One government initiative I welcome - revenue protection are unfriendly and aggressive, and often try and entrap passengers just trying to do the right thing rather than target serial offenders - which makes me wonder if they have "targets" to catch a certain number of "faredodgers" and are incentivised accordingly:
The ones at Manchester Piccadilly are utter arseholes.
Northern Trains are often late/cancelled so people have legitimately bought an off peak ticket but arrive at peak time due to delays/cancellations.
HTF is it possible to arrive at a peak time. In London for as long as I've known (so mid 80s) the evening peak fate is for people leaving London during peak hours
The definition of "peak" for fare purposes varies both geographically and by ticket type. For instance for a return ticket from Cambridge to London there is always a morning peak on the way out, but whether there is a peak period in the evening which you must avoid when going home depends on whether it is a day return or a period return ticket; I forget off the top of my head which way round it is...
It is not really clear what is the basis of the objection in the header, at least on principle, other than that the practical details have not been nailed down.
That a private member's bill is badly drafted is almost a given since many government bills are badly drafted, at least if the number of amendments is any guide.
If suicide and attempted suicide are legal, what is the principled objection to assisted suicide? To placing the metaphorical pearl-handled revolver by the hospital bed? Are we to ban the infirm from travel to Switzerland, just in case?
But yes, I have no real answer to the questions around coercion, or how to judge imminent death (although in practice, many doctors do this every day with varying and probably unmeasured degrees of accuracy: most of us will have experienced that call to come and visit our relatives whose death is thought to be imminent) or how to allow staff to opt out.
What worries me more in immediate practical terms is that doctors, especially in this post-Shipman age, might be withholding adequate pain relief where death is a possible side effect.
Afaics ‘assisted suicide’ is already present in treatment, in certain forms anyway. My friend with MND whose life came to end almost exactly two years ago had an assisted death in everything but name. He discussed with his care team exactly what would happen months before his death, that is being taken into a hospice, withdrawal from his respirator which he was completely dependent upon by that point, and whatever heroic amounts of sedation would be needed to reduce discomfort as he asphyxiated. The whole process took less than 36 hours.
The crime of this bill is that it challenges the great British vice of hypocrisy, attempting to formalise something that everyone knows goes on but would rather avert their eyes from.
It's not hypocrisy that is the vice here, but the pretence that prolonging someone's death is the same as prolonging their life.
I’d argue that this is a kind of hypocrisy, but yes. As with so much of what goes on nowadays, it’s become about the personal and the feels. I get eg why disabled people might feel uncomfortable about any such legislation and noisily oppose it, but is their discomfort a valid reason for imposing their view on everyone? Since the proposition is that assistance would only be given when illness is terminal within 6 months, I don’t see why anyone with a lifelong or long term disability would be affected. The argument seems to be that this is the thin end of the wedge which is always a crap argument against anything.
As cyclefree noted, we can’t tell reliably tell who is terminal within 6 months. My aunt was diagnosed as terminal within 6 months about 5 years ago, for example, and she is doing fine. I don’t see this as an insuperable problem, but we need to be conscious of it.
Yes, that is difficult to quantify. I’d rather look at how agonising and degrading the next 6 (or 12 or 18) months of life are likely to be which I imagine would be largely based on the previous 6 months. Again I accept that would be difficult to formally define.
It is not really clear what is the basis of the objection in the header, at least on principle, other than that the practical details have not been nailed down.
That a private member's bill is badly drafted is almost a given since many government bills are badly drafted, at least if the number of amendments is any guide.
If suicide and attempted suicide are legal, what is the principled objection to assisted suicide? To placing the metaphorical pearl-handled revolver by the hospital bed? Are we to ban the infirm from travel to Switzerland, just in case?
But yes, I have no real answer to the questions around coercion, or how to judge imminent death (although in practice, many doctors do this every day with varying and probably unmeasured degrees of accuracy: most of us will have experienced that call to come and visit our relatives whose death is thought to be imminent) or how to allow staff to opt out.
What worries me more in immediate practical terms is that doctors, especially in this post-Shipman age, might be withholding adequate pain relief where death is a possible side effect.
Afaics ‘assisted suicide’ is already present in treatment, in certain forms anyway. My friend with MND whose life came to end almost exactly two years ago had an assisted death in everything but name. He discussed with his care team exactly what would happen months before his death, that is being taken into a hospice, withdrawal from his respirator which he was completely dependent upon by that point, and whatever heroic amounts of sedation would be needed to reduce discomfort as he asphyxiated. The whole process took less than 36 hours.
The crime of this bill is that it challenges the great British vice of hypocrisy, attempting to formalise something that everyone knows goes on but would rather avert their eyes from.
It's not hypocrisy that is the vice here, but the pretence that prolonging someone's death is the same as prolonging their life.
I’d argue that this is a kind of hypocrisy, but yes. As with so much of what goes on nowadays, it’s become about the personal and the feels. I get eg why disabled people might feel uncomfortable about any such legislation and noisily oppose it, but is their discomfort a valid reason for imposing their view on everyone? Since the proposition is that assistance would only be given when illness is terminal within 6 months, I don’t see why anyone with a lifelong or long term disability would be affected. The argument seems to be that this is the thin end of the wedge which is always a crap argument against anything.
As cyclefree noted, we can’t tell reliably tell who is terminal within 6 months. My aunt was diagnosed as terminal within 6 months about 5 years ago, for example. I don’t see this as an insuperable problem, but we need to be conscious of it.
Also does that 6 months principle extend to the very elderly? There's probably a good chance that an 89 year old could die within 6 months or they might live to be 100.
Actually quite a low chance. Life expectancy at 90 for a woman is 4.6 years, at 3.9 years for a man.
Even at age 100, average life expectancy is 2 years.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
The news we have so far suggest that his appointments are based largely on personal loyalty to Trump. Something which runs counter to the US oath of office, which stipulates loyalty only to the constitution.
The same principle seems to be about to be applied to the military.
Trump draft executive order would set up board to oust generals en masse
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4987537-trump-draft-executive-order-would-set-up-board-to-oust-generals-report/ The transition team for President-elect Trump is working on an executive order that would speed up the firing of top military brass if signed, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The draft executive order would set up a “warrior board” of retired generals and noncommissioned officers given power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend anyone “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to the document, reviewed by the Journal. If signed by Trump once he takes office, it could allow the quick removal of generals and admirals and purge the ranks of those the future commander-in-chief takes issue with for whatever reason...
Purging the military for lack of ideological soundness in the eyes of the Great Leader.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
Now, it's some time since I looked at this, but I think a significant chunk of the Department of Education's budget is effectively subsidizing student loan programs in the US. If you were to shut it down, it would have pretty negative consequences for the ability of low income Americans to go to University.
Great header @Cyclefree, meaning that I share a lot of your doubts about the proposed changes.
I think family coercion and budding Dr Shipmans are problems that cannot be ignored or hand-waved away.
@Stocky mum is a sad case, but does show the importance of establishing MPOA so that family members can stop active treatments that are needlessly prolonging discomfort and distress. That cessation of active treatment is different to active euthanasia, at least in my mind. Ceasing active treatment is a fairly common clinical decision.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
The news we have so far suggest that his appointments are based largely on personal loyalty to Trump. Something which runs counter to the US oath of office, which stipulates loyalty only to the constitution.
The same principle seems to be about to be applied to the military.
Trump draft executive order would set up board to oust generals en masse
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4987537-trump-draft-executive-order-would-set-up-board-to-oust-generals-report/ The transition team for President-elect Trump is working on an executive order that would speed up the firing of top military brass if signed, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The draft executive order would set up a “warrior board” of retired generals and noncommissioned officers given power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend anyone “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to the document, reviewed by the Journal. If signed by Trump once he takes office, it could allow the quick removal of generals and admirals and purge the ranks of those the future commander-in-chief takes issue with for whatever reason...
Purging the military for lack of ideological soundness in the eyes of the Great Leader.
When has that ever gone wrong?
All a bit ironic that the military is being hollowed out by a draft dodger. Putin and Xi must be laughing their co*** off!
Still the enormous enthusiasm for Agent Orange on PB continues with gay abandon.
One government initiative I welcome - revenue protection are unfriendly and aggressive, and often try and entrap passengers just trying to do the right thing rather than target serial offenders - which makes me wonder if they have "targets" to catch a certain number of "faredodgers" and are incentivised accordingly:
The ones at Manchester Piccadilly are utter arseholes.
Northern Trains are often late/cancelled so people have legitimately bought an off peak ticket but arrive at peak time due to delays/cancellations.
HTF is it possible to arrive at a peak time. In London for as long as I've known (so mid 80s) the evening peak fate is for people leaving London during peak hours
Peak time in the afternoon is 4 to 6.30.
So you’re planning to get in on for 3.45 but you’re train is delayed and you get in for 4.30 with an off peak ticket.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
Now, it's some time since I looked at this, but I think a significant chunk of the Department of Education's budget is effectively subsidizing student loan programs in the US. If you were to shut it down, it would have pretty negative consequences for the ability of low income Americans to go to University.
OK. I looked it up:
About half of the Department of Education's total budget is spent on various programs in this area: $28bn (a quarter of the total budget) is Pell Grants for low income students, plus a significant chunk is paying for defaults on student loans (FEEL) where low income students borrowed money from the private sector but the government guarantees the loans. (This is are $238bn of currently outstanding loans where the government is on the hook. I don't know what defaults will be, but I would guess in excess of $10bn each year).
There have been a few times in my life when I have felt so bad that I have wanted to die. When I felt that I did not deserve to live, that the world would be improved by removing myself from it.
One of the factors that prevented me from following through on this was struggling to think of how to die without being even more troublesome to the world I would leave behind. Suicide inevitably creates a mess.
One thing that makes me incredibly nervous about assisted dying is that it would open up an avenue where those problems would be dealt with. I could imagine feeling some relief at accepting the offer of an assisted death, and having professionals to help me with it. This makes me feel very unsafe.
This bill limits use to someone who is likely to die within 6 months according to a doctor. It's for the terminally ill, not the same as suicide.
That's what the Bill says now. Yes. But once the principle is established that is easier to change. And sometimes these things can be implemented in a very broad way. What if it becomes accepted practice for a medical professional to conclude that a very depressed person with suicidal ideation is likely to die from suicide within six months, and so can be considered "terminally ill"?
The way in which abortion is regulated in Britain is a guide to this. Abortion was introduced with a number of safeguards in Britain. Two doctors would be required to sign off on it. Abortion could only be granted in a restricted number of circumstances - it isn't abortion on demand. Yet the implementation of the law has been quite different. The second doctor is a mere formality. The circumstance of "mental distress for the pregnant woman" has in practice been used as a catch-all that permits abortion on demand.
I think it is fair to be concerned about scope creep, and whether the Bill is written in a way that keeps its implementation to the restricted circumstances as claimed. Perhaps a more explicit protection for people suffering from mental illness should be added to the Bill?
One government initiative I welcome - revenue protection are unfriendly and aggressive, and often try and entrap passengers just trying to do the right thing rather than target serial offenders - which makes me wonder if they have "targets" to catch a certain number of "faredodgers" and are incentivised accordingly:
The ones at Manchester Piccadilly are utter arseholes.
Northern Trains are often late/cancelled so people have legitimately bought an off peak ticket but arrive at peak time due to delays/cancellations.
HTF is it possible to arrive at a peak time. In London for as long as I've known (so mid 80s) the evening peak fate is for people leaving London during peak hours
Peak time in the afternoon is 4 to 6.30.
So you’re planning to get in on for 3.45 but you’re train is delayed and you get in for 4.30 with an off peak ticket.
Oh I can see how it works but it simply doesn't which is why they've never had it in London...
Great header @Cyclefree, meaning that I share a lot of your doubts about the proposed changes.
I think family coercion and budding Dr Shipmans are problems that cannot be ignored or hand-waved away.
@Stocky mum is a sad case, but does show the importance of establishing MPOA so that family members can stop active treatments that are needlessly prolonging discomfort and distress. That cessation of active treatment is different to active euthanasia, at least in my mind. Ceasing active treatment is a fairly common clinical decision.
I’ve encountered more coercion than I’d like, when it comes to making wills in peoples’ favour, and transferring property, so I can believe that.
Great header @Cyclefree, meaning that I share a lot of your doubts about the proposed changes.
I think family coercion and budding Dr Shipmans are problems that cannot be ignored or hand-waved away.
@Stocky mum is a sad case, but does show the importance of establishing MPOA so that family members can stop active treatments that are needlessly prolonging discomfort and distress. That cessation of active treatment is different to active euthanasia, at least in my mind. Ceasing active treatment is a fairly common clinical decision.
What is MPOA? Is this the health and welfare lasting power of attorney? We do have this. My mother is not feeling discomfort or distress as far as we can tell physically. And mentally she has no capacity. What I know for sure is that she would have been distressed to imagine the last years of her life will be like this.
If I called the GP to stop medication (not sure I can do this) what would I seem like in the eyes of the GP and, more permanently, the care home manager (who has a vested interest in prolonging life for as long as possible)?
What protections can I take now (regarding my own wishes) to protect my family the best I can?
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
As a supporter in principle of assisted dying I am struck by the force of Cyclefree's points. Does Cyclefree think that it would in fact be possible to draft legislation which was more or less immune from these sorts of criticism however hard we tried?
As a supporter in principle of assisted dying I am struck by the force of Cyclefree's points. Does Cyclefree think that it would in fact be possible to draft legislation which was more or less immune from these sorts of criticism however hard we tried?
What are the laws in Switzerland? What are the problems with the Swiss system? And why don't we simply copy them?
Because it seems that - right now - we already have assisted suicide for the moderately well off: they just hop on a plane to Switzerland and head of to Dignitas.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Nate Silver did a good article on this, showing how much weaker the Harris stuff was compared to the Obama era and compared to the Trump material.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
Now, it's some time since I looked at this, but I think a significant chunk of the Department of Education's budget is effectively subsidizing student loan programs in the US. If you were to shut it down, it would have pretty negative consequences for the ability of low income Americans to go to University.
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
I have seen the future of universities. And it’s called General Luna
It’s a classic backpacker town on Sirgao island in the Philippines. It’s grown up around a very nice surf break called “cloud 9”
The pace is idyllic half the people are barefoot the variety of bars and pubs and pizza shacks and special ice bath 24/7 juice bars with free pedicures is amazing. The sea is blue the air is soft the beer is cheap and there’s 3000 young people
There are signs everywhere for “digital nomad” conferences but I don’t think it’s stressed out consultants who will be attracted here in the future. Its kids. As most careers are progressively closed down and university becomes increasingly pointless why will kids take on massive debt to go to uni? For the social experience? Meeting people?
Maybe. But they could come to General luna and have a very nice life for $100 a week and maybe learn remotely if they insist or just surf and screw and drink and they will do all that socialising on the beach instead of in freezing expensive places like Paris london or New York - or Oxford or heidelberg or Harvard
Universities are fucked. All our kids will want to go to General Luna
As a supporter in principle of assisted dying I am struck by the force of Cyclefree's points. Does Cyclefree think that it would in fact be possible to draft legislation which was more or less immune from these sorts of criticism however hard we tried?
I also support assisted dying but I think Cyclefree's points here are spot on. Such a fundamental change in the law which is literally a matter of life and death should not be rushed. And it certainly should not contain the sorts of issues that are highlighted in the piece. If I were in Parliament this week I would make clear my support for assisted dying and then vote against this bill.
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
I also don't agree with comparing suicide and assisted dying. There are often similarities, but often big differences. They are distinct.
Well said again.
Suicide attempts are often a cry for help, or a break in a moment.
Assisted dying is completely different and being regulated has essentially a built in cooling off period to ensure this is actually somebodies desired will.
If you want to (fallaciously) compare the two then getting people from unregulated taking actions in their own way through to a thoughtful, considered process with a cooling off period is essentially a part of suicide prevention, not it's antithesis.
This is a good example of why you are tedious to debate with.
You are dismissing a view as “fallacious” as a statement of fact. You believe that it is fallacious, others do not
Similarly you dismiss others arguments as “bullshit” if you disagree with them or ignore their statistics if they don’t support your preconceived notions.
It means that discussions with you are neither interesting nor illuminating.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Yeah I noticed that too. Lots of formerly Democrat voters going on journeys over the past year to becoming Trump voters having never voted Republican in their lives. Those videos almost always has millions of views and over 10:1 views to subscriber ratios. Again I have no idea if these journeys were real or the person making the video was legit but it felt authentic watching it.
I think what also felt convincing was the sheer number of women on the Trump side of the fence and most of them really very attractive compared to the Harris side which was invariably white men or blue haired white women with the septum piercing.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
Good header. I certainly have reservations about assisted suicide. While suicide is now legal allowing another to help you take your own life risks undue pressure being put on the patient. While the safeguard of a terminal illness in severe pain is meant to be there, in Canada now they now have even those with mental illness pressured to end their lives. Hence Conservative Opposition Leader Poilievre has promised to cut back on access to assisted suicide in Canada if elected PM next year
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Yeah I noticed that too. Lots of formerly Democrat voters going on journeys over the past year to becoming Trump voters having never voted Republican in their lives. Those videos almost always has millions of views and over 10:1 views to subscriber ratios. Again I have no idea if these journeys were real or the person making the video was legit but it felt authentic watching it.
I think what also felt convincing was the sheer number of women on the Trump side of the fence and most of them really very attractive compared to the Harris side which was invariably white men or blue haired white women with the septum piercing.
I have seen the future of universities. And it’s called General Luna
It’s a classic backpacker town on Sirgao island in the Philippines. It’s grown up around a very nice surf break called “cloud 9”
The pace is idyllic half the people are barefoot the variety of bars and pubs and pizza shacks and special ice bath 24/7 juice bars with free pedicures is amazing. The sea is blue the air is soft the beer is cheap and there’s 3000 young people
There are signs everywhere for “digital nomad” conferences but I don’t think it’s stressed out consultants who will be attracted here in the future. Its kids. As most careers are progressively closed down and university becomes increasingly pointless why will kids take on massive debt to go to uni? For the social experience? Meeting people?
Maybe. But they could come to General luna and have a very nice life for $100 a week and maybe learn remotely if they insist or just surf and screw and drink and they will do all that socialising on the beach instead of in freezing expensive places like Paris london or New York - or Oxford or heidelberg or Harvard
Universities are fucked. All our kids will want to go to General Luna
Nah, General Luna will just be their extended gap yah
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
I am not an atheist. I am agnostic. There is a big difference.
I have no problem with religious people having views on this; I said 'religion'. Religious people's views should carry no extra weight to those of the rest of us, and have zero extra strength from being a grouping.
As yesterday shows, religious people are more than willing to cause hurt and suffering, directly and indirectly, when it is to their advantage.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
Now, it's some time since I looked at this, but I think a significant chunk of the Department of Education's budget is effectively subsidizing student loan programs in the US. If you were to shut it down, it would have pretty negative consequences for the ability of low income Americans to go to University.
Which given graduates still voted mainly for Harris might be part of Trump's plan
Good header. I certainly have reservations about assisted suicide. While suicide is now legal allowing another to help you take your own life risks undue pressure being put on the patient. While the safeguard of a terminal illness in severe pain is meant to be there, in Canada now they now have even those with mental illness pressured to end their lives. Hence Conservative Opposition Leader Poilievre has promised to cut back on access to assisted suicide in Canada if elected PM next year
On undue pressure being put on the patient - the importance of this is being exaggerated. I doubt whether family coercion would happen given the patient has less that six months to live anyway. Forgive me but I suspect your objection is religious - only God should take life.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
But both believers and unbelievers are represented through the democratic process. The perspective of a believer is valid but not special. Why should believers get an extra go at representation? I have no qualms with the churches expressing a view but the fact that that view is religiously informed does not lend it more weight than the view of those whose view is based on secular reasoning. FWIW, I probably agree with the position of the CoE on this subject.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Further, by trying to deny religion a place in this, you will simply drive the religious input into the background. It will be there, anyway.
Source - was present, as child, while my father worked on medical ethics. He would invite senior people to the house to talk to them in a social context. Saw and heard conversations, where he gently teased out the fundamental beliefs of senior medical staff. Things where they thought "this is right" - he would try and find out why they thought that. Lots of cultural, but non practising religion, involved.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The big crunch comes next year when Congress has to renew the Trump tax cuts from his last administration - or they expire.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The big crunch comes next year when Congress has to renew the Trump tax cuts from his last administration - or they expire.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
And looking at what @rcs1000 posted earlier as with the UK budget - there is a lot of money being spent but very little that can actually be cut...
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Nate Silver did a good article on this, showing how much weaker the Harris stuff was compared to the Obama era and compared to the Trump material.
Have you got a link handy?
On your point about the DoE budget supporting students in default of their loans. Do you not think this is part of Trump's plan? He wants for Universities in the US to get rid of the woke infestation on campuses. Surely threatening to cut the funding from the DoE for defaulters will force them in line and they'll need to cut spending on DEI initiatives in order to not go bankrupt.
I'd have thought that this is the intended outcome of the policy - Universities going bankrupt and fewer kids going to college.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
You shouldn't force your religious views on others either. Difficult decisions should be made on the evidence regardless of religious views. Atheists have compassion also. Religion is not a prerequisite for doing the right thing.
Many on here are involved in charities, campaigning, etc regardless of religious views. Both my wife and I do and on different things, yet we are atheist. As I have said before, give it a try. It is very satisfying.
Mr. Eagles, do you think our current Parliamentarians have, on average, the same degree of intelligence and quality of training for their roles as doctors?
Do you believe the quality of the Lords will be improved by removing members who owe no favours to party leaders?
If they owe no favours to party leaders why do so many of the hereditaries take the Tory whip?
As the Tories have long been the party most supportive of our hereditary peers and their role in managing our great estates and experience they brought to the Lords before Blair removed most of them and Starmer completed the job. They have always long been too posh to be Labour but a few have been Liberal though again it was the Tories who opposed the Liberal Parliament Act early last century which meant the Lords could no longer block Commons laws.
There are a few Reform backing hereditaries too now such as the Duke of Marlborough who also is a friend of Trump, visiting him at Mar a Lago and hosting him at Blenheim Palace
If Musk is such a solo genius then how are shareholders in Tesla going to feel this morning now he has yet another big project on his hands?
One that will be a constant public row and total distraction from business.
He can funnel billions in state funds to Tesla. I'm sure they won't mind.
Tesla and SpaceX have been massive beneficiaries of Federal largesse in the past, of course.
With that said, I do wonder the extent to which Tesla is going to be harmed by Musk's closeness to the Trump administration. In the second quarter of this year, Tesla sales in California dropped by 24% year-over-year. Now, it's possible that this will be overcome by strength in sales in Texas and the like, but competition is increasing, and a trade war with China will almost certainly result in sanctions on Tesla in China.
It's also instructive to look at the Cybertruck. When it launched earlier this year, Tesla said that if you order one now you could expect to recieve it in 2026 or 2027. A three year wait time has come down to just 10 days now, and it's not because they're churning out massive numbers of trucks, it's because people have cancelled preorders.
Tesla is - of course - valued at around $1trillion. It is worth more than all the other car companies in the world combined. As a man who bought the original Tesla Roadsters, and as a believer that all cars will one day be electric, I've always been sceptical of Tesla shorters. But I do wonder if now is the time to gently take a negative position.
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry too much about interest payments.
On that note, the value of Biden's successful growth policies becomes a little more obvious.
Trump's economic populism is essentially a con on the vast majority of these who voted for him. Can he sustain it for four years ?
Especially if a combination of swingeing tariffs and mass deportation significantly impacts US growth.
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
Would you like to quantify "an awful lot" ? AFAIK, drugs constitute only around 10% of US healthcare spending.
It is not really clear what is the basis of the objection in the header, at least on principle, other than that the practical details have not been nailed down.
That a private member's bill is badly drafted is almost a given since many government bills are badly drafted, at least if the number of amendments is any guide.
If suicide and attempted suicide are legal, what is the principled objection to assisted suicide? To placing the metaphorical pearl-handled revolver by the hospital bed? Are we to ban the infirm from travel to Switzerland, just in case?
But yes, I have no real answer to the questions around coercion, or how to judge imminent death (although in practice, many doctors do this every day with varying and probably unmeasured degrees of accuracy: most of us will have experienced that call to come and visit our relatives whose death is thought to be imminent) or how to allow staff to opt out.
What worries me more in immediate practical terms is that doctors, especially in this post-Shipman age, might be withholding adequate pain relief where death is a possible side effect.
Afaics ‘assisted suicide’ is already present in treatment, in certain forms anyway. My friend with MND whose life came to end almost exactly two years ago had an assisted death in everything but name. He discussed with his care team exactly what would happen months before his death, that is being taken into a hospice, withdrawal from his respirator which he was completely dependent upon by that point, and whatever heroic amounts of sedation would be needed to reduce discomfort as he asphyxiated. The whole process took less than 36 hours.
The crime of this bill is that it challenges the great British vice of hypocrisy, attempting to formalise something that everyone knows goes on but would rather avert their eyes from.
It's not hypocrisy that is the vice here, but the pretence that prolonging someone's death is the same as prolonging their life.
I’d argue that this is a kind of hypocrisy, but yes. As with so much of what goes on nowadays, it’s become about the personal and the feels. I get eg why disabled people might feel uncomfortable about any such legislation and noisily oppose it, but is their discomfort a valid reason for imposing their view on everyone? Since the proposition is that assistance would only be given when illness is terminal within 6 months, I don’t see why anyone with a lifelong or long term disability would be affected. The argument seems to be that this is the thin end of the wedge which is always a crap argument against anything.
As cyclefree noted, we can’t tell reliably tell who is terminal within 6 months. My aunt was diagnosed as terminal within 6 months about 5 years ago, for example. I don’t see this as an insuperable problem, but we need to be conscious of it.
Also does that 6 months principle extend to the very elderly? There's probably a good chance that an 89 year old could die within 6 months or they might live to be 100.
Actually quite a low chance. Life expectancy at 90 for a woman is 4.6 years, at 3.9 years for a man.
Even at age 100, average life expectancy is 2 years.
That's incredibly interesting thank you.
Also, doctors tend to significantly overestimate life expectancy of the very sick (such as cancer patients).
BBC: "Under a bill published on Monday, external, terminally ill adults expected to die within six months could seek help to end their life if two doctors and a High Court judge verify they are eligible and have made their decision voluntarily."
So to qualify you need:
1) to be terminally ill (6 months) 2) have mental capacity (so powers of attorney are no use here) 3) two doctors to certify 4) a High Court Judge to rule no coercion
In practice, how common is this likely to be? Given the state of the courts, by the time the judge has ruled six months may have elapsed anyway and the person is dead.
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry too much about interest payments.
On that note, the value of Biden's successful growth policies becomes a little more obvious.
Trump's economic populism is essentially a con on the vast majority of these who voted for him. Can he sustain it for four years ?
Especially if a combination of swingeing tariffs and mass deportation significantly impacts US growth.
And both could have a very significant impact on inflation which he also campaigned on. Tariffs obviously so but also if you remove a large proportion of the black economy and low paid workers (right or wrong) it will cause inflation.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
They are better than appointed parliamentarians
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
It was in their manifesto
Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
Govt spending will go up 30-40% under Trump.
Comparing 2015 Obama to 2019 Trump to take Covid arguments out we have
Mr. Eagles, do you think our current Parliamentarians have, on average, the same degree of intelligence and quality of training for their roles as doctors?
Do you believe the quality of the Lords will be improved by removing members who owe no favours to party leaders?
Once in the Lords, party leaders have no control over Peers.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Nate Silver did a good article on this, showing how much weaker the Harris stuff was compared to the Obama era and compared to the Trump material.
Have you got a link handy?
On your point about the DoE budget supporting students in default of their loans. Do you not think this is part of Trump's plan? He wants for Universities in the US to get rid of the woke infestation on campuses. Surely threatening to cut the funding from the DoE for defaulters will force them in line and they'll need to cut spending on DEI initiatives in order to not go bankrupt.
I'd have thought that this is the intended outcome of the policy - Universities going bankrupt and fewer kids going to college.
If you stop guaranteeing the loans now, that will result in fewer kids going to college but it won't significantly reducing the federal budget deficit right now, because the current cost to the government is of previous loans (which are already guaranteed) defaulting.
This would be an absolute boon for people like me, who can afford to pay my kids college bills. It means competition for my kids to go to top schools will be significantly reduced.
It will suck for the people described in Hillbilly Elegy, because it is one less route of advancement.
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
No, they can't get it through Congress, because the Republicans majority there is going to be absolutely tiny.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Not many topics left where religion should have its collective hooter anywhere near really. The form of ritual when ‘our’ newly coronated monarch abases himself before the great fairy in the sky? Pious waffling on R4? Certainly not oversight of the care of vulnerable people and kids.
Far from it we need religious opposition to this bill and support for the sanctity of life more than ever
Playbook emerging. Forcing an exception power to apply universally by manipulating the Senate. This removes checks and balances from the appointment process.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted on X.
This is the relevant piece of Article 2 of the constitution:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Further, by trying to deny religion a place in this, you will simply drive the religious input into the background. It will be there, anyway.
Source - was present, as child, while my father worked on medical ethics. He would invite senior people to the house to talk to them in a social context. Saw and heard conversations, where he gently teased out the fundamental beliefs of senior medical staff. Things where they thought "this is right" - he would try and find out why they thought that. Lots of cultural, but non practising religion, involved.
Not much chance of religion (or at least one sect of it) being denied a place in this while it is the established state church and has unelected reps in the HoL. Lucky old Jocks are we, we even get the results of their influence at a distance.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
They are better than appointed parliamentarians
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
It was in their manifesto
Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords
A few things about this:
"Hereditary peers remain indefensible"
Which is untrue, especially as I'd argue they're better than many of the appointees.
"...the second chamber of Parliament has become too big."
True. But they're getting rid of a part than cannot grow. The easy answer would be for this parliament to make no appointments. But we all know why that isn't going to happen.
"Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age"
Why 80? Surely the state retirement age would be a better fit?
The HoL deserves better than to get yet another round of self-serving 'modernisations' that do nothing but help the ruling party. This will be bad for the HoL and bad for the country.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
One of the questions is whether they will look line-by-line, or just announce things like "We don't need a Department of Education".
Like a lot of things, it depends on whether the Trump administration governs as it campaigned.
I think that Trump is more intent on governing as he campaigned this time, than he was last time.
Yes, the Department of Education is a big item, given that schools are run by the States themselves and the DoE supplies a small amount of funding in exchange for the schools pushing the DEI agenda. Better to just give the same money they spend now to the States, remove the Washington bureaucracy and reduce the paperwork required by the schools.
There’s probably a handful of these, where the scope of government can be reduced, but they’ll also need to find many more of the smaller items and hope they all add up to something meaningful.
“Pushing the DEI agenda”? You’re still reading MAGA propaganda.
Oh it’s going to be a very long four years.
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
Now, it's some time since I looked at this, but I think a significant chunk of the Department of Education's budget is effectively subsidizing student loan programs in the US. If you were to shut it down, it would have pretty negative consequences for the ability of low income Americans to go to University.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The big crunch comes next year when Congress has to renew the Trump tax cuts from his last administration - or they expire.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
Musk has publicly spoken of cutting two trillion dollars. Going off rcs's figures, that doesn't look remotely doable.
One other observation. When Musk took over Twitter, he cut the moderation stuff, presumably due to a mixture of seeing it as unnecessary and personal distaste. What he missed was that, without the moderation, advertisers would be even less likely to pay to advertise on his platform. He may have understood the tech of what he bought, but he didn't really understand the... thing that he had bought.
I can see the federal government going the same way. Things being cut because they sound bad, but essential things being nixed pretty quickly due to lack of understanding.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
But both believers and unbelievers are represented through the democratic process. The perspective of a believer is valid but not special. Why should believers get an extra go at representation? I have no qualms with the churches expressing a view but the fact that that view is religiously informed does not lend it more weight than the view of those whose view is based on secular reasoning. FWIW, I probably agree with the position of the CoE on this subject.
All true. But religion informs the ethical framework of many of those who will be involved in this. Denying that is one option. But, as an atheist, I think that is inefficient and self defeating.
What will be accepted by society, is the societal "average" of moral and ethical constraints. The law (should) just try and run to catch up. So you will be feeding religious concerns into the law, regardless of whether you do this implicit, or explicitly.
Trying to dictate to society via the law is an attempt at the Rule of The Philosopher Kings. Which has always failed.
One government initiative I welcome - revenue protection are unfriendly and aggressive, and often try and entrap passengers just trying to do the right thing rather than target serial offenders - which makes me wonder if they have "targets" to catch a certain number of "faredodgers" and are incentivised accordingly:
The ones at Manchester Piccadilly are utter arseholes.
Northern Trains are often late/cancelled so people have legitimately bought an off peak ticket but arrive at peak time due to delays/cancellations.
HTF is it possible to arrive at a peak time. In London for as long as I've known (so mid 80s) the evening peak fate is for people leaving London during peak hours
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
Trump tried to repeal that law, last time. Because dropping the prices of drugs would be wildly, wildly popular in the US - it also applies to other government programs. He was blocked by Congress.
Can't be just disestablish the CofE, and be rid of it?
Absolutely not, it ensures Catholics and Evangelicals are both in our national church. It also ensures weddings and funerals for all parishioners who want them. Pleased to see most MPs at least voted to keep the Bishops in the Lords despite Labour voting to remove the remaining hereditary peers
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted on X.
This is the relevant piece of Article 2 of the constitution:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Yes it’s common for the Senators to filibuster appointments hearings, the concept of recess appointments is so that the President can temporarily fill his vacancies with acting officers who can then get to work while the Senate is in recess.
Plenty of case law that could trip him up there though, even if the Supreme Court are likely to be favourable towards him.
The Senate can of course avoid this by not having a recess until the key officers are all confirmed.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
They are better than appointed parliamentarians
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
It was in their manifesto
Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords
A few things about this:
"Hereditary peers remain indefensible"
Which is untrue, especially as I'd argue they're better than many of the appointees.
"...the second chamber of Parliament has become too big."
True. But they're getting rid of a part than cannot grow. The easy answer would be for this parliament to make no appointments. But we all know why that isn't going to happen.
"Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age"
Why 80? Surely the state retirement age would be a better fit?
The HoL deserves better than to get yet another round of self-serving 'modernisations' that do nothing but help the ruling party. This will be bad for the HoL and bad for the country.
I disagree about State Retirement Age being the measure. I always thought the whole point of a reformed Lords would be that it would contain those who could bring a lifetime's experiences in work, charity, military or any other discipline to bear on amending law making and making it fit for purpose. I would actually go the other way and say that no one could become a member of the Lords until they had done 25-30 years in some discipline outside of politics.
Great header @Cyclefree, meaning that I share a lot of your doubts about the proposed changes.
I think family coercion and budding Dr Shipmans are problems that cannot be ignored or hand-waved away.
@Stocky mum is a sad case, but does show the importance of establishing MPOA so that family members can stop active treatments that are needlessly prolonging discomfort and distress. That cessation of active treatment is different to active euthanasia, at least in my mind. Ceasing active treatment is a fairly common clinical decision.
What is MPOA? Is this the health and welfare lasting power of attorney? We do have this. My mother is not feeling discomfort or distress as far as we can tell physically. And mentally she has no capacity. What I know for sure is that she would have been distressed to imagine the last years of her life will be like this.
If I called the GP to stop medication (not sure I can do this) what would I seem like in the eyes of the GP and, more permanently, the care home manager (who has a vested interest in prolonging life for as long as possible)?
What protections can I take now (regarding my own wishes) to protect my family the best I can?
Medical Power of Attorney.
So it sounds as if you should have a discussion with your Mothers GP. Some meds might be for comfort, such as pain and reasonable to continue these but could stop others, for example cardiac medication or antibiotics.
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
But both believers and unbelievers are represented through the democratic process. The perspective of a believer is valid but not special. Why should believers get an extra go at representation? I have no qualms with the churches expressing a view but the fact that that view is religiously informed does not lend it more weight than the view of those whose view is based on secular reasoning. FWIW, I probably agree with the position of the CoE on this subject.
All true. But religion informs the ethical framework of many of those who will be involved in this. Denying that is one option. But, as an atheist, I think that is inefficient and self defeating.
What will be accepted by society, is the societal "average" of moral and ethical constraints. The law (should) just try and run to catch up. So you will be feeding religious concerns into the law, regardless of whether you do this implicit, or explicitly.
Trying to dictate to society via the law is an attempt at the Rule of The Philosopher Kings. Which has always failed.
Who says anything about religious people not using it as an 'ethical' framework (*)? Of course they can. But their view and opinion is no more valid or invalid than mine, just because it is their reading of their religion. Their views get no extra validity or strength through being based on their individual reading of a religion.
(*) Although again I state that 'ethical' in many religious people seems to be more what advantages them, and not what is right, what their holy book says, or what their God might want.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The big crunch comes next year when Congress has to renew the Trump tax cuts from his last administration - or they expire.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
Musk has publicly spoken of cutting two trillion dollars. Going off rcs's figures, that doesn't look remotely doable.
One other observation. When Musk took over Twitter, he cut the moderation stuff, presumably due to a mixture of seeing it as unnecessary and personal distaste. What he missed was that, without the moderation, advertisers would be even less likely to pay to advertise on his platform. He may have understood the tech of what he bought, but he didn't really understand the... thing that he had bought.
I can see the federal government going the same way. Things being cut because they sound bad, but essential things being nixed pretty quickly due to lack of understanding.
He didnt pay for Twitter for the adverts but political power. Of course he understood how adverts would drop and that would shaft the other shareholders and investors, as well as users. It is working out very well for him, he is well placed to be the first world king.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The big crunch comes next year when Congress has to renew the Trump tax cuts from his last administration - or they expire.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
And looking at what @rcs1000 posted earlier as with the UK budget - there is a lot of money being spent but very little that can actually be cut...
In the case of the UK there is much that can be cut. The problem is that it requires a philosophical change in government. We can have the current system, and railways cost a billion pounds a mile. Or we can change.
As the bat tunnel showed, in debate, many people think that a detailed process is a Good Thing, in of itself. The cost of the project was evidence, to some people, that they Cared. Despite the disparity between the goals of the sub-project "Not one bat death" and the requirements for *human safety*.
There have been a few times in my life when I have felt so bad that I have wanted to die. When I felt that I did not deserve to live, that the world would be improved by removing myself from it.
One of the factors that prevented me from following through on this was struggling to think of how to die without being even more troublesome to the world I would leave behind. Suicide inevitably creates a mess.
One thing that makes me incredibly nervous about assisted dying is that it would open up an avenue where those problems would be dealt with. I could imagine feeling some relief at accepting the offer of an assisted death, and having professionals to help me with it. This makes me feel very unsafe.
This bill limits use to someone who is likely to die within 6 months according to a doctor. It's for the terminally ill, not the same as suicide.
That's what the Bill says now. Yes. But once the principle is established that is easier to change. And sometimes these things can be implemented in a very broad way. What if it becomes accepted practice for a medical professional to conclude that a very depressed person with suicidal ideation is likely to die from suicide within six months, and so can be considered "terminally ill"?
The way in which abortion is regulated in Britain is a guide to this. Abortion was introduced with a number of safeguards in Britain. Two doctors would be required to sign off on it. Abortion could only be granted in a restricted number of circumstances - it isn't abortion on demand. Yet the implementation of the law has been quite different. The second doctor is a mere formality. The circumstance of "mental distress for the pregnant woman" has in practice been used as a catch-all that permits abortion on demand.
I think it is fair to be concerned about scope creep, and whether the Bill is written in a way that keeps its implementation to the restricted circumstances as claimed. Perhaps a more explicit protection for people suffering from mental illness should be added to the Bill?
Good, it should be changed. The six month principle is absurd, someone in agony with years ahead of them of agony they want to end should have that choice. If they want assistance to die with dignity they should have that choice.
They shouldn't be told you have no say in your own life, but you have the right to commit suicide if you want to and are able to do so.
They shouldn't be left thinking getting in front of a train or something similar is their only option to end it.
Let people control their own bodies and their own lives.
But those amendments can only occur through Parliament if Parliament democratically votes that way - as it should.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
They are better than appointed parliamentarians
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
It was in their manifesto
Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords
A few things about this:
"Hereditary peers remain indefensible"
Which is untrue, especially as I'd argue they're better than many of the appointees.
"...the second chamber of Parliament has become too big."
True. But they're getting rid of a part than cannot grow. The easy answer would be for this parliament to make no appointments. But we all know why that isn't going to happen.
"Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age"
Why 80? Surely the state retirement age would be a better fit?
The HoL deserves better than to get yet another round of self-serving 'modernisations' that do nothing but help the ruling party. This will be bad for the HoL and bad for the country.
I disagree about State Retirement Age being the measure. I always thought the whole point of a reformed Lords would be that it would contain those who could bring a lifetime's experiences in work, charity, military or any other discipline to bear on amending law making and making it fit for purpose. I would actually go the other way and say that no one could become a member of the Lords until they had done 25-30 years in some discipline outside of politics.
As it happens, I agree. It's just that if there is to be an upper age limit, that age needs a reason. And 80 seems an odd and arbitrary choice. I'd much rather there not be a limit.
Non-attendance might be a better way of separating out the chaff, although the definition of 'attendance' would need to be better than it is now.
Can't be just disestablish the CofE, and be rid of it?
Absolutely not, it ensures Catholics and Evangelicals are both in our national church. It also ensures weddings and funerals for all parishioners who want them. Pleased to see most MPs at least voted to keep the Bishops in the Lords despite Labour voting to remove the remaining hereditary peers
But why should we havea national church at all? And why us it important that specifically those other two religions are included in it? And I think people have the right to get married or buried whether or not there are bishops in the HoL, or indeed whether the CoE exists at all.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
Poor argument. Do you accept a hereditary monarchy?
It's good argument, Peers and Doctors are both professional roles with significant responsibility, the monarch is supposed to be a ceremonial figurehead.
Noted that the Monarch does have far more political influence than is openly acknowledged but on the basis that
a) they know they're on shaky ground which seems to restrain from being too political b) it's likely any replacement, while cheaper/releasing significant assets, will be worse e,g President Johnson/Farage/Corbyn/BoatyMcBoatface
I don't consider it a priority for abolition, though reform, neutering their political power / exceptionalism further, would be good. I'm not convinced it will survive William.
I know a lot of people don't have a high opinion of Ian Dunt, and I'm not a huge fan myself. But his recent book brought out the shocking extent to which all legislation is made in a sloppy way. Basically government has so little respect for the commons that it's got into habit of presenting what is essentially just a first draft at the commons stage. The commons committee stages, it turns out, are just add much of a show as the main debates, so we are relying on the lords for any real scrutiny.
The details are difficult and important but I do think Assisted Dying is an idea who's time has come. I hope something gets worked out.
It is one of those issues where modern medicine and technology have made edge cases much more glaring. Using modern machinery and medicine, we can keep people 'alive' for years, even if that life is an existence but not really a life. From that extreme, we go down to much gnarlier and more numerous edge cases.
In the olden days, these people would have died much quicker, if not from the condition itself, then from subsidiary illnesses. Now, we can prolong life.
The question is whether we always should in all cases, if all that does is increase suffering and misery.
Yes there’s a number of Federal college grant and loan programmes, that would either need to be shifted elsewhere in government or administered by the States. I suspect that we end up seeing departments merged and reduced in size, rather than abolished entirely. There will still be functions that need to be done somewhere.
It just goes to show - though - how difficult it is to cut spending significantly without going after mandated welfare programs and healthcare. Medicare/Medicaid, plus Social Security, plus Veterans Affairs makes up a massive slice of Federal Funding.
Yes these areas take up a lot of spending, but how much of that can be made more efficient? IIRC there’s a law that says that Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, have to pay the list price as those same companies advertise hard on TV to consumers.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
Trump tried to repeal that law, last time. Because dropping the prices of drugs would be wildly, wildly popular in the US - it also applies to other government programs. He was blocked by Congress.
It will interesting to see if he tries again.
I do wonder if this is where Musk comes in, as something of a Soros figure on the right who’s prepared to replace funding lost by vested interests in Washington who disapprove of the agenda.
He’s already talking about using his PAC to go after minor politicians such as DAs, after Soros himself had great success doing the same in a number of cities.
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A small step in taking back control from our unelected rulers.
Would you accept hereditary doctors? If not, then you shouldn't accept hereditary parliamentarians.
They are better than appointed parliamentarians
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
It was in their manifesto
Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords
A few things about this:
"Hereditary peers remain indefensible"
Which is untrue, especially as I'd argue they're better than many of the appointees.
"...the second chamber of Parliament has become too big."
True. But they're getting rid of a part than cannot grow. The easy answer would be for this parliament to make no appointments. But we all know why that isn't going to happen.
"Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age"
Why 80? Surely the state retirement age would be a better fit?
The HoL deserves better than to get yet another round of self-serving 'modernisations' that do nothing but help the ruling party. This will be bad for the HoL and bad for the country.
Less than 80 would make appointments non-useful. A major part of the appointed peerages is a get rid of failed politicians who go quietly to the retirement home, with a nice per denim. Another is rewarding useful people with a sinecure and a bit of power. If they don't have time to enjoy it, no value.
What are you going to do instead? Put the failed politicians in a box and slowly fill it with nitrogen?
Can't be just disestablish the CofE, and be rid of it?
Absolutely not, it ensures Catholics and Evangelicals are both in our national church. It also ensures weddings and funerals for all parishioners who want them. Pleased to see most MPs at least voted to keep the Bishops in the Lords despite Labour voting to remove the remaining hereditary peers
But why should we havea national church at all? And why us it important that specifically those other two religions are included in it? And I think people have the right to get married or buried whether or not there are bishops in the HoL, or indeed whether the CoE exists at all.
If we disestablish the CoE, it will turn into a religious organisation. In a ghastly pandering to the beliefs of the actual congregants, Vicars will be giving sermons mentioning... God. Even suggesting that Anglicanism is better than other religions!!
It's also a topic where religion needs to keep its nose well out.
Why?
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
Yes. Quite
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
But both believers and unbelievers are represented through the democratic process. The perspective of a believer is valid but not special. Why should believers get an extra go at representation? I have no qualms with the churches expressing a view but the fact that that view is religiously informed does not lend it more weight than the view of those whose view is based on secular reasoning. FWIW, I probably agree with the position of the CoE on this subject.
All true. But religion informs the ethical framework of many of those who will be involved in this. Denying that is one option. But, as an atheist, I think that is inefficient and self defeating.
What will be accepted by society, is the societal "average" of moral and ethical constraints. The law (should) just try and run to catch up. So you will be feeding religious concerns into the law, regardless of whether you do this implicit, or explicitly.
Trying to dictate to society via the law is an attempt at the Rule of The Philosopher Kings. Which has always failed.
I like the concept of a societal average of moral and ethical constraints.
We feed the societal average of moral and ethical constraints into the decision via the democratic process. Giving the church a special say gives a weighted average where the views of the religious are given greater weight. I admit the democratic process is imperfect, but it strikes me as being less imperfect if the bonus votes for the religious are included.
It's as if we were deciding transport policy and decided to give 40 members of the plane spotters society seats in the HoL to make sure aeroplane travellers are represented. Granted they have a special interest. But they couldn't really be said to represent a neutral position.
There have been a few times in my life when I have felt so bad that I have wanted to die. When I felt that I did not deserve to live, that the world would be improved by removing myself from it.
One of the factors that prevented me from following through on this was struggling to think of how to die without being even more troublesome to the world I would leave behind. Suicide inevitably creates a mess.
One thing that makes me incredibly nervous about assisted dying is that it would open up an avenue where those problems would be dealt with. I could imagine feeling some relief at accepting the offer of an assisted death, and having professionals to help me with it. This makes me feel very unsafe.
This bill limits use to someone who is likely to die within 6 months according to a doctor. It's for the terminally ill, not the same as suicide.
Yes but how long will it stay like that when the principle is established? We've already seen in Canada and Holland that assisted suicide is being extended to those with mental illnesses.
And so it should. I have a parent with vascular dementia and the other with Alzheimer's. It should be about quality of life not quantity and compliance with a person's wishes. I know what my parent's wishes are (or rather 'were' - when they had mental capacity). And their personal wishes are not being complied with. My mother cannot move, has to be hoisted everywhere, is doubly incontinent, cannot feed herself, cannot speak and almost certainly recognises no-one. Yet she is being prescribed every medication under the sum to prolong her life for as long as possible.
That's dreadful. My father-in-law was similar. Kept alive for two years beyond any quality of life whatsoever. It was legalised torture.
One government initiative I welcome - revenue protection are unfriendly and aggressive, and often try and entrap passengers just trying to do the right thing rather than target serial offenders - which makes me wonder if they have "targets" to catch a certain number of "faredodgers" and are incentivised accordingly:
The ones at Manchester Piccadilly are utter arseholes.
Northern Trains are often late/cancelled so people have legitimately bought an off peak ticket but arrive at peak time due to delays/cancellations.
HTF is it possible to arrive at a peak time. In London for as long as I've known (so mid 80s) the evening peak fate is for people leaving London during peak hours
Not everyone starts their journey at a terminus.
My point was that in London they operate on the basis that it's the time your train was scheduled to leave that is the important point not the arrival time.
So the 15:55 is off peak but the 16:10 is a peak train.
It meant that for years I couldn't catch a particular train from Amersham but could if I lived in Chalfont...
I'd sooner toss hundreds of political appointees out, but there we are.
A sad day. Many of the hereditaries do an excellent job.
Perhaps, but the qualification for the role ought not be who your parents are/were.
Agreed, but it's not like the government has a coherent vision for the HoL with some better set of qualifications and selection process.
Personally I am not a fan of hereditary peers as such; but the HoL seems to be basically functional and so I think the government would do better to leave it alone and spend its limited reserves of time and attention on more pressing matters.
So something I wanted to investigate today was what signals there were available before the election that showed a Trump wave and I think it was on YouTube. I went back an looked at video metrics with a broadly pro-Trump vs pro-Harris and the difference was massive.
What I found was that videos on the pro-Trump side had huge subscribers to views ratios, you'd get videos from people with just 50k subscribers getting 2-3m views and the larger content creators with between 1m and 2m subs were easily doing over their total subscriber numbers, that to me says there's a level of grassroots interest in the content and generally these videos are pulling in lots of new eyeballs who aren't necessarily interested in politics or Trump, it's likely that they've seen the video shared somewhere in group chat or by some personality on Instagram or tiktok.
After watching the videos what also struck me is that 9/10 of them are either someone speaking into a camera from their bedroom just chatting about Trump and going through some of the new news or a react video or they're a guy with a camera man and a mic talking to real people getting real life opinions on screen, obviously they're edited so I can't take what was on screen as the full truth but the production values were very, err, rustic. What also surprised me was the sheer number of interviews with black and Latino people voting for Trump in working class areas and the reasons for those people voting for Trump all being broadly the same - jobs, prices, illegal immigrants.
...
The American right is very strong on YouTube. And of course the Daily Wire has turned into a huge operation, over 1 million paying subscribers.
Farage has been following a similar approach taping into YouTube, regularly gets 100k+ views on a video.
I think what's most interesting is that Trump supporting channels outside of a few very prominent ones like infowars or the daily wire are basically just a bloke/woman in a room speaking into a mic about what's going on in the world while the ones on the left have got really high production values with full sets/studios and they all feel like they're connected to the DNC in some way. It makes the Trump content feel much more authentic, when it's people talking about their own journeys or their own experiences and how that relates to what's happening wrt Trump vs Biden/Harris you don't feel sceptical because why would they lie? A lot of the time they disagree with Trump as well, one of the bigger streamers seemed to disagree with Trump on quite a lot very openly. They just never seemed to capture that kind of authenticity with the Harris content, or very rarely. You can see it too, the top viewed content for Harris seems to come from the campaign itself, for Trump it's from third party creators who support him.
But what YouTube shows you is based on what you’ve watched/liked before. You need to log out of your account, preferably use a new installation on a new device, use a VPN so you appear to be in the US, and then repeat the exercise in order to get an unbiased view of what videos are being made and watched.
Yes, this is what I did. Used two dummy accounts with fresh algorithms for both sides. The Trump content was just better than the Harris stuff, it felt more authentic and it had far better metrics for reach (probably because it felt real).
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Yes I saw something similar, from a much less scientific perspective of searching for videos about what was in the news today. The Harris campaign had lots of “vibes” and “joy”, but very little policy except orange man bad.
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Yeah I noticed that too. Lots of formerly Democrat voters going on journeys over the past year to becoming Trump voters having never voted Republican in their lives. Those videos almost always has millions of views and over 10:1 views to subscriber ratios. Again I have no idea if these journeys were real or the person making the video was legit but it felt authentic watching it.
I think what also felt convincing was the sheer number of women on the Trump side of the fence and most of them really very attractive compared to the Harris side which was invariably white men or blue haired white women with the septum piercing.
Some of them were definitely legitimate, being people that I’d followed for years. They generally voted for Obama, perhaps Clinton, Biden, or sat out the last election, and voted Trump this time.
The “Hot women for Trump” was definitely a thing, especially in the last couple of weeks. As you say, more conventionally attractive twentysomethings and appealing to men to get out and vote. They looked like they were having fun doing it as well.
Thanks, @Cyclefree, that's an excellent article on a high-priority issue. You're right about the dodgy salesman tactics and my rule of thumb is, if I'm under pressure to say Yes, my answer has to be No. Let's hope the MPs see it the same way. No reason at all why it has to be a botched up job.
So, how much efficiency saving do we think the US government can actually find, by giving two businessmen the task of looking through the budget line by line to find things that are surplus to requirements?
The current US Federal budget is around $6.8trn, and the deficit $1.8trn per year. More than $1trn is spent annually on debt interest, which is now higher than the defence budget.
There’s loads of examples of a few million here and there on silly projects or academic studies, but can they actually find trillions when they’re all added up, and can they convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation against the wishes of the many donors and lobbyists in Washington?
Around two-thirds of the US Federal Budget is made up is Mandatory Spending, that is "locked in" unless Congress passes laws to actually change it. This is Interest ($1trn), Social Security ($1.4trn), Medicare & Medicaid ($1.5trn), and support for welfare programs for low income Americans, such as SNAP and Earned Income Tax Credit ($1.1trn).
That's close to $5bn of the Federal Government's spending that is Mandatory and would require laws passed by Congress to change.
The rest of spending is theoretically Discretionary in nature: Defense ($773bn), Veteran's Affairs ($303bn), Energy ($45bn), Education ($80bn), NASA ($25bn), the FDA ($7bn) and the like,
The reality is that a lot of the Discretionary Spending is essentially untouchable. Veteran's Affairs is healthcare and pensions for ex-servicemen and their families. There is literally no way that can be touched. And I'm not sure that Defense can easily be signifcantly reduced either.
One could, of course, close down the Departments of Energy and Education (although I suspect there might be some impacts from that), but the total saved would be tiny - $125bn out of a budget of $6.8 trillion or just 2% of the total. The FDA could likewise be shuttered, albeit its duties are mandated by Congress, and its budget is miniscule.
In other words, I think we can reasonably assume that getting massive savings from the Federal Government without cutting into Mandatory Spending is going to be next to impossible.
And here's the kicker: the US like other countries is getting older. That means that the amount that is due to be spent on Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Affairs will grow faster than the economy going forward almost irrespective of what the government does.
Given I'm also not convinced that Republican lawmakers are going to be lining up to cut payments to their constituents, I think Elon Musk and Donald Trump face an extremely uphill battle in substantially reducing US Government expenditure.
---
On the subject of interest, it does bear mentioning that the effective (real) value of US national debt falls by inflation every year. So if your budget deficit each year is just the interest payment, then in inflation adjusted terms, the value of your debt remains stable. And if you consider the value of the national debt relative to GDP, then (as the economy usually grows) in this scenario national debt as a percentage of GDP would decline. So: I wouldn't worry *too much* about interest payments.
The lowest of low hanging fruit is the defense budget. It is plainly ridiculous to blow $1 trillion per year on that - half of the world's total military spend - if the US is to become more isolationist and parochial.
Comments
Broad brush, I would expect Labour (and especially the LibDems) to be in favour and Cons to be against. Is this generally the case?
Equality in education is literally their whole point, the DoE in its current form was set up in 1979 to progress the Civil Rights Act.
https://www.ed.gov/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
When has that ever gone wrong?
I think family coercion and budding Dr Shipmans are problems that cannot be ignored or hand-waved away.
@Stocky mum is a sad case, but does show the importance of establishing MPOA so that family members can stop active treatments that are needlessly prolonging discomfort and distress. That cessation of active treatment is different to active euthanasia, at least in my mind. Ceasing active treatment is a fairly common clinical decision.
Again what struck me most was how the Trump side barely even acknowledged Harris other than a few piss takes here and there while Harris videos spent 80% of their time talking about Trump. An undecided going in to the election would struggle to get any idea of what Harris stood for from the YT content creators. It was all just "Trump said this" or "Trump did this last time" or "democracy is under threat if Trump wins the election". Even after spending a few hours watching content related to Harris I'm not sure I know what her policies were just what she was against from the Trump side.
Still the enormous enthusiasm for Agent Orange on PB continues with gay abandon.
So you’re planning to get in on for 3.45 but you’re train is delayed and you get in for 4.30 with an off peak ticket.
About half of the Department of Education's total budget is spent on various programs in this area: $28bn (a quarter of the total budget) is Pell Grants for low income students, plus a significant chunk is paying for defaults on student loans (FEEL) where low income students borrowed money from the private sector but the government guarantees the loans. (This is are $238bn of currently outstanding loans where the government is on the hook. I don't know what defaults will be, but I would guess in excess of $10bn each year).
The way in which abortion is regulated in Britain is a guide to this. Abortion was introduced with a number of safeguards in Britain. Two doctors would be required to sign off on it. Abortion could only be granted in a restricted number of circumstances - it isn't abortion on demand. Yet the implementation of the law has been quite different. The second doctor is a mere formality. The circumstance of "mental distress for the pregnant woman" has in practice been used as a catch-all that permits abortion on demand.
I think it is fair to be concerned about scope creep, and whether the Bill is written in a way that keeps its implementation to the restricted circumstances as claimed. Perhaps a more explicit protection for people suffering from mental illness should be added to the Bill?
If I called the GP to stop medication (not sure I can do this) what would I seem like in the eyes of the GP and, more permanently, the care home manager (who has a vested interest in prolonging life for as long as possible)?
What protections can I take now (regarding my own wishes) to protect my family the best I can?
What struck me was the number of centrist creators on Youtube and Twitter, not just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool but also a number of less well-known commentators, who came out for Trump this year having voted for Democrats or Libertarians in the past.
Because it seems that - right now - we already have assisted suicide for the moderately well off: they just hop on a plane to Switzerland and head of to Dignitas.
One that will be a constant public row and total distraction from business.
It’s a classic backpacker town on Sirgao island in the Philippines. It’s grown up around a very nice surf break called “cloud 9”
The pace is idyllic half the people are barefoot the variety of bars and pubs and pizza shacks and special ice bath 24/7 juice bars with free pedicures is amazing. The sea is blue the air is soft the beer is cheap and there’s 3000 young people
There are signs everywhere for “digital nomad” conferences but I don’t think it’s stressed out consultants who will be attracted here in the future. Its kids. As most careers are progressively closed down and university becomes increasingly pointless why will kids take on massive debt to go to uni? For the social experience? Meeting people?
Maybe. But they could come to General luna and have a very nice life for $100 a week and maybe learn remotely if they insist or just surf and screw and drink and they will do all that socialising on the beach instead of in freezing expensive places like Paris london or New York - or Oxford or heidelberg or Harvard
Universities are fucked. All our kids will want to go to General Luna
BBC News - Speed of cricket balls could stump housing scheme
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2d5xez419o
Many people - not you evidently - see their faith as an important part of their ethical framework. Why would you deny them leadership from people they respect?
You are dismissing a view as “fallacious” as a statement of fact. You believe that it is fallacious, others do not
Similarly you dismiss others arguments as “bullshit” if you disagree with them or ignore their statistics if they don’t support your preconceived notions.
It means that discussions with you are neither interesting nor illuminating.
I think what also felt convincing was the sheer number of women on the Trump side of the fence and most of them really very attractive compared to the Harris side which was invariably white men or blue haired white women with the septum piercing.
The PB atheists are extremely wearying. Fine. They don’t believe. I feel sorry for them that they don’t have that solace - as they no doubt pity believers for their credulity
They have no right to force their sad desolate nihilism on those of us that do believe
For many religious people the question in the header goes to the core of what religious belief means
I am unsure on this subject, though there are times I believe it is justified but rushing it through the HOC is not justified in this case
I would probably vote against the bill as it stands
I have no problem with religious people having views on this; I said 'religion'. Religious people's views should carry no extra weight to those of the rest of us, and have zero extra strength from being a grouping.
As yesterday shows, religious people are more than willing to cause hurt and suffering, directly and indirectly, when it is to their advantage.
The promise was that they would be removed IF AND ONLY WHEN the Lords was properly reconstituted
Labour lied, once again, and are messing with the constitution for partisan advantage.
But, of course, we hear no complaints from the hypocrites on here who were so focused on voter ID and other changes made by the Tories
FWIW, I probably agree with the position of the CoE on this subject.
Source - was present, as child, while my father worked on medical ethics. He would invite senior people to the house to talk to them in a social context. Saw and heard conversations, where he gently teased out the fundamental beliefs of senior medical staff. Things where they thought "this is right" - he would try and find out why they thought that. Lots of cultural, but non practising religion, involved.
It's not going to be very popular cutting everyone's entitlements at the same time they renew the billionaire tax breaks. Particularly as it's the billionaires heading the cutting.
There’s an awful lot of waste in that system, the question is can they get things like this example through Congress when many of the Representatives and Senators have been bought and paid for by the pharma companies?
On your point about the DoE budget supporting students in default of their loans. Do you not think this is part of Trump's plan? He wants for Universities in the US to get rid of the woke infestation on campuses. Surely threatening to cut the funding from the DoE for defaulters will force them in line and they'll need to cut spending on DEI initiatives in order to not go bankrupt.
I'd have thought that this is the intended outcome of the policy - Universities going bankrupt and fewer kids going to college.
Many on here are involved in charities, campaigning, etc regardless of religious views. Both my wife and I do and on different things, yet we are atheist. As I have said before, give it a try. It is very satisfying.
There are a few Reform backing hereditaries too now such as the Duke of Marlborough who also is a friend of Trump, visiting him at Mar a Lago and hosting him at Blenheim Palace
With that said, I do wonder the extent to which Tesla is going to be harmed by Musk's closeness to the Trump administration. In the second quarter of this year, Tesla sales in California dropped by 24% year-over-year. Now, it's possible that this will be overcome by strength in sales in Texas and the like, but competition is increasing, and a trade war with China will almost certainly result in sanctions on Tesla in China.
It's also instructive to look at the Cybertruck. When it launched earlier this year, Tesla said that if you order one now you could expect to recieve it in 2026 or 2027. A three year wait time has come down to just 10 days now, and it's not because they're churning out massive numbers of trucks, it's because people have cancelled preorders.
Tesla is - of course - valued at around $1trillion. It is worth more than all the other car companies in the world combined. As a man who bought the original Tesla Roadsters, and as a believer that all cars will one day be electric, I've always been sceptical of Tesla shorters. But I do wonder if now is the time to gently take a negative position.
Trump's economic populism is essentially a con on the vast majority of these who voted for him.
Can he sustain it for four years ?
Especially if a combination of swingeing tariffs and mass deportation significantly impacts US growth.
AFAIK, drugs constitute only around 10% of US healthcare spending.
BBC: "Under a bill published on Monday, external, terminally ill adults expected to die within six months could seek help to end their life if two doctors and a High Court judge verify they are eligible and have made their decision voluntarily."
So to qualify you need:
1) to be terminally ill (6 months)
2) have mental capacity (so powers of attorney are no use here)
3) two doctors to certify
4) a High Court Judge to rule no coercion
In practice, how common is this likely to be? Given the state of the courts, by the time the judge has ruled six months may have elapsed anyway and the person is dead.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c154pwlv4epo#:~:text=Under a bill published on,have made their decision voluntarily.
Although Labour recognises the good work of many
peers who scrutinise the government and improve the
quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long
over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a
proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain
indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the
second chamber of Parliament has become too big.
The next Labour government will therefore bring about
an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation
to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote
in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a
mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament
in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be
required to retire from the House of Lords
Comparing 2015 Obama to 2019 Trump to take Covid arguments out we have
2015 Expenditure $3.7tn Deficit $0.4tn
2019 Expenditure $4.4tn Deficit $1tn
This would be an absolute boon for people like me, who can afford to pay my kids college bills. It means competition for my kids to go to top schools will be significantly reduced.
It will suck for the people described in Hillbilly Elegy, because it is one less route of advancement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kn092rvn3o
Playbook emerging. Forcing an exception power to apply universally by manipulating the Senate. This removes checks and balances from the appointment process.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted on X.
“Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/11/trump-senate-administration-hearings
It avoids confirmation hearings. (There's even a Scotus ruling on this as Obama fell over this one with a few more Junior appointments. But .. Scotus.)
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/26/supreme-court-rules-against-obama-recess-appointments
This is the relevant piece of Article 2 of the constitution:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/constitution.htm
"Hereditary peers remain indefensible"
Which is untrue, especially as I'd argue they're better than many of the appointees.
"...the second chamber of Parliament has become too big."
True. But they're getting rid of a part than cannot grow. The easy answer would be for this parliament to make no appointments. But we all know why that isn't going to happen.
"Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age"
Why 80? Surely the state retirement age would be a better fit?
The HoL deserves better than to get yet another round of self-serving 'modernisations' that do nothing but help the ruling party. This will be bad for the HoL and bad for the country.
You're right:
https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-education?fy=2024
One other observation. When Musk took over Twitter, he cut the moderation stuff, presumably due to a mixture of seeing it as unnecessary and personal distaste. What he missed was that, without the moderation, advertisers would be even less likely to pay to advertise on his platform. He may have understood the tech of what he bought, but he didn't really understand the... thing that he had bought.
I can see the federal government going the same way. Things being cut because they sound bad, but essential things being nixed pretty quickly due to lack of understanding.
What will be accepted by society, is the societal "average" of moral and ethical constraints. The law (should) just try and run to catch up. So you will be feeding religious concerns into the law, regardless of whether you do this implicit, or explicitly.
Trying to dictate to society via the law is an attempt at the Rule of The Philosopher Kings. Which has always failed.
It will interesting to see if he tries again.
Plenty of case law that could trip him up there though, even if the Supreme Court are likely to be favourable towards him.
The Senate can of course avoid this by not having a recess until the key officers are all confirmed.
So it sounds as if you should have a discussion with your Mothers GP. Some meds might be for comfort, such as pain and reasonable to continue these but could stop others, for example cardiac medication or antibiotics.
(*) Although again I state that 'ethical' in many religious people seems to be more what advantages them, and not what is right, what their holy book says, or what their God might want.
As the bat tunnel showed, in debate, many people think that a detailed process is a Good Thing, in of itself. The cost of the project was evidence, to some people, that they Cared. Despite the disparity between the goals of the sub-project "Not one bat death" and the requirements for *human safety*.
They shouldn't be told you have no say in your own life, but you have the right to commit suicide if you want to and are able to do so.
They shouldn't be left thinking getting in front of a train or something similar is their only option to end it.
Let people control their own bodies and their own lives.
But those amendments can only occur through Parliament if Parliament democratically votes that way - as it should.
Non-attendance might be a better way of separating out the chaff, although the definition of 'attendance' would need to be better than it is now.
And I think people have the right to get married or buried whether or not there are bishops in the HoL, or indeed whether the CoE exists at all.
Noted that the Monarch does have far more political influence than is openly acknowledged but on the basis that
a) they know they're on shaky ground which seems to restrain from being too political
b) it's likely any replacement, while cheaper/releasing significant assets, will be worse e,g President Johnson/Farage/Corbyn/BoatyMcBoatface
I don't consider it a priority for abolition, though reform, neutering their political power / exceptionalism further, would be good. I'm not convinced it will survive William.
In the olden days, these people would have died much quicker, if not from the condition itself, then from subsidiary illnesses. Now, we can prolong life.
The question is whether we always should in all cases, if all that does is increase suffering and misery.
He’s already talking about using his PAC to go after minor politicians such as DAs, after Soros himself had great success doing the same in a number of cities.
What are you going to do instead? Put the failed politicians in a box and slowly fill it with nitrogen?
https://x.com/g_gosden/status/1856435924416008622
Can the country stand for such a drastic change?
We feed the societal average of moral and ethical constraints into the decision via the democratic process. Giving the church a special say gives a weighted average where the views of the religious are given greater weight.
I admit the democratic process is imperfect, but it strikes me as being less imperfect if the bonus votes for the religious are included.
It's as if we were deciding transport policy and decided to give 40 members of the plane spotters society seats in the HoL to make sure aeroplane travellers are represented. Granted they have a special interest. But they couldn't really be said to represent a neutral position.
So the 15:55 is off peak but the 16:10 is a peak train.
It meant that for years I couldn't catch a particular train from Amersham but could if I lived in Chalfont...
Personally I am not a fan of hereditary peers as such; but the HoL seems to be basically functional and so I think the government would do better to leave it alone and spend its limited reserves of time and attention on more pressing matters.
The “Hot women for Trump” was definitely a thing, especially in the last couple of weeks. As you say, more conventionally attractive twentysomethings and appealing to men to get out and vote. They looked like they were having fun doing it as well.
Good morning, everyone.