year was at Super Mario Bros.
I don't draw conclusions from that other than that I'm surprised my local cinema stays in business.
BTW, Shadow Detective (both seasons available on Disney+), is very good indeed. If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Do politicians just have a problem when it comes to paying for RVs/Campervans?
Clarence Thomas's RV is a key part of the Supreme Court justice's just-folks persona. It's also a $267,230 luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else's money. https://nitter.net/nytimes/status/1687850963019636736#m
Am imagining the fun around the campfire, when Clarence Thomas parks his RV next to Nicola Sturgeon's RV.
AND also reckon that Anita Hill is feeling something akin to vindication?
After all, she DID point out that the future SCOTUS bench-warmer was (and still is) a scumbag.
Point taken, although given how politics has moved on it might prove as relevant as the time of Sumer by next year!
BTW, Shadow Detective (both seasons available on Disney+), is very good indeed. If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Nothing wrong with subtitles - supposedly younger people are more and more watching with subtitles all the time anyway.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
She’s the other non insane candidate. Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
BTW, Shadow Detective (both seasons available on Disney+), is very good indeed. If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Nothing wrong with subtitles - supposedly younger people are more and more watching with subtitles all the time anyway.
And old people.
Another death blow for the cinema, Tenet without subtitles might as well be dubbed into Korean.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
Many Jan. 6 defendants are seeking to move the locations of their trials to avoid alleged bias among jurors in Washington. Are they likely to succeed? https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/escape-dc-analyzing-jan-6-venue-transfer-motions … Transfers of venue, as such motions are called, are notoriously difficult to obtain. The Supreme Court has held that they are warranted only in “extraordinary” circumstances. Denials of such motions have been upheld, for instance, in such emotional and pervasively publicized prosecutions as those of the Boston Marathon bomber in Boston; former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in Houston; and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef in Manhattan …
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
The point about the weather is correct. It is about 4 decent months then 8 months of cold set in, which become psychologically intolerable in April, when the worst parts of winter persevere just as the good weather in the UK is starting up. The darkness not so much, it passes in December. The snow can be beautiful.
The alcohol tax burden is not really true anymore. The cost of beer in the pubs is now the same as the UK (£5/£6 per pint, starting price). At the supermarket the cheapest beer is about 80p. They now sell alcohol until 9pm daily. The Alko has a monopoly on wine and spirits but they only sell very good wine, noticeably better than the vast range of crap in the UK supermarket.
I guess my broader point really was that the social system in the UK is not a good deal for ordinary workers. I have some personal experience of this and where you really get hit with tax in the Finland is tax on wealth - ie dividends, asset sales, interest in bank accounts. It is hard to see the point of these huge tax breaks that the wealthy get in the UK if the workers are not being rewarded with higher wages and economic growth.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
After the last five weeks we’re owed a refund.
There's more to weather than the amount of sunshine you get, but....
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
She’s the other non insane candidate. Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
Re: Chris Christie, the last time that USA voters elected a walking blimp was 1908 = William Howard Taft.
Who despite endearing himself to the American people by a) getting stuck in White House bathtub; and b) inventing the 7th-inning Stretch, was NOT re-elected in 1912, indeed came in 3rd, behind the guy who got him elected in the first place = Theodore Roosevelt.
Since then, the most rotund POTUS = Herbert Hoover. Who (briefly) made the medicine ball (in)famous.
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
You seem to be saying that others' anecdotes are not reliable but yours are.
I'm at the cinema 25+ times per year, which is more than most people, and most of the time I go the theatre only has a handful of people. The only time it was almost packed for me this year was at Super Mario Bros.
I don't draw conclusions from that other than that I'm surprised my local cinema stays in business.
The empire chain went in to liquidation a few months ago. They had to close the Empire in Walthamstow, which had only been built a few years before. I recall the problem was overdue rent demands from the Covid era.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Finnish is supposed to be a hard language to learn, but from what you've posted it does sound nice, and is now in NATO so no worries Putin might try and take it.
You have to do military service and they have conscription, for some people perhaps that would be a downside.
What would you expect, given that large border with an angry and unpredictable bear?
Now under the NATO umbrella though, so can call on most of the Western world to help defend them.
BTW, Shadow Detective (both seasons available on Disney+), is very good indeed. If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Nothing wrong with subtitles - supposedly younger people are more and more watching with subtitles all the time anyway.
And old people.
Another death blow for the cinema, Tenet without subtitles might as well be dubbed into Korean.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
She’s the other non insane candidate. Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
Re: Chris Christie, the last time that USA voters elected a walking blimp was 1908 = William Howard Taft.
Who despite endearing himself to the American people by a) getting stuck in White House bathtub; and b) inventing the 7th-inning Stretch, was NOT re-elected in 1912, indeed came in 3rd, behind the guy who got him elected in the first place = Theodore Roosevelt.
Since then, the most rotund POTUS = Herbert Hoover. Who (briefly) made the medicine ball (in)famous.
Interesting bloke, Taft. President and then later Chief Justice.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
She’s the other non insane candidate. Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
Re: Chris Christie, the last time that USA voters elected a walking blimp was 1908 = William Howard Taft.
Who despite endearing himself to the American people by a) getting stuck in White House bathtub; and b) inventing the 7th-inning Stretch, was NOT re-elected in 1912, indeed came in 3rd, behind the guy who got him elected in the first place = Theodore Roosevelt.
Since then, the most rotund POTUS = Herbert Hoover. Who (briefly) made the medicine ball (in)famous.
Interesting bloke, Taft. President and then later Chief Justice.
Possible job for Trump?
Also the most recent President to have had facial hair (which might be the least interesting fact I've posted on here)
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Finnish is supposed to be a hard language to learn, but from what you've posted it does sound nice, and is now in NATO so no worries Putin might try and take it.
You have to do military service and they have conscription, for some people perhaps that would be a downside.
What would you expect, given that large border with an angry and unpredictable bear?
Now under the NATO umbrella though, so can call on most of the Western world to help defend them.
One thing I realised is that the Finns are very wise about Russia.
Many Jan. 6 defendants are seeking to move the locations of their trials to avoid alleged bias among jurors in Washington. Are they likely to succeed? https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/escape-dc-analyzing-jan-6-venue-transfer-motions … Transfers of venue, as such motions are called, are notoriously difficult to obtain. The Supreme Court has held that they are warranted only in “extraordinary” circumstances. Denials of such motions have been upheld, for instance, in such emotional and pervasively publicized prosecutions as those of the Boston Marathon bomber in Boston; former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in Houston; and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef in Manhattan …
IF you can't do the time, then don't do the crime . . . at least where you distrust the jury pool!
If memory services Pence resisted giving testimony in this matter, it had to be extracted unwillingly. He seems to be willing to do the right thing, as with January 6th, but only at the very last moment possible.
Pence is one of a longish line of Republican enablers of Trump - including Liz Cheney and Chris Christie - who have ended up regretting their folly (though they never put it THAT way) BUT who also desire to keep on being active GOP politicos, either out of principle OR for personal political profit.
While Pence and Cheney deserve credit for personally standing up to Putinism-in-action in January 2023 and aftermath, this amounts to mitigation NOT absolution.
Speaking of the three I've cited individually
> Liz Cheney is to my mind the best of the trio, in that she's taken the most forthright stance, despite obvious jeopardy to her further political prospects, including losing her once safer-than-safe seat in Congress, inherited from her daddy. Unfortunately, every time she issues another blast against Trump, it just helps him more.
> Mike Pence has always been a "to be or not to be" kind of politico, for example his infamous flip-flopping when he was Governor of Indiana, on the burning question of transsexual use of whatever rest room they want to use. And note that reason he was picked at Trump's running mate in 2016, was to reassure evangelicals who might find DJT's overt paganism (with apologies to PB's Pagan) discouraging. However, this bloc has drunk deeply of the holy koolaid, and is now convinced that Trump is really 3rd-millennium King David!
> Chris Christie is rather interesting, in that his take on Trump appears to be almost totally centered on CC's personal political calculus. IF it looks like DJT and CC's interests align, then all is well and good with MAGA-mania. IF not, then Trump is a danger to the Republic. Plus the desire on Christie's part to retrieve the political career that HE shredded by, for example, sunning himself at the Jersey Shore in the midst of natural disaster affecting rest of New Jersey. (Very similar to what his fellow fat bastard Ted Cruz did a few years later.) As you may be able to tell, my regard for ex-gov Big Boy is rather limited. Though I applaud his support for Ukraine versus Russia, also think that (like Boris Johnson) his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom is HIGHLY conditioned by personal political machinations.
I’ve something of a soft spot for Christie. He’s venal, and not entirely competent, but compared to the rest of the current GOP shitshow, he’s a prince.
What's Chris Christie got, that Nikki Haley don't?
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
He gets at least some attention? I keep forgetting Haley is running.
Haley is campaigning for POTUS the old-fashioned way: by visiting every wide spot in the road in New Hampshire.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
She’s the other non insane candidate. Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
Re: Chris Christie, the last time that USA voters elected a walking blimp was 1908 = William Howard Taft.
Who despite endearing himself to the American people by a) getting stuck in White House bathtub; and b) inventing the 7th-inning Stretch, was NOT re-elected in 1912, indeed came in 3rd, behind the guy who got him elected in the first place = Theodore Roosevelt.
Since then, the most rotund POTUS = Herbert Hoover. Who (briefly) made the medicine ball (in)famous.
Interesting bloke, Taft. President and then later Chief Justice.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
Yes, it’s mostly an American expression.
It’s interesting to note, given the focus in the UK on antisemitism in the past few years, how often someone in American conversation says something that makes you think. I think that a lot of the Jewish stereotypes still hold in New York and Hollywood, and it seems to be fair game over there to cast somewhat general aspersions - whereas in the UK, it was a very specific and much more explicitly racist form of antisemitism that emerged.
As to the original conversation, my father says that buildings in Glasgow often “went on fire” in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
as seen as we are talking about cinema (i also go often) and I have my notebook handy- These are the films I have seen in 2023 ranked from best to worst imho!
Popes Exorcist The unusual pilgrimage of Harold Fry Empire of Light Reality Oppenheimer Asteroid City Full Time Air The fabelmans Knock at the Cabin Cocaine Bear Super Mario Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Megan 65 Missing Renfield
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
After the last five weeks we’re owed a refund.
There's more to weather than the amount of sunshine you get, but....
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
BTW, Shadow Detective (both seasons available on Disney+), is very good indeed. If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Nothing wrong with subtitles - supposedly younger people are more and more watching with subtitles all the time anyway.
And old people.
Another death blow for the cinema, Tenet without subtitles might as well be dubbed into Korean.
as seen as we are talking about cinema (i also go often) and I have my notebook handy- These are the films I have seen in 2023 ranked from best to worst imho!
Popes Exorcist The unusual pilgrimage of Harold Fry Empire of Light Reality Oppenheimer Asteroid City Full Time Air The fabelmans Knock at the Cabin Cocaine Bear Super Mario Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Megan 65 Missing Renfield
Interesting. I actually really liked Renfield, possibly in part as the trailer was quite bad and so it surprised me.
Also we just have different tastes as I thought Asteroid City was garbage.
Plenty of evidence South Cambridgeshire were on the right lines switching to a four day week but all they got was a load of old nonsense from Michael Gove.
In my organisation, it's been the trend since the pandemic though was arguably happening before nobody does anything important on a Friday including client meetings. It's a day either for leave or for catching up on admin work. To be fair, our clients never want Friday (or indeed Monday meetings) either.
In essence, Ted Heath was right in 1974 - perhaps the 3-day week was a glimpse into the future.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
Yes, it’s mostly an American expression.
It’s interesting to note, given the focus in the UK on antisemitism in the past few years, how often someone in American conversation says something that makes you think. I think that a lot of the Jewish stereotypes still hold in New York and Hollywood, and it seems to be fair game over there to cast somewhat general aspersions - whereas in the UK, it was a very specific and much more explicitly racist form of antisemitism that emerged.
As to the original conversation, my father says that buildings in Glasgow often “went on fire” in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
You must be hanging out with some rather "interesting" Americans.
Taft was giving a speech, when a man in the crowd threw a head of cabbage at him. He missed, which wasn't easy given Taft's size.
Taft looked at the cabbage, turned to the crowd, and said; "Ladies and gentlemen, I see one of my opponents has lost his head."
(Not only is that a funny thing to say, it most likely changed the situation from let's fight to let's laugh -- the right thing to do, at least 90 percent of the time.)
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
Huge argument in my case when I got a double triple combined with a clean sweep of my letters with MACARONIS. But that wasn't rude.
If it is in Chambers - or the Official Scrabble Words - it counts. Not, not. We've had to buy copies for the relevant family & friends houses to resolve disputes.
Taft was giving a speech, when a man in the crowd threw a head of cabbage at him. He missed, which wasn't easy given Taft's size.
Taft looked at the cabbage, turned to the crowd, and said; "Ladies and gentlemen, I see one of my opponents has lost his head."
(Not only is that a funny thing to say, it most likely changed the situation from let's fight to let's laugh -- the right thing to do, at least 90 percent of the time.)
Quick googling shows two sources for that quote, with one (above) using word "opponents" while other says "adversaries".
Which makes me wonder, WHAT is the original source, for example a contemporary newspaper story?
Taft was a witty guy, on occasion, so think story is likely true.
MY favorite William H. Taft story has to do with his attempt to counter the appeal of Theordore Roosevelt, who famously made the "Teddy Bear" globally famous, with his own animal pal - "Billy Possum".
Remember all those clever people who were saying both cinemas and old-fashioned taxis were finished? Well, the cinemas are almost full up every time you want to see a film, and there was a huge queue of people waiting for a traditional London black taxi cab outside Euston station a few weeks ago when I was there. So they got it wrong on both counts. Don't listen to their future predictions.
You seem to be saying that others' anecdotes are not reliable but yours are.
I'm at the cinema 25+ times per year, which is more than most people, and most of the time I go the theatre only has a handful of people. The only time it was almost packed for me this year was at Super Mario Bros.
I don't draw conclusions from that other than that I'm surprised my local cinema stays in business.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
Huge argument in my case when I got a double triple combined with a clean sweep of my letters with MACARONIS. But that wasn't rude.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
Yes, it’s mostly an American expression.
It’s interesting to note, given the focus in the UK on antisemitism in the past few years, how often someone in American conversation says something that makes you think. I think that a lot of the Jewish stereotypes still hold in New York and Hollywood, and it seems to be fair game over there to cast somewhat general aspersions - whereas in the UK, it was a very specific and much more explicitly racist form of antisemitism that emerged.
As to the original conversation, my father says that buildings in Glasgow often “went on fire” in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
You must be hanging out with some rather "interesting" Americans.
The interesting thing I’ve found with American colleagues is how obvious their political leanings are from their dress code, head gear, facial expressions and way of speaking. I’ve avoided several altercations with Trumpy types by noting the quiet menace in the eyes and shutting up (you all know the sort- a kind of piercing look accompanied by a scary taciturnity that says “we don’t tolerate commies and faggots around here”). I also know which ones not to say the word “Christmas” to lest they be offended at my lack of sensitivity to non Christians. But I still say Christmas, because it’s not an insult in Britain and US liberals aren’t scary.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
70p seems cheaper than Portugal, so it can’t be in Europe. Portugal hosts Europe’s cheapest beer.
… In true Heideggerian fashion, only in being-toward-death can one become the person who they truly are—where a conscious awareness of death informs of the horizon of existence... https://samantharosehill.substack.com/p/barbie-toward-death
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
70p seems cheaper than Portugal, so it can’t be in Europe. Portugal hosts Europe’s cheapest beer.
He's in Ukraine
And I can vouch for what he's saying, as I too was just there, as I might have mentioned, en passant, maybe once or twice
Beer is insanely cheap in Da Yook. Everything is insanely cheap
I am not sure if I have ever heard the expression "jew down" in my entire life and I don't think my life is any the richer for having read it today. Is it an American thing?
First recorded by an American - in the UK, so who knows?
The verb, with or without 'down', is not to be used today, I would say.
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
Huge argument in my case when I got a double triple combined with a clean sweep of my letters with MACARONIS. But that wasn't rude.
Did you stick a feather in your cap
One of our more interesting PMs was the Duke of Grafton, known as "The Turf Macaroni" because of his fashion sense and love of the good life.
Since I've been ragging on Republicans, allow me to give a nod to a late, great Washington State GOPer= Joel Pritchard.
Who deserves to be better know than he is, NOT for his political career, but instead as Founder of the sport that is sweeping the world in very early 3rd millennium = pickleball!
. . . . The game was created in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, who later served in the United States Congress and as Washington's lieutenant governor.[3] Pritchard and two of his friends, Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, are credited with devising the game and establishing the rules.
According to Joan Pritchard, Joel Pritchard's wife, "The name of the game became Pickle Ball after I said it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats."
Other sources state that the name "pickleball" was derived from the name of the Pritchards' family dog, Pickles. The Pritchards stated that the dog came along after the game had already been named, and it was the dog that was named for the game of pickleball.
They said the confusion arose when a reporter interviewing the Pritchards in the early 1970s decided it would be easier for readers to relate to the dog rather than a pickle boat. Representatives of USA Pickleball claim that research on their part has confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had already been named. . . .
Shortly after the game was invented, some of its inventors founders and their friends brought pickleball to Hawaii, where the game became known as pukaball. Puka, meaning "hole" in Hawaiian, was at first used to refer to the ball, since pickleballs have numerous holes, and later used to refer to the game itself. . . .
SSI - Had the privilege of meeting JP when he was Lt Gov of WA (suspect that Jim Miller may also have made his acquaintance?) Genuinely nice guy, albeit savvy politico, of the old-school, suburban, country-club Republican persuasion. As excerpt above makes crystal clear! For example, note that reasonably-affluent folk from Western WA are still partial to summer homes and Hawai'ian holidays, as well as boating including competitive rowing (for example, the core of the USA Olympic team that won gold in Berlin 1936).
AND perhaps also worth pointing out, that Joel Pritchard overcame the SERIOUS disadvantage, of going to college in that dystopian hell-on-earth called Marietta, Ohio.
Talking of failing businesses, does central Glasgow really look this bad?!
That’s atrocious if so. Bleak. Can our PB Scots confirm this is a representative photo?
The real question is, why is this a 'radical council plan'? All landlords of such properties should be forced to keep them immaculate, thus incentivising them to find tenants (at more realistic rents) or sell.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
Good to hear. I used to know a couple of Hungarians back in the UK a couple of decades back, children of refugees from WWII. Very hospitable types.
My parents are in Rutland, and there’s been a lot of good words said there about the Leicester Ukranian comminuty.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
70p seems cheaper than Portugal, so it can’t be in Europe. Portugal hosts Europe’s cheapest beer.
He's in Ukraine
And I can vouch for what he's saying, as I too was just there, as I might have mentioned, en passant, maybe once or twice
Beer is insanely cheap in Da Yook. Everything is insanely cheap
Ah, I remember now. I was last there long ago sometime like 2012, before the maidan but after the orange revolution. I think Yanukovich was in power at the time. Kyiv felt poor, much poorer than Moscow, and most things were cheap (we saw a highly nationalistic ballet at the national opera for tuppence hapeny, sat in a box for about a fiver). I brought back a bottle of Nemirov vodka and some scarves.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
Good to hear. I used to know a couple of Hungarians back in the UK a couple of decades back, children of refugees from WWII. Very hospitable types.
My parents are in Rutland, and there’s been a lot of good words said there about the Leicester Ukranian comminuty.
Leicester is a really cosmopolitan place, and in general pretty relaxed about it. There were several big postwar resettlement camps in the area, and that's pretty much how it started. We have a fair number of Poles, Ukrainians (I think often nominally Polish as Lviv was Polish prewar) and Balts, even some Germans, going back to the late 1940s, as well as more obvious migrant populations.
Photo from the supermarket vodka aisle. Interesting to note the colours on all the bottles.
A friend of mine went to Ukraine in the 1990s. A lot of the vodka bottles then had milk bottle type tops, with no way to reseal, because why would you?
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
My missus was down in that London the other day and she texted me to tell me she’d just paid £7 for a pint. £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths in my local. Mind you, I paid over a fiver for a pint of Tim Taylor’s landlord up in the Dales a few weeks ago.
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Living in London I’m well used to the prices. Last May having arrived for a week’s holiday in Cornwall we strolled across to the local. A pint of ale for me, a half for the wife and a packet of crisps between us both: cash only, £6.80. It was a journey back in time in more ways than one.
On my current ‘holiday’, I’ve gone from paying £10 a pint at home to about 70p a pint over here.
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
We have a Ukranian social centre in Leicester (opened in the 1940s) serving Ukranian beer. Quite decent lager as I recall, we had a leaving do there a few years back.
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
Good to hear. I used to know a couple of Hungarians back in the UK a couple of decades back, children of refugees from WWII. Very hospitable types.
My parents are in Rutland, and there’s been a lot of good words said there about the Leicester Ukranian comminuty.
Leicester is a really cosmopolitan place, and in general pretty relaxed about it. There were several big postwar resettlement camps in the area, and that's pretty much how it started. We have a fair number of Poles, Ukrainians (I think often nominally Polish as Lviv was Polish prewar) and Balts, even some Germans, going back to the late 1940s, as well as more obvious migrant populations.
"more obvious migrant populations" = Irish, we obviously work overtime making ourselves as obvious as possible!
I found that William Howard Taft story in Bob Dole's "Great Political Wit" collection. Turns out the former majority leader and presidential candidate, often described as "dour", knows a lot of funny stories.
I like the collection, though not as much as Lukes and Galnour's "No Laughing Matter". (Note: Some of the jokes in that collection would no longer be acceptable at many universities in the US.)
(Dole had good reason to be dour: He was injured so badly in WW II that he spent months in rehab, and lost the use of one arm.)
Talking of failing businesses, does central Glasgow really look this bad?!
That’s atrocious if so. Bleak. Can our PB Scots confirm this is a representative photo?
The real question is, why is this a 'radical council plan'? All landlords of such properties should be forced to keep them immaculate, thus incentivising them to find tenants (at more realistic rents) or sell.
There's a problem with changing usage patterns. Investing, repairing or restoring the shops is pointless if there are no tenants for the shops.
The best thing the council could do is have a *plan* to allow rezoning, and allow these shops (often with flats above) to be turned into more flats. Or demolished and replaced with housing developments (with a scattering of shops).
The day of the small shopping arcade is probably over. What we need are more corner-style shops and small businesses interspersed with housing. Something that used to be called 'communities', oddly enough.
Photo from the supermarket vodka aisle. Interesting to note the colours on all the bottles.
Oh, and a 70cl bottle is about £2.50.
Any decent wine?
I found it really hard to get good wine in Ukraine. The best you can find in the average local supermarket is some dubious Chilean or "wine of the European Union"
Find a liquor store in a bigger city and you can get reasonable Moldovan or Malbec or whatever, but nothing special
Except, of course, for that upscale deli in my weird Mafia hotel neighborhood in Chernivtsi, where they had the finest Barolos and Burgundies for the Blokes with the Bentleys and the Bodacious Blonde Bimbettes
I've been looking in to the relative merits of living in the UK vs Finland, particularly the consequences of becoming a resident of Finland and joining their social security system and paying tax in Finland. I always thought that the advantage of living in Britain was that the tax is lower but actually, the tax is not that different.
Social security paid by employer Finland: Social security tax 23% (average) (UK 13.8% above tax free allowance)
Social security paid by employee Finland: Social security Pension and unemployment contribution 8.65% (Average) (UK 12% up to £50k).
tax Taxed progressively through a complex tax code, but
Finland: combined tax on a £50k equivalent salary = £11600 (UK taxpayer pays £7500) Finland: combined tax on a £25k equivalent salary = £2693 (UK taxpayer pays £2500)
Note - there is no Council tax payable as municipal tax is taken from the deduction above.
This small amount of extra tax however gets you the following.
1. A pension as a percentage proportion of your lifetime earnings similar to a defined benefit employer pension. Whereas in the UK you get the state pension at about £900 per month, which would nearly always be much lower than what you would get in finland. 2. Unemployment benefit starting at 13468 euros per year. (about £11,700) 3. Accessible Council housing and large scale subsidised housing programmes, meaning that high quality housing is effectively always affordable. 4. very high quality subsidised swimming pools, lido's, gyms. 5. Seperate cycle paths on nearly all roads in urban areas. Public transport running everywhere at (on average) 15 minute intervals. Roads that are well maintained and generally not very congested. 6. Vast areas of well maintained public footpaths, beaches designed for swimming etc. 7. One of the best public school systems in the world, high quality childcare at negligible cost. 8. Free university education.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and I think that almost every basic rate taxpayer in the UK would be objectively better off in the Finnish social security system.
Are there any advantages of the British system? Personally I am struggling to think of any. Having low taxes on wealth should be generating growth but that doesn't seem to be happening lately.
Do remember that the money in Britain goes on providing significantly better weather, and in ensuring it stays light longer in the winter.
Yes, it should also be factored in that Finland is suicidally depressing and momunentally boring, for at least 6 months of the year, maybe all year in smaller towns
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
Also, you need to remember that around a quarter of your disposable income will be spent on alcohol taxes.
I just paid £7.50 for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.
Talking of failing businesses, does central Glasgow really look this bad?!
That’s atrocious if so. Bleak. Can our PB Scots confirm this is a representative photo?
Can confirm that specific section looks a bit bad. The fire from the Glasgow School of Art took out the big music venue that had occupied a large part of the street - and various other businesses couldn't handle the loss.
Lots of buildings around there mysteriously 'catch on fire' in fact.
In unrelated news, lots of lovely new lucrative student accommodation for Chinese students I hear.
Sadly the ukrainians now seem to be struggling round Bakhmut.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
This from the nyt. Zelensky under pressure to negotiate.
NYT: Zelensky is preparing to negotiate with Moscow under Western pressure "The situation is complicated by the growing pressure on Kiev to start looking for ways to peace through negotiations," the Ukrainian president said. The newspaper writes that Ukraine now "faces a double diplomatic challenge" - it needs not only to maintain solid support for the allies in the counteroffensive, but also to expand it.
Sadly the ukrainians now seem to be struggling round Bakhmut.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
Former Rada MP: 'Zelensky has become toxic', US seeks candidate for talks with Moscow It is becoming increasingly difficult for the West to support the Kiev regime. Washington is searching for a suitable candidate with a presidential perspective to negotiate with Moscow, as Zelensky is not deemed suitable for this role, according to former Verkhovna Rada deputy, Volodymyr Oleynyk, "The task of supporting the Kiev regime is becoming harder, yet abandoning it is also challenging," noted the political analyst. Washington had previously placed its bet on a counter-offensive, with the assumption that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) could capture the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions to facilitate peace talks with Trump. However, now Kiev is being asked to either achieve success on the front or engage in negotiations. "The US is seeking a pro-Western candidate with a status, free from corruption scandals, and with a presidential perspective for the negotiations," added Oleynik.
This from the nyt. Zelensky under pressure to negotiate.
NYT: Zelensky is preparing to negotiate with Moscow under Western pressure "The situation is complicated by the growing pressure on Kiev to start looking for ways to peace through negotiations," the Ukrainian president said. The newspaper writes that Ukraine now "faces a double diplomatic challenge" - it needs not only to maintain solid support for the allies in the counteroffensive, but also to expand it.
Sadly the ukrainians now seem to be struggling round Bakhmut.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
FACT: People in Washington know the Ukrainians are finished, they know they can't replace the losses. The question now is what comes next and nobody wants to accept publicly the fact that the Russians are in a strategically powerful and dominant position.
This from the nyt. Zelensky under pressure to negotiate.
NYT: Zelensky is preparing to negotiate with Moscow under Western pressure "The situation is complicated by the growing pressure on Kiev to start looking for ways to peace through negotiations," the Ukrainian president said. The newspaper writes that Ukraine now "faces a double diplomatic challenge" - it needs not only to maintain solid support for the allies in the counteroffensive, but also to expand it.
Sadly the ukrainians now seem to be struggling round Bakhmut.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
Former Rada MP: 'Zelensky has become toxic', US seeks candidate for talks with Moscow It is becoming increasingly difficult for the West to support the Kiev regime. Washington is searching for a suitable candidate with a presidential perspective to negotiate with Moscow, as Zelensky is not deemed suitable for this role, according to former Verkhovna Rada deputy, Volodymyr Oleynyk, "The task of supporting the Kiev regime is becoming harder, yet abandoning it is also challenging," noted the political analyst. Washington had previously placed its bet on a counter-offensive, with the assumption that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) could capture the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions to facilitate peace talks with Trump. However, now Kiev is being asked to either achieve success on the front or engage in negotiations. "The US is seeking a pro-Western candidate with a status, free from corruption scandals, and with a presidential perspective for the negotiations," added Oleynik.
Sometimes the west is honest by accident and they reveal the truth that I have been saying for nearly two years now. I have widely said that Russia has been fighting Ukraine with a handicap on. Many uninformed people or liars in the west claim Ukraine can beat Russia, that Russia is hurting and struggling. This couldn't be further from the truth, as the American himself says in his testimony Russia is not only beating Ukraine but it is thriving as it does. Russia has brought Ukraine to its knees and figuratively hasn't broken a sweat. That is to say, Ukraine, it's entire military, mercenaries, volunteers, Active duty western troops fighting for Ukraine under the guise of mercenaries and UAF troops, NATO supplies and all the money America and the west can muster hasn't even broken Russias stride. I predict that at best, Russia is fighting at maybe 25% of its full combat capabilities. This is plain to see because Russia is not stupid, Russians are no fools. They understand full well that Ukraine was never meant to be the killing blow to Russia. Ukraine was always meant to be the test subjects sent to test Russian capabilities and to soften Russia up for the eventual NATO conflict to come. Russia understands this. Do you think Russia would be so foolish as to commit it's entire military to Ukraine knowing the wolves of the west circle? Of course they know. This is why myself and others have always known Russia has been defeating Ukraine with a fraction of its abilities because Russia is pacing itself for the long game.
Sadly the ukrainians now seem to be struggling round Bakhmut.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
Former Rada MP: 'Zelensky has become toxic', US seeks candidate for talks with Moscow It is becoming increasingly difficult for the West to support the Kiev regime. Washington is searching for a suitable candidate with a presidential perspective to negotiate with Moscow, as Zelensky is not deemed suitable for this role, according to former Verkhovna Rada deputy, Volodymyr Oleynyk, "The task of supporting the Kiev regime is becoming harder, yet abandoning it is also challenging," noted the political analyst. Washington had previously placed its bet on a counter-offensive, with the assumption that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) could capture the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions to facilitate peace talks with Trump. However, now Kiev is being asked to either achieve success on the front or engage in negotiations. "The US is seeking a pro-Western candidate with a status, free from corruption scandals, and with a presidential perspective for the negotiations," added Oleynik.
This from the nyt. Zelensky under pressure to negotiate.
NYT: Zelensky is preparing to negotiate with Moscow under Western pressure "The situation is complicated by the growing pressure on Kiev to start looking for ways to peace through negotiations," the Ukrainian president said. The newspaper writes that Ukraine now "faces a double diplomatic challenge" - it needs not only to maintain solid support for the allies in the counteroffensive, but also to expand it.
Comments
Clarence Thomas's RV is a key part of the Supreme Court justice's just-folks persona. It's also a $267,230 luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else's money.
https://nitter.net/nytimes/status/1687850963019636736#m
Besides about 150 pounds AND lack of political scandal, that is!
No idea why you say that though!
You REALLY have to like saunas, to enjoy living in Finland
AND also reckon that Anita Hill is feeling something akin to vindication?
After all, she DID point out that the future SCOTUS bench-warmer was (and still is) a scumbag.
^ 1824 cite for "jew down".
There were issues in the world of Scrabble with the allowability of the word "JEW". It was argued that since proper nouns weren't allowed, it must be being used as a verb. But then proper nouns were allowed again, so presumably the word was allowed back in.
Somebody once won with the word "LEZZES" and when predictable uproar ensued he had to make clear that meanings of words are irrelevant in the game.
Probably about half of PBers are Scrabble players when they're not relaxing by playing Mornington Crescent according to the D'Hondt convention, so they may be able to advise regarding the allowability in Scrabble of the nouns "shiksa" and "goy".
"Goy" used to be on the banned list in the Guardian's style guide, with the stated reason that it's a racist word, but I think they then forgot about it.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gyp
I wouldn’t want either as president, FWIW - though either would be vastly preferable to Trump.
AND before you pooh-pooh, recall how John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. AFTER his seriously-bloated, nationally-focused and utterly-underwhelming campaign tanked in 2007
“I hope they sold their souls for money. The alternative is worse.”
A lot of companies are ok with getting one on expenses because of the unreliability of Uber and Bolt.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/taxi-and-private-hire-vehicle-statistics-england-2022/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/285743/monthly-cinema-admissions-uk/
They are akin to those fraudsters who produce "graphs" of so-called "temperatures" to prove the climate is "warming" in the face of good solid anecdote about how it's often warmish in Spain in summer, so there.
I'm at the cinema 25+ times per year, which is more than most people, and most of the time I go the theatre only has a handful of people. The only time it was almost packed for me this year was at Super Mario Bros.
I don't draw conclusions from that other than that I'm surprised my local cinema stays in business.
If you are OK with subtitles, then highly recommended. Best Korean noir since Forest of Secrets.
Christie has less truck with the religious culture war nonsense - which will tend to hamper him.
Another death blow for the cinema, Tenet without subtitles might as well be dubbed into Korean.
Many Jan. 6 defendants are seeking to move the locations of their trials to avoid alleged bias among jurors in Washington. Are they likely to succeed?
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/escape-dc-analyzing-jan-6-venue-transfer-motions
… Transfers of venue, as such motions are called, are notoriously difficult to obtain. The Supreme Court has held that they are warranted only in “extraordinary” circumstances. Denials of such motions have been upheld, for instance, in such emotional and pervasively publicized prosecutions as those of the Boston Marathon bomber in Boston; former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in Houston; and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef in Manhattan
…
The alcohol tax burden is not really true anymore. The cost of beer in the pubs is now the same as the UK (£5/£6 per pint, starting price). At the supermarket the cheapest beer is about 80p. They now sell alcohol until 9pm daily. The Alko has a monopoly on wine and spirits but they only sell very good wine, noticeably better than the vast range of crap in the UK supermarket.
I guess my broader point really was that the social system in the UK is not a good deal for ordinary workers. I have some personal experience of this and where you really get hit with tax in the Finland is tax on wealth - ie dividends, asset sales, interest in bank accounts. It is hard to see the point of these huge tax breaks that the wealthy get in the UK if the workers are not being rewarded with higher wages and economic growth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate
Helsinki gets on average 1861.5 hours of sunshine a year. London gets 1674.8
I remember when we used to talk in hushed tones of how it was a fiver a pint in that London. Simpler times.
Who despite endearing himself to the American people by a) getting stuck in White House bathtub; and b) inventing the 7th-inning Stretch, was NOT re-elected in 1912, indeed came in 3rd, behind the guy who got him elected in the first place = Theodore Roosevelt.
Since then, the most rotund POTUS = Herbert Hoover. Who (briefly) made the medicine ball (in)famous.
Now under the NATO umbrella though, so can call on most of the Western world to help defend them.
Possible job for Trump?
Boffins have spent two years monitoring the computers of office staff at a large Texas energy concern and found that workers did less and made more mistakes in the afternoon – particularly on Fridays.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/04/workers_performance_study_friday/
It’s interesting to note, given the focus in the UK on antisemitism in the past few years, how often someone in American conversation says something that makes you think. I think that a lot of the Jewish stereotypes still hold in New York and Hollywood, and it seems to be fair game over there to cast somewhat general aspersions - whereas in the UK, it was a very specific and much more explicitly racist form of antisemitism that emerged.
As to the original conversation, my father says that buildings in Glasgow often “went on fire” in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Popes Exorcist
The unusual pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Empire of Light
Reality
Oppenheimer
Asteroid City
Full Time
Air
The fabelmans
Knock at the Cabin
Cocaine Bear
Super Mario
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Megan
65
Missing
Renfield
Can anyone beat that? 🍻
Also we just have different tastes as I thought Asteroid City was garbage.
In my organisation, it's been the trend since the pandemic though was arguably happening before nobody does anything important on a Friday including client meetings. It's a day either for leave or for catching up on admin work. To be fair, our clients never want Friday (or indeed Monday meetings) either.
In essence, Ted Heath was right in 1974 - perhaps the 3-day week was a glimpse into the future.
Taft was giving a speech, when a man in the crowd threw a head of cabbage at him. He missed, which wasn't easy given Taft's size.
Taft looked at the cabbage, turned to the crowd, and said; "Ladies and gentlemen, I see one of my opponents has lost his head."
(Not only is that a funny thing to say, it most likely changed the situation from let's fight to let's laugh -- the right thing to do, at least 90 percent of the time.)
If it is in Chambers - or the Official Scrabble Words - it counts. Not, not. We've had to buy copies for the relevant family & friends houses to resolve disputes.
Which makes me wonder, WHAT is the original source, for example a contemporary newspaper story?
Taft was a witty guy, on occasion, so think story is likely true.
MY favorite William H. Taft story has to do with his attempt to counter the appeal of Theordore Roosevelt, who famously made the "Teddy Bear" globally famous, with his own animal pal - "Billy Possum".
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/president-taft-ate-a-lot-of-possums/625676/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/apr/30/cine-files-premiere-cinemas-romford
They've just cut prices to £3.50 a ticket.
Beat that
The ageing post-war refugees have been very hospitable to the more recent arrivals.
… In true Heideggerian fashion, only in being-toward-death can one become the person who they truly are—where a conscious awareness of death informs of the horizon of existence...
https://samantharosehill.substack.com/p/barbie-toward-death
And I can vouch for what he's saying, as I too was just there, as I might have mentioned, en passant, maybe once or twice
Beer is insanely cheap in Da Yook. Everything is insanely cheap
https://web.archive.org/web/20080825210341/http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/prime-ministers-in-history/duke-of-grafton
Noted for falling asleep in cabinet meetings and for trying to abolish duties on the American Colonies, which were becoming a bit of a grievance.
Who deserves to be better know than he is, NOT for his political career, but instead as Founder of the sport that is sweeping the world in very early 3rd millennium = pickleball!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickleball
. . . . The game was created in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, who later served in the United States Congress and as Washington's lieutenant governor.[3] Pritchard and two of his friends, Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, are credited with devising the game and establishing the rules.
According to Joan Pritchard, Joel Pritchard's wife, "The name of the game became Pickle Ball after I said it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats."
Other sources state that the name "pickleball" was derived from the name of the Pritchards' family dog, Pickles. The Pritchards stated that the dog came along after the game had already been named, and it was the dog that was named for the game of pickleball.
They said the confusion arose when a reporter interviewing the Pritchards in the early 1970s decided it would be easier for readers to relate to the dog rather than a pickle boat. Representatives of USA Pickleball claim that research on their part has confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had already been named. . . .
Shortly after the game was invented, some of its inventors founders and their friends brought pickleball to Hawaii, where the game became known as pukaball. Puka, meaning "hole" in Hawaiian, was at first used to refer to the ball, since pickleballs have numerous holes, and later used to refer to the game itself. . . .
SSI - Had the privilege of meeting JP when he was Lt Gov of WA (suspect that Jim Miller may also have made his acquaintance?) Genuinely nice guy, albeit savvy politico, of the old-school, suburban, country-club Republican persuasion. As excerpt above makes crystal clear! For example, note that reasonably-affluent folk from Western WA are still partial to summer homes and Hawai'ian holidays, as well as boating including competitive rowing (for example, the core of the USA Olympic team that won gold in Berlin 1936).
AND perhaps also worth pointing out, that Joel Pritchard overcame the SERIOUS disadvantage, of going to college in that dystopian hell-on-earth called Marietta, Ohio.
My parents are in Rutland, and there’s been a lot of good words said there about the Leicester Ukranian comminuty.
Oh, and a 70cl bottle is about £2.50.
I like the collection, though not as much as Lukes and Galnour's "No Laughing Matter". (Note: Some of the jokes in that collection would no longer be acceptable at many universities in the US.)
(Dole had good reason to be dour: He was injured so badly in WW II that he spent months in rehab, and lost the use of one arm.)
Not good, sadly.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1688265274792058880
The best thing the council could do is have a *plan* to allow rezoning, and allow these shops (often with flats above) to be turned into more flats. Or demolished and replaced with housing developments (with a scattering of shops).
The day of the small shopping arcade is probably over. What we need are more corner-style shops and small businesses interspersed with housing. Something that used to be called 'communities', oddly enough.
I found it really hard to get good wine in Ukraine. The best you can find in the average local supermarket is some dubious Chilean or "wine of the European Union"
Find a liquor store in a bigger city and you can get reasonable Moldovan or Malbec or whatever, but nothing special
Except, of course, for that upscale deli in my weird Mafia hotel neighborhood in Chernivtsi, where they had the finest Barolos and Burgundies for the Blokes with the Bentleys and the Bodacious Blonde Bimbettes
Lots of buildings around there mysteriously 'catch on fire' in fact.
In unrelated news, lots of lovely new lucrative student accommodation for Chinese students I hear.
It's not quite as grim as that photo all the same https://www.google.com/maps/@55.8655684,-4.2648815,3a,75y,76.78h,100.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqszTUjQ5XPLe5Ujck_TDTQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can no longer advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut due to the "powerful defense of the RF Armed Forces and Russian counterattacks" “ This is a tough fight and we need more people and more equipment. We are exhausted,” a Ukrainian physician told The Wall Street Journal correspondent. The main clashes in the Bakhmut direction are now taking place near Kleshcheevka, south of Bakhmut, and along the M03 highway to the north, towards Slavyansk. “ The situation undermines hopes that Kiev will occupy the city,” the American edition concludes in its material.
https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1688110311197282304?s=20
Boris Johnson’s extra income accounts for almost half of figure, of which vast majority was made by Tory MPs
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/06/mps-paid-10m-for-second-jobs-and-freelance-work-over-past-year
Good to know that there’s one thing they take seriously.
NYT: Zelensky is preparing to negotiate with Moscow under Western pressure "The situation is complicated by the growing pressure on Kiev to start looking for ways to peace through negotiations," the Ukrainian president said. The newspaper writes that Ukraine now "faces a double diplomatic challenge" - it needs not only to maintain solid support for the allies in the counteroffensive, but also to expand it.
https://twitter.com/Sprinter99800/status/1687872521750679552?s=20
https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1687891246415523840?s=20
https://twitter.com/DougAMacgregor/status/1688016915866820608?s=20
* I cheated by using Google Translate. Sue me.
Also cut straight across, rather than using the curvature of the scissors, if you're worried about ingrown nails.
You do not want local anaesthetic in your feet. Horrible experience.
https://twitter.com/DravenNoctis/status/1688078093913583618?s=20