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Next Sunak will announce water is wet – politicalbetting.com

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  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,706
    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    So a footballer who didn’t win the World Cup wins SPOTY. Classic.

    It’s about “personality” in sport isn’t it?
    Not really - the ‘personality’ is a convenient way of saying sportsman/sportswoman.
    And getting England to a World Cup final and winning the Golden Glove in the process is one of the biggest English sporting achievements this year.

    Had another England team won the World Cup then yes that'd be a bigger achievement, but none did.
    SPOTY isn’t just England. Josh Kerr should have been on the list.
    Meh.

    I think what Earps did is more impressive that Kerr personally anyway, but its pretty moot.
    More impressive than winning the World Champioships 1500m? Really? Do you just not care for athletics?
    Kerr should have been on the list and even speaking as a golf fan and a McIlroy fan he shouldn't.
    Yep, Kerr beat Ingebrigsten for the gold, who has the fourth quickest ever time over the distance. Johnson Thompson defended her heptathlon gold though - she probably should have won of the medallists. Simply mad to include Mcilroy this year ahead of Kerr when he didn't win a major.
    Yes it really was. Perhaps they're still trying to make it up to him for 2014 when he should have won but didn't. I think Rory himself was embarrassed to be nominated this year given he didn't even do a video link.
    I suspect the main reason they didn't nomimate Kerr is they didn't want to split the athletics vote.

    If Kerr got significant votes they would be from people who would otherwise vote KJT.

    So nominating Kerr would significantly reduce KJT's chances - and in practice neither would then have any realistic chance.
  • GN all. Maybe Rishi will call an election tomorrow? Or maybe not.
  • Selebian said:

    So, just to offload...

    Eldest child has diarrhea - mildly before bed, all on toilet, then we heard him get up and go to the toilet. Wife went to check he was ok and called for me. We discovered a trail of excrement beginning on his duvet, down the ladder (on each step), through the ladder with some splatters on to child no. 2's bedding (luckily her head is at other end) trail on to landing where he, in his wisdom removed his pyjama bottoms, trail on into bathroom.

    My wife helped him into shower while I followed trail with various surface appropriate cleaning products. After a bit of a cuddle downstairs he was put back into new bedding and we hope there's no more.

    Still, I did - after fetching my wife and I well earned drink - get to comment: "well... that was a proper shit show, wasn't it?"

    ETA: I also have a new answer for the 'describe a difficult sitatuation and how you dealt with it' job interview question. Hire parents of small children, they can handle anything :smile:

    "Just to offload" indeed.

    Sounds like a rather moving (ahem) parable for the present state of the Tory Party. Except for the cuddle.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    Points to consider:

    > Colorado's 2024 electoral vote = 10; not huge but hardly chopped liver.

    > However, likelihood of Trump winning these 10 EV next year is slim to none.

    > Personally worry that somehow this could lead to Biden LOSING the CO EVs, due to Trump being barred from ballot.

    > IF that happens, as I reckon SCOTUS will find a way - perhaps even a good way at least as precedent - to keep him on the ballot, if he otherwise qualifies, in all 50 states.

    > Last major party candidate who was kept off the ballot in any state, was Harry Truman in Alabama in 1948, when the official POTUS nominee of Alabama Democratic Party was Strom Thurmond, who in other states was candidate for rebel (in more ways than one) States Rights Democratic Party.
    Strom Thurmand. There's a blast from the Jurassic era....
  • A question - isn't who goes on a state's ballot a state matter and not a federal one? Or is it a SCOTUS matter because the insurrection took place outside of Colorado?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    isam said:

    So a footballer who didn’t win the World Cup wins SPOTY. Classic.

    It’s about “personality” in sport isn’t it?
    Not really - the ‘personality’ is a convenient way of saying sportsman/sportswoman.
    Okay. 🙂

    Meanwhile, tomorrow’s metro has Prince Andrew sweating over the Christmas holiday 💦
    The “I” has MI6 announcing water is wet - to borrow a phrase.
    Teaching children they can be born in the wrong body is harmful - Kemi Badenoch owns the Daily Mail tomorrow.

    This is just easily ignored guidelines from the government though, so tough talk and headlines like this is cheap sometimes, isn’t it?
    Telegraph - Starmer frees dangerous criminals. “What Starmer did has a terrible impact on my family. It shouldn’t have been allowed.”

    Sunak has spent a lot Tory money on election guru’s, to hollow out Starmer with this stuff slipped into friendly media. Why does it feel like it won’t work?
    Because Labour are such heavy odds on favourites, it doesn’t make sense to think that
    they won’t win. I can’t see how they won’t win myself.

    But NOM was 1/10 in 2015, and people on here were talking of it as free money for months before the GE

    Remain was big odds on and tipped as value at 2/9 on here in 2016. It was 1/12 at the close of
    polling and it lost

    Then Theresa May’s Tories were 1/6 to get a majority in 2017 and that didn’t happen either

    The only successful fav has been Boris’s GE, and this site was getting bombarded with Corbynites saying it was going to be a lot closer than the betting made it

    So, I’m with you, I think it’s all over. But three of the last four big favs in elections have been turned over when they seemed certain to win
    It’s also a case how long polls have been set on something, that makes the turn around a shock. Neither leave or remain had a long history of being 15% or more ahead in 2016.

    My point though wasn’t so much the attempt to hollow out Starmer by spinning titbits of his record from 5 year stint as DPP actually flipping the polls around, but will this strategy even hurt Starmer? It feels like a political campaign going through the motions, like a sports team in the middle of a slump.

    All the usual donors have come to the pub to watch Rishi strip and drop up and down on a poll. A jugs gone round that’s fill to the brim. The usual strategists hired. The usual outlets publishing what’s been given them. But it just looks so bland and half hearted on the page, considering how much it all costs.

    Trump on the other hand would make all this actually work. Saville, Saville, Saville.
    Obviously Boris would have been better at that kind of attack . It doesn’t seem to suit Sunak to go down that road. Personally I think he/they should be highlighting the way Sir Keir has gone back on almost everything he has said in his eight years as a politician; it’s all out there. He plays the ‘Mr Integrity’ card but it’s all nonsense. He does look and sound like someone honest that you’d trust though, so it might be difficult to shift the image.

    Better that than shouting that he’s a nonse defender etc, I think. That just gives him the chance to say they’re acting like internet conspiracy theorists, and look more statesmanlike as a result
    Agreed.

    The better cards the Tories have to play are, yes, it’s been tough, but we’ve turned a corner, with us that means tax cuts, with Labour that means Green Taxes.

    But just as Sunak is not the Trumpian “Saville, Saville, Saville” effective attack dog, nor does his incessant upbeat messaging work with the sober, yes it’s been tough, we’ve turned the corner, you now have the choice of green shoots nourished into tax cuts under us, or green shoots trampled by Labours ideological commitments under them.

    That sober message handled deftly, sober statesmanlike, would narrow the polls.
    And while they’re at it, the social media account should be almost like that of The Queen/King, or the No 10 photographers account - classy, West London-esque, Navy Blue with White or Gold ,stylish. Not this TikTok attempts at funny wacky-ness. This is The Conservative Party not Channel 4!
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,274
    edited December 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
  • Cookie said:

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting development out of Colorado. The state Supreme Court has barred Trump from the ballot.

    Donald Trump is barred from Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot, the state Supreme Court rules in a landmark decision. The ruling was made under an 1868 provision of the Constitution that prevents insurrectionists from holding office.

    A significant development but will other states follow suit? If they do and the SC upholds their rulings Trump's presidential campaign could be effectively torpedoed if he cannot get on the ballot in half the states
    Even if they didn't, this is signifcant - should he be the nominee, he's lost Colorade before he starts. Granted Colorado leans blue anyway, but a significant setback nonetheless, no?
    Correction - he may have lost. SCOTUS has jurisdiction and will have final say IF it wants it.

    Scope and effect of potential ruling by the Supremes, that's the question(s).
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    Points to consider:

    > Colorado's 2024 electoral vote = 10; not huge but hardly chopped liver.

    > However, likelihood of Trump winning these 10 EV next year is slim to none.

    > Personally worry that somehow this could lead to Biden LOSING the CO EVs, due to Trump being barred from ballot.

    > IF that happens, as I reckon SCOTUS will find a way - perhaps even a good way at least as precedent - to keep him on the ballot, if he otherwise qualifies, in all 50 states.

    > Last major party candidate who was kept off the ballot in any state, was Harry Truman in Alabama in 1948, when the official POTUS nominee of Alabama Democratic Party was Strom Thurmond, who in other states was candidate for rebel (in more ways than one) States Rights Democratic Party.
    I don't see any justice in Biden not getting the Colorado EC votes just because his putative opponent was disqualified from being a valid candidate for breaching a provision of the US Constitution.

    Send lawyers, guns and money....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2HH7J-Sx80&ab_channel=WarrenZevon-Topic
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    edited December 2023

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.

    Addendum - Note that Hawai'ian state flag is very popular in Hawai'i; same is true for Texas, South Carolina, New Mexico, Maryland and number of other states.

    In some other states, not so much. Recently the flag of Nebraska was flown at the state capitol building in Lincoln for several weeks . . . upside down. Took that long for anyone to notice.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,206

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.

    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    HMRC did some work a decade ago which suggested there is a big drop off after 50%

    One for me, one for the pot seems reasonable. More than that begins to feel unfair.
    If hmrc ever tried taking two pound out of every 3 I earned I would say fuck it and make money illegaly and wouldn't pay them a penny. If they can act like a bandit then they can fuck right off and so will I
    In which case you'd go to prison.
    You are aware that many people in the benefits trap (limited hours a week or lose benefits) do additional hours for their employers off the books, if they can?

    If they can’t get that, they find someone else to employ them “on the black”.

    The lack of enforcement suggests that either HMRC can’t be bothered or don’t have the resources to fight it.
    The 'benefits trap' doesn't work like that.

    No legit employer is going to allow an employee to do additional hours for their employers off the books - the risks are too great.

    If people or companies choose to take the risk of working in the black economy why would they wait for a tax hike to make them do that?
    Ha ha ha ha! I love you naivety. So sweet and innocent. I run an engineering business, I'm really unusual in that I don't pay employees/subcontractors cash as bonuses/overtime, nor do I take cash from customers to dodge VAT. Virtually every business I've ever dealt with in the engineering world does both (one usually being the source of the cash for the other). When Covid was going on, I knew of several businesses claiming furlough money then having the employees back in work for cash payments.

    As for "why wait for a tax hike", that's simple - the more there is to be gained, the more it's worth taking the risk. If income tax was 1%, virtually nobody would bother avoiding or evading it - when it's 70% (bearing in mind evasion effectively at ones marginal rate) the appeal of getting paid 3x as much for the same work is considerable.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,274
    edited December 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Cookie said:

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting development out of Colorado. The state Supreme Court has barred Trump from the ballot.

    Donald Trump is barred from Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot, the state Supreme Court rules in a landmark decision. The ruling was made under an 1868 provision of the Constitution that prevents insurrectionists from holding office.

    A significant development but will other states follow suit? If they do and the SC upholds their rulings Trump's presidential campaign could be effectively torpedoed if he cannot get on the ballot in half the states
    Even if they didn't, this is signifcant - should he be the nominee, he's lost Colorade before he starts. Granted Colorado leans blue anyway, but a significant setback nonetheless, no?
    And Colorado voted for Bush twice and for Bob Dole, it is not a strong blue state but could go for Trump if he won big.

    I remain of the view whether Biden is re elected or not will depend on the courts more than anything else next year, if Trump is not GOP nominee and on the ballot in most states half his supporters would stay home or go 3rd party and Biden then wins by default even if his approval rating little better than now. While if he is convicted of a criminal offence and jailed swing voters will hold their nose and vote to re elect Biden too
    If Trump is disbard from standing by the courts, die hard Trump supporters may stay at home, but against that you have millions of floaters who will swing behind the GOP in the campaign (IMO)

    Can you imagine daft old duffer Biden, who can barely string a coherent sentence together, in a TV debate with De Santis or Haley? 😂

    I'd go so far as to say if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will make damn sure Biden doesn't stand either. He'll be pushed under the bus and the Dems will have a fresh face for Election 24.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,728
    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    Biden may well decide to walk off into the sunset if Trump was removed from the picture (he won't be, by this at least). I suspect one reason he's standing again is risk aversion and having a record to stand on against Trump that may well get him over the line as the safe holding option as long as the US economy is doing OK.

    Whereas a Dem primary presents a risk unless you have a proven, outstanding candidate ready to go. And it's a pretty big one given the disaster for the Western World it would be if Trump won. If it's, say, Haley. The Dems can happily twist, knowing if they pick a dud card it's a normal political disappointment rather than a catastrophe.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558
    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.
  • That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    He appeals to Supreme Court stuffed with his mates?

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Cookie said:

    HYUFD said:

    Interesting development out of Colorado. The state Supreme Court has barred Trump from the ballot.

    Donald Trump is barred from Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot, the state Supreme Court rules in a landmark decision. The ruling was made under an 1868 provision of the Constitution that prevents insurrectionists from holding office.

    A significant development but will other states follow suit? If they do and the SC upholds their rulings Trump's presidential campaign could be effectively torpedoed if he cannot get on the ballot in half the states
    Even if they didn't, this is signifcant - should he be the nominee, he's lost Colorade before he starts. Granted Colorado leans blue anyway, but a significant setback nonetheless, no?
    And Colorado voted for Bush twice and for Bob Dole, it is not a strong blue state but could go for Trump if he won big.

    I remain of the view whether Biden is re elected or not will depend on the courts more than anything else next year, if Trump is not GOP nominee and on the ballot in most states half his supporters would stay home or go 3rd party and Biden then wins by default even if his approval rating little better than now. While if he is convicted of a criminal offence and jailed swing voters will hold their nose and vote to re elect Biden too
    If Trump is disbard from standing by the courts, die hard Trump supporters may stay at home, but against that you have millions of floaters who will swing behind the GOP in the campaign (IMO)

    Can you imagine daft old duffer Biden, who can barely string a coherent sentence together, in a TV debate with De Santis or Haley? 😂

    I'd go so far as to say if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will make damn sure Biden doesn't stand either. He'll be pushed under the bus and the Dems will have a fresh face for Election 24.
    The polling suggests that Haley or DeSantis or whoever the GOP nominee is all would get a lower voteshare than Trump would, even if they picked up a few floaters his voters just wouldn't bother to support what they would see as another GOP globalist and would stay home or vote for Robert Kennedy or Trump if he went 3rd party in some states.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137
    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    "Done" is a bit of a stretch out with the case going to SCOTUS.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    edited December 2023
    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    So a footballer who didn’t win the World Cup wins SPOTY. Classic.

    It’s about “personality” in sport isn’t it?
    Not really - the ‘personality’ is a convenient way of saying sportsman/sportswoman.
    Okay. 🙂

    Meanwhile, tomorrow’s metro has Prince Andrew sweating over the Christmas holiday 💦
    The “I” has MI6 announcing water is wet - to borrow a phrase.
    Teaching children they can be born in the wrong body is harmful - Kemi Badenoch owns the Daily Mail tomorrow.

    This is just easily ignored guidelines from the government though, so tough talk and headlines like this is cheap sometimes, isn’t it?
    Telegraph - Starmer frees dangerous criminals. “What Starmer did has a terrible impact on my family. It shouldn’t have been allowed.”

    Sunak has spent a lot Tory money on election guru’s, to hollow out Starmer with this stuff slipped into friendly media. Why does it feel like it won’t work?
    Because Labour are such heavy odds on favourites, it doesn’t make sense to think that
    they won’t win. I can’t see how they won’t win myself.

    But NOM was 1/10 in 2015, and people on here were talking of it as free money for months before the GE

    Remain was big odds on and tipped as value at 2/9 on here in 2016. It was 1/12 at the close of
    polling and it lost

    Then Theresa May’s Tories were 1/6 to get a majority in 2017 and that didn’t happen either

    The only successful fav has been Boris’s GE, and this site was getting bombarded with Corbynites saying it was going to be a lot closer than the betting made it

    So, I’m with you, I think it’s all over. But three of the last four big favs in elections have been turned over when they seemed certain to win
    It’s also a case how long polls have been set on something, that makes the turn around a shock. Neither leave or remain had a long history of being 15% or more ahead in 2016.

    My point though wasn’t so much the attempt to hollow out Starmer by spinning titbits of his record from 5 year stint as DPP actually flipping the polls around, but will this strategy even hurt Starmer? It feels like a political campaign going through the motions, like a sports team in the middle of a slump.

    All the usual donors have come to the pub to watch Rishi strip and drop up and down on a poll. A jugs gone round that’s fill to the brim. The usual strategists hired. The usual outlets publishing what’s been given them. But it just looks so bland and half hearted on the page, considering how much it all costs.

    Trump on the other hand would make all this actually work. Saville, Saville, Saville.
    Obviously Boris would have been better at that kind of attack . It doesn’t seem to suit Sunak to go down that road. Personally I think he/they should be highlighting the way Sir Keir has gone back on almost everything he has said in his eight years as a politician; it’s all out there. He plays the ‘Mr Integrity’ card but it’s all nonsense. He does look and sound like someone honest that you’d trust though, so it might be difficult to shift the image.

    Better that than shouting that he’s a nonse defender etc, I think. That just gives him the chance to say they’re acting like internet conspiracy theorists, and look more statesmanlike as a result
    Agreed.

    The better cards the Tories have to play are, yes, it’s been tough, but we’ve turned a corner, with us that means tax cuts, with Labour that means Green Taxes.

    But just as Sunak is not the Trumpian “Saville, Saville, Saville” effective attack dog, nor does his incessant upbeat messaging work with the sober, yes it’s been tough, we’ve turned the corner, you now have the choice of green shoots nourished into tax cuts under us, or green shoots trampled by Labours ideological commitments under them.

    That sober message handled deftly, sober statesmanlike, would narrow the polls.
    And while they’re at it, the social media account should be almost like that of The Queen/King, or the No 10 photographers account - classy, West London-esque, Navy Blue with White or Gold ,stylish. Not this TikTok attempts at funny wacky-ness. This is The Conservative Party not Channel 4!
    Like you said, with Boris Johnson you could do all that stuff, from letter boxes to love actually. He was a front man. But what is Sunak’s forte? Maybe the problem with May and Sunak, what built them in the first place was the perception they were managing everything so well behind the scenes, not their ability to be out front, taking the lead. All along Sunak would never have what it takes to be the front man, hence his Shareprice dissolved in the spotlight.

    Worse, the eye watering profligacy with tax payers money, billions shipped away to fraud, he doesn’t even have any reputation for sound, behind the scenes financial management left to inflate as arm bands.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    edited December 2023
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    No it isn't, Ashcroft's latest poll has Biden beating Haley 32% to 17% with 28% considering a 3rd party in that scenario.


    https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2023/12/my-latest-us-polling-and-what-it-means-on-ukraine/

    Haley is basically the GOP Hunt or Tugendhat, not conservative enough for the current party activists and core voters who elect the candidate and many of whom would stay home or go 3rd party even in the very unlikely event they were elected candidate. (Rishi is also having a similar problem here now with leakage of Boris voters to Reform).
  • A question - isn't who goes on a state's ballot a state matter and not a federal one? Or is it a SCOTUS matter because the insurrection took place outside of Colorado?

    Its federal matter because it involves federal election.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,274
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,247

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    Colorado is solidly Blue - Democrat at every level. Trump wasn't getting any electoral votes there, anyway.

    The big news will be when this happens in a state that is at least a swing state.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    Colorado is solidly Blue - Democrat at every level. Trump wasn't getting any electoral votes there, anyway.

    The big news will be when this happens in a state that is at least a swing state.
    Every single scoc judge appointed by a Democrat. Very hard to see the federalist society lot on SCOTUS not agreeing with the 3 dissenters.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188



    A question - isn't who goes on a state's ballot a state matter and not a federal one? Or is it a SCOTUS matter because the insurrection took place outside of Colorado?

    Its federal matter because it involves federal election.
    Yes the stay on the judgement being active for the primary whilst it's appealed implicitly acknowledges that that is the view of the Colorado court too
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    He appeals to Supreme Court stuffed with his mates?

    There will at the very least be a significant minority who say that Trump does not have untrammelled power to act as a dictator from day one of his re-ection (his words). The rest are going to have to take a view that they support a guy who does not support the rule of law.

    Even as Trump appointees, they will not go that far.

    It is worth noting that with the exception of the Top Secret documents case, the rest of the judiciary have given him short shrift when he has asked for their support.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Like he was brought down over Trump University in 2016?
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,206

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising almost nothing.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Like he was brought down over Trump University in 2016?
    Why are you comfortable that this utter scoundrel gets away with blue murder, and plans to turn the US into an authoritarian dictatorship? He has already told us of his plans.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908
    edited December 2023

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
    You can't stall a criminal trial for months and Trump's first one starts next March.

    In any case even if he did win again he would need the army behind him to go dictator and that didn't happen in Jan 2021
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Like he was brought down over Trump University in 2016?
    This early 2024 New York judgment will dismantle his ability to do any business at all in the state. And require a fire sale of his assets to meet the penalties due to the state. He doesn't have hundreds of millions cash in hand.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558
    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
    If he can't stand as a Republican because he is disqualified by engaging in insurrection, he can't stand as an independent either.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Most of my team are scottish, the ones affected by the new tax rate are already looking at paying more into penisons/salary sacrifice schemes. One also remarked when I mentioned it that most of what it collected was going to be spent on collecting it

    1. I thought you were always moaning about how your wages had stagnated and were piss-poor because of globalisation. Yet your team are all earning over £75k?

    2. The cost of collection is trivial surely? Plug the figures in, run the calculation and either the employer deducts and pays the tax or the self-employed pay it direct to HMRC.
    I don't think it's trivial. I wouldn't like to be the IT team in charge of assessing whether everyone's tax was subject to Scottish tax rates or English ones. But it's small compared to the amount raised by taxation. But my expectation is that this will be a net loss to the Scottish exchequer - they will lose more in discouraging people to earn than they will raise in people paying more tax, even if the cost of collection is ignored. But it will be an interesting experiment.
    It’s really simple, if your address has a Scottish postcode your tax code has an S in front of it and you are subject to Scottish tax rates.

    Payments need to be reported to HMRC via RTI and the money is paid directly to HMRC alongside payments for other employees

    Supposedly the amount raised is £80m or so which is accurate if IR35 remains as it is because (as was pointed out elsewhere) it’s hard to switch to dividends if you are an employee being paid via PAYE
    Fair enough. It IS trivial then. I stand corrected.

    But, well, yes, it might nominally raise £80m based on tax paid right now. But it will soon have the effect of driving down the amount of tax paid. What would you do if you were earning £80k and tax rates went up to 45% for earnings above £75k? You would cut back the amount you earned, surely - either by paying into pension, or, more likely, doing less work. Or, longer term you might move to England. Certainly your high paying employer would find they could offer more attractive packages to English based staff than Scottish based. And highly paid work would dribble southwards.

    Highly paid people are highly paid because they are motivated by money. I find it hard to imagine this won't have an effect.
    Some might choose to do less work; others, seeing their net income fall, might choose to do more to maintain their net income.

    Most employees of course, have no options for changing their gross income levels, beyond looking for a new job.
    Quite a significant proportion of people have options for changing their gross income levels, such as taking on extra shifts, longer shifts, overtime, or other responsibilities.

    And many choose to do so cash-in-hand in order to evade taxes, despite the criminal risk they engage in, in doing so.
    My brother's a plumber. Neither he nor any of his trade mates will touch cash in hand. Too much to lose.
    That’s what they tell you…
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241
    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    TimS said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Leon said:

    eristdoof said:

    Leon said:

    That said I had some jolly nice oysters at the Red Lion and Sun, a gastropub in Highgate, yesterday

    You can find oyster quality in odd places, but the more peripheral tend to be more variable (and you do NOT want variablity in oysters)

    Your right I do not want variability in my oysters. I want no oysters.
    Can't trust a man who doesn't love oysters. Sorry. It is the ultimate test of masculine soundness

    It means you have overcome your natural but childish aversion to something that looks like donkey phlegm in an ashtray, and you have thought: I can do this. And you've girded your loins and you've tipped back your half shell and you've slurped it all up and then you've realised OMFG they're fantastic!!! And a lifelong love is born: because you were brave

    THAT, my friends, THAT is a man
    I have eaten oysters on several occasions they are fucking disgusting. However I am enough of a man to say they are fucking disgusting rather than to go with the flow because they are seen as haute cuisine by people like you who I suspect mostly go along with this shit because to not like oysters or champagne or caviar somehow marks you down as one of the hoi polloi....Oysters really are disgusting, fizzy wine is foul as for caviar it tastes salty is about the only thing you can say about it. You want to pay huge prices for overrated trash be my guest
    Matter of taste, I think.
    I love almost all seafood, oysters included; my wife dislikes almost all, ditto. Posh is irrelevant in this case.
    It is a matter of taste and there is certainly a food snobbery around many things like champagne, caviar, oysters . That was the whole gist of leons post in essence....you are not man enough to eat them else you would love them.... now imagine saying that to someone about for example liver which many people detest. Personally I enjoy it but I don't claim people are deficient for not sharing my taste.

    Champagne is the worst of it....get offered a glass and go no thanks and its all "but this is champagne" I have tried many from high to low end frankly I would rather put my own urine in a soda stream than drink the muck....hell I would rather have a pint of watneys red barrel than a glass of champagne and that really is foul
    Could someone please explain why I am supposed to enjoy champagne more than wine, real ale, malt whisky, or even piss?
    Champagne differs from its own uppityness. It’s delicious, though English or Welsh sparkling wine is of course equally delicious, but because it’s seen as an occasion wine most people don’t actually drink it for the taste. Or have too high expectations. Which is a shame. It’s simply a good drink, better than crémants or cava, but not holy water.
    No, there is an actual reason. And I have cited it below
    Champagne makes me fart.

    Oysters are ... ok. I like a seafoody taste, but I find a food you're supposed to drink challenging. I prefer mussels, tbh. Or cockles. Or prawns.
    And I prefer cava to champagne. Though if I were offered a glass of champagne right now I would cheerfully accept.
    Champagne (and Cava) do of course cover a vast array of flavour profiles, varietal mixes, ages etc. But generic Cava plus a tiny dab of fino sherry is a lovely combination.
    THINGS I WISH I KNEW WHEN I WAS 17, PART 999
    • If you don't want to get drunk: diet coke
    • If you do want to get drunk: diet coke and vodka
    Diet coke is the devil's work. Go full fat or don't bother, in my view.
    I once saw a study which I leapt on because it aligned to my personal prejudices: Diet Coke makes you fat. Aspartane stops your body burning off fat, so while you are absorbing fewer calories, you aren't converting fat to energy at the same level.

    There are very few manly things you can do with fizzy drinks. But Lemmy was known for drinking Jack Daniels and coke (when he didn't want to get drunk - just Jack Daniels when he did).

    Personally, I consume coke about once every 6 months, generally when I am absolutely physically exhausted and my body craves an immediate sugar hit.
    Have you tried cookies?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Most of my team are scottish, the ones affected by the new tax rate are already looking at paying more into penisons/salary sacrifice schemes. One also remarked when I mentioned it that most of what it collected was going to be spent on collecting it

    1. I thought you were always moaning about how your wages had stagnated and were piss-poor because of globalisation. Yet your team are all earning over £75k?

    2. The cost of collection is trivial surely? Plug the figures in, run the calculation and either the employer deducts and pays the tax or the self-employed pay it direct to HMRC.
    I don't think it's trivial. I wouldn't like to be the IT team in charge of assessing whether everyone's tax was subject to Scottish tax rates or English ones. But it's small compared to the amount raised by taxation. But my expectation is that this will be a net loss to the Scottish exchequer - they will lose more in discouraging people to earn than they will raise in people paying more tax, even if the cost of collection is ignored. But it will be an interesting experiment.
    It’s really simple, if your address has a Scottish postcode your tax code has an S in front of it and you are subject to Scottish tax rates.

    Payments need to be reported to HMRC via RTI and the money is paid directly to HMRC alongside payments for other employees

    Supposedly the amount raised is £80m or so which is accurate if IR35 remains as it is because (as was pointed out elsewhere) it’s hard to switch to dividends if you are an employee being paid via PAYE
    Fair enough. It IS trivial then. I stand corrected.

    But, well, yes, it might nominally raise £80m based on tax paid right now. But it will soon have the effect of driving down the amount of tax paid. What would you do if you were earning £80k and tax rates went up to 45% for earnings above £75k? You would cut back the amount you earned, surely - either by paying into pension, or, more likely, doing less work. Or, longer term you might move to England. Certainly your high paying employer would find they could offer more attractive packages to English based staff than Scottish based. And highly paid work would dribble southwards.

    Highly paid people are highly paid because they are motivated by money. I find it hard to imagine this won't have an effect.
    Some might choose to do less work; others, seeing their net income fall, might choose to do more to maintain their net income.

    Most employees of course, have no options for changing their gross income levels, beyond looking for a new job.
    Quite a significant proportion of people have options for changing their gross income levels, such as taking on extra shifts, longer shifts, overtime, or other responsibilities.

    And many choose to do so cash-in-hand in order to evade taxes, despite the criminal risk they engage in, in doing so.
    My brother's a plumber. Neither he nor any of his trade mates will touch cash in hand. Too much to lose.
    That’s what they tell you…
    Huge numbers took huge amounts of cash in hand during the Covid furloughs.

    I know this to be true.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,908

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
    If he can't stand as a Republican because he is disqualified by engaging in insurrection, he can't stand as an independent either.
    He can in states which haven't disqualified him
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
    You can't stall a criminal trial for months and Trump's first one starts next March.

    In any case even if he did win again he would need the army behind him to go dictator and that didn't happen in Jan 2021
    It's a conviction we need before November. The trial can be strung out for as long as it takes.

    It he is re-elected President the military will acquiesce. He will become Commander in Chief once again.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    No it isn't, Ashcroft's latest poll has Biden beating Haley 32% to 17% with 28% considering a 3rd party in that scenario.


    https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2023/12/my-latest-us-polling-and-what-it-means-on-ukraine/

    Haley is basically the GOP Hunt or Tugendhat, not conservative enough for the current party activists and core voters who elect the candidate and many of whom would stay home or go 3rd party even in the very unlikely event they were elected candidate. (Rishi is also having a similar problem here now with leakage of Boris
    voters to Reform).
    That’s meaningless in the scenario trump isn’t on the ballot - there’s no third party
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    edited December 2023
    So will Trump really be barred from standing in Colorado, or is it likely to get caught up in never-ending legal wrangles?
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising
    almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    That first article is bullshit.

    It basically says an employee can’t increase their hours enough and the rich wouldn’t want to work harder because they make enough money for a good life anyway.

    I will be generous and assume you didn’t read it before posting the link
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,241

    HYUFD said:

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
    You can't stall a criminal trial for months and Trump's first one starts next March.

    In any case even if he did win again he would need the army behind him to go dictator and that didn't happen in Jan 2021
    It's a conviction we need before November. The trial can be strung out for as long as it takes.


    It he is re-elected President the military will acquiesce. He will become Commander in Chief once again.
    Not to the extent of cancelling the next election
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    He appeals to Supreme Court stuffed with his mates?

    There will at the very least be a significant minority who say that Trump does not have untrammelled power to act as a dictator from day one of his re-ection (his words). The rest are going to have to take a view that they support a guy who does not support the rule of law.

    Even as Trump appointees, they will not go that far.

    It is worth noting that with the exception of the Top Secret documents case, the rest of the judiciary have given him short shrift when he has asked for their support.
    Just in case, there is a line in the R. Dean Taylor song Indiana Wants Me, which starts "If a man ever needed..." that springs to mind.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited December 2023

    HYUFD said:

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
    You can't stall a criminal trial for months and Trump's first one starts next March.

    In any case even if he did win again he would need the army behind him to go dictator and that didn't happen in Jan 2021
    It's a conviction we need before November. The trial can be strung out for as long as it takes.


    It he is re-elected President the military will acquiesce. He will become Commander in Chief once again.
    Not to the extent of cancelling the next election
    Of course one can't cancel the election, but Trump's Lawyers might be able to string a trial out by months, certainly until after the election, If found guilty he claims he can pardon himself.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising
    almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    That first article is bullshit.

    It basically says an employee can’t increase their hours enough and the rich wouldn’t want to work harder because they make enough money for a good life anyway.

    I will be generous and assume you didn’t read it before posting the link
    It seems perfectly plausible to me, as does the NYT claim. Economists think it to be a faulty premise.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 1,206

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    I can't read the second article (pay walled), but the 1st article doesn't dispute the existence of a Laffer Curve. It's making claims about its shape, specifically that a tax rate of 35% is not over its peak. It actually say that at very high rates (80-90%) there will be a noticeable effect.

    Given our discussion was sparked by the Scottish government going for a marginal rate for some people of 69.5%, rather than denying there is a curve, we could perhaps move on to the more interesting question, namely - is 69.5% over the revenue maximising peak or not?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558
    Andy_JS said:

    So will Trump really be barred from standing in Colorado, or is it likely to get caught up in never-ending legal wrangles?

    IF - sizeable but still within likelihood if - the US Supreme Court backs the Colorado judgment, then Trump will be off the ballot in ALL states. Flying under any flag. Presumably he could still be a write in, but it would still be argued he was not a valid candidate and so those votes would not be counted.

    It needs to be borne in mind that the Republican judges might think their best chance of a Republican President is by Trump being nowhere near the ballot. (Trump only appointed three of the nine in any event.)
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    He appeals to Supreme Court stuffed with his mates?

    There will at the very least be a significant minority who say that Trump does not have untrammelled power to act as a dictator from day one of his re-ection (his words). The rest are going to have to take a view that they support a guy who does not support the rule of law.

    Even as Trump appointees, they will not go that far.

    It is worth noting that with the exception of the Top Secret documents case, the rest of the judiciary have given him short shrift when he has asked for their support.
    Just in case, there is a line in the R. Dean Taylor song Indiana Wants Me, which starts "If a man ever needed..." that springs to mind.
    "Out there the law's a-comin'
    I'm scared and so tired of runnin'...."

    Oh, if only Donald.....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    edited December 2023

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising
    almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    That first article is bullshit.

    It basically says an employee can’t increase their hours enough and the rich wouldn’t want to work harder because they make enough money for a good life anyway.

    I will be generous and assume you didn’t read it before posting the link
    It seems perfectly plausible to me, as does the NYT claim. Economists think it to be a faulty premise.
    It's based on a false premise:

    "Say Bob earns $100,000 per year and is taxed at 35% annually. The president, in a desire to raise revenue, cuts Bob’s rate to 25%. Under a 35% tax rate, the government earned $35,000 off of Bob. At a 25% rate, Bob would have to earn $140,000 for the government to get the same amount of revenue. He would have to work 40% harder (assuming effort is correlated linearly with salary). If Bob used to work 50 hour weeks, he would suddenly start putting in 70 hour weeks."

    This ignores the total tax take. If Bob has an extra $10,000 to spend, then it will also generate revenue for the government in the form of sales tax and that will stimulate other activity. It also reduces incentives to avoid income tax.

    The theory doesn't depend on Bob working to make up the difference personally.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising
    almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    That first article is bullshit.

    It basically says an employee can’t increase their hours enough and the rich wouldn’t want to work harder because they make enough money for a good life anyway.

    I will be generous and assume you didn’t read it before posting the link
    theProle said:

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    algarkirk said:

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    malcolmg said:

    MikeL said:

    These Scottish income tax rates really are something.

    Rest of UK - higher rate of 40% starts at £50,270.

    Scotland - higher rate is 42% and starts at £43,633.

    Scotland then has a 45% rate from £75,000 to £125,140.

    Rest of UK top rate (above £125,140) is 45%.

    Scotland top rate (above £125,140) is 48%.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67759418

    Absolutely mental, the bastards will not get a penny from me, I will just stick more in pension and get tax relief and they will miss out on the VAT, spending etc. Morons could not run a bath
    Is that the sound of the Laffer Curve… laffing?
    Thing is, most of the time the laffer curve is (proven) rubbish. But when you have a devolved administration that’s in the same country as and right next door to - and defines itself by its difference to - another regime where the rate is very visibly lower, it does rather focus the mind.

    We see the same in the US with state taxes. But this is good. We need experimentation. If higher taxes mean better services then there’s a trade off for people to consider.
    You won't have any issue presenting that proof in simple and assimilable terms I take it.
    Laffer curve aside there’s definitely an iron rule - let’s call it the Lucky Guy curve - that states that when TimS posts something at a time of day LuckyGuy is online, it will be met within seconds by a withering riposte. Even when the original post is actually sympathetic to his world view.

    The Wikipedia entry on Laffer is decently balanced and useful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#:~:text=Case of Wellesley College and,not appear to support this."

    The original claim was made based on zero actual data. Subsequent analysis shows what is common sense: that higher tax rates raise more tax, unless they go completely bonkers and lead to behavioural change (usually emigration).

    Tax policy is complicated and there are no simple rules that can explain taxpayer behaviour. If there were we’d long ago have solved our fiscal problems.
    There are one or two things about the Laffer curve which have to be true. At 0% tax rate you raise nothing, and at 100% rate you will in the medium run raise nothing, while making people with any assets at all cross.

    As the same basically will apply to a 0.001% rate (there are exceptions) and a 99.8% rate then it follows that there must be a figure somewhere between the two which is the sweet spot. This could be called the Colbert point, after the man who pointed out that
    "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

    It will likely very considerably between societies, in the real world - but I've seen a few academic papers which put it somewhere between 60 and 70%.

    Which would probably have given poor old Laffer conniptions. The great bluffer.
    Accords with my sense of it. I've always thought 65%. One for one, two for the pot. No modelling, just pure instinct.
    I’m skeptical about tax rates as high as that for more libertarian reasons, but I think the Laffer argument against them largely dishonest, or deluded.
    The original Laffer Curve was to illustrate a philosophical point.

    Analytics were then done to estimate the shape of the curve (this is behavioural science so never precise).

    Politicians and activists have tortured it well beyond what it was ever intended to be.
    The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real.

    Almost all claims (by left and right) about it are 100% bullshit.

    65% I suspect is far, far too high a tax rate as people engage in tax avoidance at that rate or emigrate if they can. They higher the rate, the greater the reward for engaging in tax evasion, if you have a moderate tax rate there's no point evading taxes so people pay it - if its an obscene rate, then people find evading it very valuable.
    The Universe's last proponent of the Laffer Curve proclaims: "The Laffer Curve absolutely is 100% real".
    Anyone who doesn't think it's real is utterly stupid.
    It's fairly obvious that a 0% income tax rate will yield very little tax, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a 100% income tax will result in very little revenue, as people generally won't work for nothing. Given that we get substantial revenue at some tax rates in between, it therefore follows that there is some sort of a curve connecting these three known points.

    You can make plausible sounding cases for all sorts of different curves (it's probably not a neat parabola with the maximum revenue point at 50%), and the curve may well be different shapes in different sorts of societies and cultures, but to deny it exists is up there with membership of the flat earth society.

    Thoughtfully (except possibly for the Scots), the Scottish Government seem to have decided to provide some more empirical data to help us plot the curve. I've a sneaking feeling they are about to discover they are well on the wrong side of the curve with a marginal rate of almost 70% for some earners, but the next few years (if they persist with this policy) are going to actually give us some hard data, which is always fun. Of course, the effects won't all show up in year one, as people won't relocate to England overnight - in the just same way as if they raised income tax to 100% from tomorrow, it would raise a load of cash for a month or two, whilst we all adjusted to resorting to paying for everything cash in hand, but in a years time it would be raising almost nothing.
    I can give you a whole lot of articles that confirm the Laffer Curve is nonsense. Here's one

    https://www.wupr.org/2012/09/11/the-laffer-curve-a-stupid-idea-that-just-wont-die/

    And another

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/01/trump-is-giving-arthur-laffer-presidential-medal-freedom-economists-arent-laughing/
    I can't read the second article (pay walled), but the 1st article doesn't dispute the existence of a Laffer Curve. It's making claims about its shape, specifically that a tax rate of 35% is not over its peak. It actually say that at very high rates (80-90%) there will be a noticeable effect.

    Given our discussion was sparked by the Scottish government going for a marginal rate for some people of 69.5%, rather than denying there is a curve, we could perhaps move on to the more interesting question, namely - is 69.5% over the revenue maximising peak or not?
    Try this for size

    https://ctmirror.org/2018/01/18/why-the-laffer-curve-is-garbage/
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
    If he can't stand as a Republican because he is disqualified by engaging in insurrection, he can't stand as an independent either.
    He can in states which haven't disqualified him
    The judgement of the US Supreme Court upholding the Colorada Supreme Court decision means Trump is disqualified in all states.

    Overturning it means he will likely be on the ballot in all states.

    The Supreme Court refusing to hear the appeal means the Colorado judgment stands (he is barred there as being an insurrectionist). As he would be in any other states ruling the same way. Although it would be a hellish hodgepodge of some states on, some off.

    Hence why the Supreme Court really needs to take the case. (And really, really needs to support Colorado. IMHO.)
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited December 2023

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
    If he can't stand as a Republican because he is disqualified by engaging in insurrection, he can't stand as an independent either.
    He can in states which haven't disqualified him
    The judgement of the US Supreme Court upholding the Colorada Supreme Court decision means Trump is disqualified in all states.

    Overturning it means he will likely be on the ballot in all states.

    The Supreme Court refusing to hear the appeal means the Colorado judgment stands (he is barred there as being an insurrectionist). As he would be in any other states ruling the same way. Although it would be a hellish hodgepodge of some states on, some off.

    Hence why the Supreme Court really needs to take the case. (And really, really needs to support Colorado. IMHO.)
    Not saying they will but couldn't they also uphold Colorado's right to do whatever Colorado wants to do according to its own laws and constitution? Colorado wasn't going to be a pivotal state anyhow and the GOP generally like the idea that their (gerrymandered) legislatures can do whatever they like.

    If they did that, do we reckon any swing states or GOP states would follow Colorado?
  • Plot twist: Colorado GOP nominate a locally popular Republican who beats Biden where Trump would have lost, then casts their electoral votes for Donald Trump.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,558

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    Next stop the Supreme Court.

    Colorado Supreme Court rules that Trump is "disqualified from holding the office of President" and shouldn't be listed on the ballot.
    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1737250287440564407

    This is good news for the GOP if it disbars Donald Trump for standing as POTUS.

    Pretty much anyone from the Republicans other than Trump could beat the doddery, senile old fool Biden in a head to head.

    In fact I predict if Trump doesn't stand, the Dems will push Joe under this bus at the last minute and bring on a fresh face to take on the Republican candidate.
    The evidence doesn't really suggest that.

    Indeed the latest Harris poll has Biden beating Haley 42% to 40% and Biden beating DeSantis 44% to 41% but Trump beating Biden 43% to 35%.

    Trump is a bit like Boris, some blue collar voters will vote for them but they wouldn't bother to vote for any other Republican nominee or Tory leader
    https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf
    The Harris poll is out of line with pretty much every other polling company, some of which have Haley leading Biden by double digits.
    Indeed. And that's before people actually get to see Joe against [whoever] in a series of "head to head" TV debates...
    They already see him as President and of Trump isn't GOP nominee he almost certainly stands as a third party candidate in every state he can get on the ballot, splitting the GOP vote
    If he can't stand as a Republican because he is disqualified by engaging in insurrection, he can't stand as an independent either.
    He can in states which haven't disqualified him
    The judgement of the US Supreme Court upholding the Colorada Supreme Court decision means Trump is disqualified in all states.

    Overturning it means he will likely be on the ballot in all states.

    The Supreme Court refusing to hear the appeal means the Colorado judgment stands (he is barred there as being an insurrectionist). As he would be in any other states ruling the same way. Although it would be a hellish hodgepodge of some states on, some off.

    Hence why the Supreme Court really needs to take the case. (And really, really needs to support Colorado. IMHO.)
    Not saying they will but couldn't they also uphold Colorado's right to do whatever Colorado wants to do according to its own laws and constitution? Colorado wasn't going to be a pivotal state anyhow and the GOP generally like the idea that their (gerrymandered) legislatures can do whatever they like.

    If they did that, do we reckon any swing states or GOP states would follow Colorado?
    Wisconsin would be one to watch then. A Republican legislature but a Democrat-controlled Supreme Court.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,035

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137
    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    edited December 2023
    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    The SC will over rule the decision. We should remember Trump hasn’t been convicted of any charges yet relating to the Capitol riots. And I expect that will be part of their reasoning .

    Most sane people know Trump is unfit for office but state SCs should tread warily because it opens up a Pandora’s box of future problems.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    HYUFD said:

    That Colorado Supreme Court judgment is 200 pages long. And goes into great detail why Trump cannot be on the ballot. It finds he engaged in insurrection through his personal actions - and his inciting of the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment.

    This one will run and run. Expect many other states to go this route now. Especially for states getting expedited rulings where there is an early primary.

    Trump is done. Bet accordingly.

    You don’t think Trump will be able to turn the “who governs?” narrative to his advantage?
    No, not when he is going to be found guilty of systemic fraud in his business empire.
    Time is ticking on. Trump's lawyers only have to stall for a few months and we are in Third Reich territory.

    I hope you are right, but I fear the World is entering a dark phase. And this f***** doesn't plan to make the same schoolboy errors he made last time.
    You can't stall a criminal trial for months and Trump's first one starts next March.

    In any case even if he did win again he would need the army behind him to go dictator and that didn't happen in Jan 2021
    You can, with the connivance of the judge, and Judge Cannon has allowed him to do just that in the documents case.
    It's also provable that the current schedule she has set isn't going to be met, as she's put roadblocks in its way.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    edited December 2023
    Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    But she is a huge “personality” on social media and TikTok. Mary will go on to have a huge 2nd career as fun TV presenter I confidently predict.

    If I was the manager I would say stop biff boffing each other around like this - Ella goes flying!

    https://www.tiktok.com/@1maryearps/video/7208237890525203718
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    Andy_JS said:

    So will Trump really be barred from standing in Colorado, or is it likely to get caught up in never-ending legal wrangles?

    The US Supreme Court will likely overturn it, both on the basis that Trump was impeached and cleared of the offences in question, and that the 14th Amendment doesn’t cover the office of President.

    There’s a lot of electoral lawfare going to happen in the US next year, which I can’t see is going to be in any way good for democracy.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    But she is a huge “personality” on social media and TikTok. Mary will go on to have a huge 2nd career as fun TV presenter I confidently predict.

    If I was the manager I would say stop biff boffing each other around like this - Ella goes flying!

    https://www.tiktok.com/@1maryearps/video/7208237890525203718
    I’m obviously getting old. Back in my day, they used to give awards to people based on their sporting achievements rather than their social media following.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Most of my team are scottish, the ones affected by the new tax rate are already looking at paying more into penisons/salary sacrifice schemes. One also remarked when I mentioned it that most of what it collected was going to be spent on collecting it

    1. I thought you were always moaning about how your wages had stagnated and were piss-poor because of globalisation. Yet your team are all earning over £75k?

    2. The cost of collection is trivial surely? Plug the figures in, run the calculation and either the employer deducts and pays the tax or the self-employed pay it direct to HMRC.
    I don't think it's trivial. I wouldn't like to be the IT team in charge of assessing whether everyone's tax was subject to Scottish tax rates or English ones. But it's small compared to the amount raised by taxation. But my expectation is that this will be a net loss to the Scottish exchequer - they will lose more in discouraging people to earn than they will raise in people paying more tax, even if the cost of collection is ignored. But it will be an interesting experiment.
    It’s really simple, if your address has a Scottish postcode your tax code has an S in front of it and you are subject to Scottish tax rates.

    Payments need to be reported to HMRC via RTI and the money is paid directly to HMRC alongside payments for other employees

    Supposedly the amount raised is £80m or so which is accurate if IR35 remains as it is because (as was pointed out elsewhere) it’s hard to switch to dividends if you are an employee being paid via PAYE
    Fair enough. It IS trivial then. I stand corrected.

    But, well, yes, it might nominally raise £80m based on tax paid right now. But it will soon have the effect of driving down the amount of tax paid. What would you do if you were earning £80k and tax rates went up to 45% for earnings above £75k? You would cut back the amount you earned, surely - either by paying into pension, or, more likely, doing less work. Or, longer term you might move to England. Certainly your high paying employer would find they could offer more attractive packages to English based staff than Scottish based. And highly paid work would dribble southwards.

    Highly paid people are highly paid because they are motivated by money. I find it hard to imagine this won't have an effect.
    But tax rates are only one factor affecting disposable income. Housing costs for example may be substantially lower in Scotland, thereby making up the difference.

    Decisions to relocate are rarely made purely on tax rates for individuals, but rather influenced by a lot of lifestyle factors.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    But she is a huge “personality” on social media and TikTok. Mary will go on to have a huge 2nd career as fun TV presenter I confidently predict.

    If I was the manager I would say stop biff boffing each other around like this - Ella goes flying!

    https://www.tiktok.com/@1maryearps/video/7208237890525203718
    I’m obviously getting old. Back in my day, they used to give awards to people based on their sporting achievements rather than their social media following.
    I think you may have summoned it up very well there, drawing our attention to your rose tinted glasses 🙂

    Whether this is a new era of celebrity due to social media, or if back in the day this award was just the same when people also won it because of greater publicity and number of “followers” of their sport. Didn’t Newcastle player Paul Gazza Gascoigne win this despite winning no sporting accolade outside of nightclubbing and fishing?

    Mary’s award couldn’t have gone to a nicer person.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,371

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    Michael Gove and Grant Shapps are looking to find a way to ensure that ‘scrapped’ cars and trucks can be sent to Ukraine, after Sadiq Khan said they couldn’t be due to a ‘legal technicality’.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/19/gove-could-overturn-sadiq-khan-decision-block-cars-ukraine/
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    That’s not official yet. It’s just my guess at this stage. But I do think there is some logic there in that he could be a tougher candidate with personal vote in a tight race, than an unknown.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,371
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate who’s been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    AIUI he hasn’t actually been found guilty. Parliament’s processes have concluded it likely happened, which isn’t the same thing.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    ydoethur said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate who’s been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    AIUI he hasn’t actually been found guilty. Parliament’s processes have concluded it likely happened, which isn’t the same thing.
    The public aren’t going to make that distinction and having had the whip withdrawn are the Tories now going to say fine you’re our candidate . Even by the low standards set by the government not sure restoring the Tory whip to Bone would be a good look!
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    ydoethur said:

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
    Brilliant answer 👍🏻. I wasn’t all that wrong in my research, you have given me some good fact to add.

    What did semi independent mean though? What were they doing wrong the pope didn’t like? Or was it the other way round, they weren’t doing Christianity wrong, the Pope just wanted more subordination - which might be just the same reason as the Emperor martyring St George? Wasn’t the Saxon a flag a Dragon, and the Christian physiologus much prefers lions as its symbol.
  • Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    So will Trump really be barred from standing in Colorado, or is it likely to get caught up in never-ending legal wrangles?

    The US Supreme Court will likely overturn it, both on the basis that Trump was impeached and cleared of the offences in question, and that the 14th Amendment doesn’t cover the office of President.

    There’s a lot of electoral lawfare going to happen in the US next year, which I can’t see is going to be in any way good for democracy.
    Happily the US is barely a democracy as it is. Trump has declared he will act as a dictator if reelected and that ends democracy full stop. People seem happy to vote for dictatorship.

    Will PM Starmer have us support the insurrection as the US breaks apart?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859

    isam said:

    isam said:

    So a footballer who didn’t win the World Cup wins SPOTY. Classic.

    It’s about “personality” in sport isn’t it?
    Not really - the ‘personality’ is a convenient way of saying sportsman/sportswoman.
    Okay. 🙂

    Meanwhile, tomorrow’s metro has Prince Andrew sweating over the Christmas holiday 💦
    The “I” has MI6 announcing water is wet - to borrow a phrase.
    Teaching children they can be born in the wrong body is harmful - Kemi Badenoch owns the Daily Mail tomorrow.

    This is just easily ignored guidelines from the government though, so tough talk and headlines like this is cheap sometimes, isn’t it?
    Telegraph - Starmer frees dangerous criminals. “What Starmer did has a terrible impact on my family. It shouldn’t have been allowed.”

    Sunak has spent a lot Tory money on election guru’s, to hollow out Starmer with this stuff slipped into friendly media. Why does it feel like it won’t work?
    Because Labour are such heavy odds on favourites, it doesn’t make sense to think that
    they won’t win. I can’t see how they won’t win myself.

    But NOM was 1/10 in 2015, and people on here were talking of it as free money for months before the GE

    Remain was big odds on and tipped as value at 2/9 on here in 2016. It was 1/12 at the close of
    polling and it lost

    Then Theresa May’s Tories were 1/6 to get a majority in 2017 and that didn’t happen either

    The only successful fav has been Boris’s GE, and this site was getting bombarded with Corbynites saying it was going to be a lot closer than the betting made it

    So, I’m with you, I think it’s all over. But three of the last four big favs in elections have been turned over when they seemed certain to win
    It’s also a case how long polls have been set on something, that makes the turn around a shock. Neither leave or remain had a long history of being 15% or more ahead in 2016.

    My point though wasn’t so much the attempt to hollow out Starmer by spinning titbits of his record from 5 year stint as DPP actually flipping the polls around, but will this strategy even hurt Starmer? It feels like a political campaign going through the motions, like a sports team in the middle of a slump.

    All the usual donors have come to the pub to watch Rishi strip and drop up and down on a poll. A jugs gone round that’s fill to the brim. The usual strategists hired. The usual outlets publishing what’s been given them. But it just looks so bland and half hearted on the page, considering how much it all costs.

    Trump on the other hand would make all this actually work. Saville, Saville, Saville.
    Obviously Boris would have been better at that kind of attack . It doesn’t seem to suit Sunak to go down that road. Personally I think he/they should be highlighting the way Sir Keir has gone back on almost everything he has said in his eight years as a politician; it’s all out there. He plays the ‘Mr Integrity’ card but it’s all nonsense. He does look and sound like someone honest that you’d trust though, so it might be difficult to shift the image.

    Better that than shouting that he’s a nonse defender etc, I think. That just gives him the chance to say they’re acting like internet conspiracy theorists, and look more statesmanlike as a result
    Agreed.

    The better cards the Tories have to play are, yes, it’s been tough, but we’ve turned a corner, with us that means tax cuts, with Labour that means Green Taxes.

    But just as Sunak is not the Trumpian “Saville, Saville, Saville” effective attack dog, nor does his incessant upbeat messaging work with the sober, yes it’s been tough, we’ve turned the corner, you now have the choice of green shoots nourished into tax cuts under us, or green shoots trampled by Labours ideological commitments under them.

    That sober message handled deftly, sober statesmanlike, would narrow the polls.
    sober message?

    handled deftly??

    I think they’re well beyond all that.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    Sandpit said:

    Michael Gove and Grant Shapps are looking to find a way to ensure that ‘scrapped’ cars and trucks can be sent to Ukraine, after Sadiq Khan said they couldn’t be due to a ‘legal technicality’.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/19/gove-could-overturn-sadiq-khan-decision-block-cars-ukraine/

    It’s nice of them to help him get beyond that legal block quickly in what he said he wants to do. It’s good to see all these politicians working together on this.

    It’s probably half a million more fighters the Ukrainians need though. Where are they going to get them from?
  • RattersRatters Posts: 1,076
    Larger drop in inflation than expected from 4.6% to 3.9%.

    It means cumulative inflation over the last 6 months has been just 0.3%.

    I think the battle has been won - it's now just a matter of the high inflation from early 2023 falling out of the 12 month figures that get reported.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    IanB2 said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    So a footballer who didn’t win the World Cup wins SPOTY. Classic.

    It’s about “personality” in sport isn’t it?
    Not really - the ‘personality’ is a convenient way of saying sportsman/sportswoman.
    Okay. 🙂

    Meanwhile, tomorrow’s metro has Prince Andrew sweating over the Christmas holiday 💦
    The “I” has MI6 announcing water is wet - to borrow a phrase.
    Teaching children they can be born in the wrong body is harmful - Kemi Badenoch owns the Daily Mail tomorrow.

    This is just easily ignored guidelines from the government though, so tough talk and headlines like this is cheap sometimes, isn’t it?
    Telegraph - Starmer frees dangerous criminals. “What Starmer did has a terrible impact on my family. It shouldn’t have been allowed.”

    Sunak has spent a lot Tory money on election guru’s, to hollow out Starmer with this stuff slipped into friendly media. Why does it feel like it won’t work?
    Because Labour are such heavy odds on favourites, it doesn’t make sense to think that
    they won’t win. I can’t see how they won’t win myself.

    But NOM was 1/10 in 2015, and people on here were talking of it as free money for months before the GE

    Remain was big odds on and tipped as value at 2/9 on here in 2016. It was 1/12 at the close of
    polling and it lost

    Then Theresa May’s Tories were 1/6 to get a majority in 2017 and that didn’t happen either

    The only successful fav has been Boris’s GE, and this site was getting bombarded with Corbynites saying it was going to be a lot closer than the betting made it

    So, I’m with you, I think it’s all over. But three of the last four big favs in elections have been turned over when they seemed certain to win
    It’s also a case how long polls have been set on something, that makes the turn around a shock. Neither leave or remain had a long history of being 15% or more ahead in 2016.

    My point though wasn’t so much the attempt to hollow out Starmer by spinning titbits of his record from 5 year stint as DPP actually flipping the polls around, but will this strategy even hurt Starmer? It feels like a political campaign going through the motions, like a sports team in the middle of a slump.

    All the usual donors have come to the pub to watch Rishi strip and drop up and down on a poll. A jugs gone round that’s fill to the brim. The usual strategists hired. The usual outlets publishing what’s been given them. But it just looks so bland and half hearted on the page, considering how much it all costs.

    Trump on the other hand would make all this actually work. Saville, Saville, Saville.
    Obviously Boris would have been better at that kind of attack . It doesn’t seem to suit Sunak to go down that road. Personally I think he/they should be highlighting the way Sir Keir has gone back on almost everything he has said in his eight years as a politician; it’s all out there. He plays the ‘Mr Integrity’ card but it’s all nonsense. He does look and sound like someone honest that you’d trust though, so it might be difficult to shift the image.

    Better that than shouting that he’s a nonse defender etc, I think. That just gives him the chance to say they’re acting like internet conspiracy theorists, and look more statesmanlike as a result
    Agreed.

    The better cards the Tories have to play are, yes, it’s been tough, but we’ve turned a corner, with us that means tax cuts, with Labour that means Green Taxes.

    But just as Sunak is not the Trumpian “Saville, Saville, Saville” effective attack dog, nor does his incessant upbeat messaging work with the sober, yes it’s been tough, we’ve turned the corner, you now have the choice of green shoots nourished into tax cuts under us, or green shoots trampled by Labours ideological commitments under them.

    That sober message handled deftly, sober statesmanlike, would narrow the polls.
    sober message?

    handled deftly??

    I think they’re well beyond all that.
    Well beyond it in terms of adding another 5 years, probably yes. But well beyond it in turning horrible 150 seats left into a better 200+, probably no.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    Ratters said:

    Larger drop in inflation than expected from 4.6% to 3.9%.

    It means cumulative inflation over the last 6 months has been just 0.3%.

    I think the battle has been won - it's now just a matter of the high inflation from early 2023 falling out of the 12 month figures that get reported.

    Why can’t interest get slashed now? high interest rates hurting households and whole economy for sure, but why if it’s all so unnecessary pain?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,371
    edited December 2023

    ydoethur said:

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
    Brilliant answer 👍🏻. I wasn’t all that wrong in my research, you have given me some good fact to add.

    What did semi independent mean though? What were they doing wrong the pope didn’t like? Or was it the other way round, they weren’t doing Christianity wrong, the Pope just wanted more subordination - which might be just the same reason as the Emperor martyring St George? Wasn’t the Saxon a flag a Dragon, and the Christian physiologus much prefers lions as its symbol.

    ydoethur said:

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
    Brilliant answer 👍🏻. I wasn’t all that wrong in my research, you have given me some good fact to add.

    What did semi independent mean though? What were they doing wrong the pope didn’t like? Or was it the other way round, they weren’t doing Christianity wrong, the Pope just wanted more subordination - which might be just the same reason as the Emperor martyring St George? Wasn’t the Saxon a flag a Dragon, and the Christian physiologus much prefers lions as its symbol.
    It's a while since I've studied it, but AIR:

    1) The King, not the Pope, chose the Archbishops of Canterbury and York;

    2) The Saxon rite was somewhat different to the Roman one;

    3) This came at a time when the Papacy was seeking to re-energise itself and assert control over the Western church, following the Great Schism of 1054 and this was part of it;

    4) Most visibly, however, the church in England still allowed its priests (and monks/nuns) to marry while the Papacy had just ordered clerical celibacy.

    Although I've got a feeling that the cross of St George didn't become the official flag of England until the time Henry VIII was declared Fidei Defensor. (Bearing in mind, flags and symbols were very varied in the middle ages and there wasn't the obsession with them you get with the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century.) Could be wrong on that though.

    Edit - this is also one reason why so many Saxon churches were destroyed and replaced with Norman ones at the time of the conquest, and all but one of the bishops (the bishop of Worcester, for those who are interested) had been replaced within about five years of 1066.
  • RattersRatters Posts: 1,076

    Ratters said:

    Larger drop in inflation than expected from 4.6% to 3.9%.

    It means cumulative inflation over the last 6 months has been just 0.3%.

    I think the battle has been won - it's now just a matter of the high inflation from early 2023 falling out of the 12 month figures that get reported.

    Why can’t interest get slashed now? high interest rates hurting households and whole economy for sure, but why if it’s all so unnecessary pain?
    The market is already pricing in over 1% of rate cuts next year. I expect that number will increase further after today's data release.
  • Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    Who hasn't heard of Mary Earps?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
    Brilliant answer 👍🏻. I wasn’t all that wrong in my research, you have given me some good fact to add.

    What did semi independent mean though? What were they doing wrong the pope didn’t like? Or was it the other way round, they weren’t doing Christianity wrong, the Pope just wanted more subordination - which might be just the same reason as the Emperor martyring St George? Wasn’t the Saxon a flag a Dragon, and the Christian physiologus much prefers lions as its symbol.

    ydoethur said:

    Fishing said:

    State of Minnesota today authorized new state flag:

    "The commission finalized the design on Tuesday, December 19, 2023 by removing the stripes and altering the shape of the star, making the finalized design an all light-blue banner with a simplified shape of Minnesota on the hoist in dark-blue and a simplified eight-pointed star in the center of the shape. Unless the legislature decides to take further action, the new flag is set to begin flying on May 11, 2024."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Minnesota

    I still find it remarkable that after all these years, Hawaii's flag still includes the Union Jack...

    And don't get me started on the state flag of Alabama....
    Hawai'i flag is one of the oldest of any state in the Union.

    Selected and authorized by King Kamehameha I. Design VERY similar to that of East India Company, that along with mix of UK and USA stripes helped protect Hawai'ian ships (at that time the King's personal property) in distant foreign waters, at least from a distance.
    A remarkable throwback to a time literally centuries distant.

    Kinda cool they have been happy to retain it.
    England's flag is that of a Turkish saint who said he slew a monster that never existed. So we can't exactly throw stones.
    My understanding of Englands flag is different. Correct me where wrong as I teach this at Sunday school. 🙂

    It started as ship flag was flown on ships in med to show they were under protection. It came with the Norman’s, who were different type of Christian, more papal, than those who created England. St George did not claim to kill Dragon, he was Roman (of Asia Minor descent) top commander publicly chopped up (martyred) for refusing to recognise the Emperor as a greater authority than the Christian God. The dragon story is likely a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, thus saving them in that sense.

    I love the Christian stories about Dragons and worms I do. I like it when they are cut open and all the people eaten are saved. They probably start out in Greek mythology, where things in the sky, like meteorites crashing to earth were thought of to be worm creatures out the void by their appearance in sky and noise they made.
    It was the Papal banner for any army marching to a war declared a crusade.

    The first such war was the Norman conquest of England in 1066, which had papal backing due to the Pope’s desire to bring the church in England (which was semi-independent) firmly under Rome’s control.
    Brilliant answer 👍🏻. I wasn’t all that wrong in my research, you have given me some good fact to add.

    What did semi independent mean though? What were they doing wrong the pope didn’t like? Or was it the other way round, they weren’t doing Christianity wrong, the Pope just wanted more subordination - which might be just the same reason as the Emperor martyring St George? Wasn’t the Saxon a flag a Dragon, and the Christian physiologus much prefers lions as its symbol.
    It's a while since I've studied it, but AIR:

    1) The King, not the Pope, chose the Archbishops of Canterbury and York;

    2) The Saxon rite was somewhat different to the Roman one;

    3) This came at a time when the Papacy was seeking to re-energise itself and assert control over the Western church, following the Great Schism of 1054 and this was part of it;

    4) Most visibly, however, the church in England still allowed its priests (and monks/nuns) to marry while the Papacy had just ordered clerical celibacy.

    Although I've got a feeling that the cross of St George didn't become the official flag of England until the time Henry VIII was declared Fidei Defensor. (Bearing in mind, flags and symbols were very varied in the middle ages and there wasn't the obsession with them you get with the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century.) Could be wrong on that though.

    Edit - this is also one reason why so many Saxon churches were destroyed and replaced with Norman ones at the time of the conquest, and all but one of the bishops (the bishop of Worcester, for those who are interested) had been replaced within about five years of 1066.
    The last time I went on the Queen Mary 2, I went to a lecture about all this by a guy who was an expert on St George. I only wish I could remember any of it.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    Who hasn't heard of Mary Earps?
    Me! I genuinely hadn’t heard the name before this morning, as opposed to all the other names on the nominations list.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    It will be interesting if they do.

    Would this be the first byelection where the recalled candidate stood again for their party?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,371
    At the time of the Colorado lower court ruling I expressed unease, both at the ridiculous idea that the person holding the office of President wasn't an office holder and at the judge declaring almost as an aside that Trump was guilty of insurrection, which even though Trump is a lying mad criminal twat should have been a matter for a jury to decide.

    I wonder if the judge is now regretting he didn't rule the other way - that Trump is an officer but nothing can be done unless he's found guilty following due process? Can't imagine he would have been upset on that by anyone.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,371
    Foxy said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    It will be interesting if they do.

    Would this be the first byelection where the recalled candidate stood again for their party?
    Brecon and Radnor in 2019.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    Foxy said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    It will be interesting if they do.

    Would this be the first byelection where the recalled candidate stood again for their party?
    No. It’s already happened I think.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    So it seems that the BBC are now putting the sports awards show on some random day in the middle of the week, then giving the main award to someone that no-one has heard of and who didn’t win anything this year?

    Who hasn't heard of Mary Earps?
    Me! I genuinely hadn’t heard the name before this morning, as opposed to all the other names on the nominations list.
    Wow. Maybe this is because you live abroad? The Lionesses enjoyed a very high media profile here in the UK this year, I would guess the average person could name more members of that team than the England cricket team.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    Foxy said:

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I see we are to have a by-election in Peter Bone's constituency.

    Peter Bone still denies “everything” and I suspect will be the Con candidate in the seat. That might make it harder not easier for Labour to win it, is my reading of it.
    Not sure I understand the logic here . Most guilty people proclaim their innocence , Bone can deny as much as he likes , the panel found him guilty. Why didn’t he appeal the original decision ? Not sure bullying and exposing oneself is a winner on a campaign leaflet .
    He will deny it. And rely on his personal support built up over years is the logic. In a tight race that couple of thousand extra could make all the difference.
    So the Tories are going to give the green light and allow a candidate whose been found guilty of those offenses to stand as their official candidate . Really ! Good luck with that .
    It will be interesting if they do.

    Would this be the first byelection where the recalled candidate stood again for their party?
    No. It’s already happened I think.
    Chris Davies, Brecon and Radnorshire, 2019.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Brecon_and_Radnorshire_by-election
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