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Regulating for Growth – politicalbetting.com

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  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,870

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Betting news.

    "Investors threaten to call in police over huge losses after collapse of Alastair Campbell son's football betting syndicate - after former Labour spin chief and his wife 'invested £300,000 into business venture'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14232547/Investors-police-collapse-Alastair-Campbell-sons-football-betting-syndicate.html

    Winning at betting on football is extremely extremely extremely difficult, especially if as it says in the report they bet on top flight football. The bookies have very good models and the sharps are even better. Remember Tony Bloom with years at it, his 100+ top PhDs working at his research firm and huge resources allegedly beat the market by no more than 2% in the long run these days.

    If you have that sort of financial clout there are easier ways of getting 2% return on your money.
    Yes, football's not the easiest to make money on. There is, though, quite a lot of groupthink in the punditry on it. I look to oppose that where I feel it's being overdone and leading to value on it being wrong. Eg that Liverpool would NOT struggle after Klopp.

    Oddly, one of my most consistently profitable sports is F1, which I'm not knowledgeable on, and one of my least is golf, which I am. I think that's because being too knowledgeable can have you not seeing the wood for the trees. A bit of distance can help with the big picture.

    Course if you can fuse the two, you're rocking.
    Anybody who listens to the mainstream football punditry for advice on betting wants their head explaining.
    "You won't win anything with kids"
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,731
    viewcode said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil said:

    HYUFD said:

    'Sir Keir Starmer has been warned his ratings have suffered a “catastrophic” fall among countryside voters angered by his “family farm tax”.

    Just one in five voters believes Labour cares about people who live and work in the countryside, polling for The Telegraph has found.

    A survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted by Public First, the political consultancy, found only 22 per cent believed Labour cared about those in rural areas.

    Even among those who voted for Labour at the most recent general election, this only rose to two in five (40 per cent).'
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/28/starmers-ratings-catastrophic-with-rural-voters-farm-tax/

    “Public First is a Westminster-based research and PR firm founded in 2016 by political strategists and former Conservative advisers, Rachel Wolf and James Frayne.”

    I’m sure this is a completely unbiased article in the Telegraph, that well known bastion of support for the Labour Party.
    I'm not sure it's much change on the support Labour got in rural seats in July, whether polled by ex-advisors or highlighted in The Telegraph. Their actual percentage vote achieved across the eligible population was little different to this.

    It is reflected in today's MoreinCommon MRP poll which shows Labour losing its majority and losing lots of rural seats it won in July.

    Seats like SW Norfolk, Suffolk Coastal, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, NE Hertfordshire, NE Somerset and Hainham, Mid and South Pembrokeshire, NW Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire Dales, Hexham, North Northumberland, Penrith and Solway, and Banbury for instance all rural marginal seats the Tories are projected to regain from Labour
    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/poll-labour-lose-seats-rghscklnk
    No, it doesn’t. Because there isn’t an election soon. And you are focusing only on the trend you like - Lab to Con - and not the one you dislike - Con to Ref.

    Apparently we can ignore all trends when they disagree with us.
    The same MRP poll has the Tories losing not a single seat to Reform. While Labour would lose 67 seats to Reform, from Dagenham and Thurrock to Llanelli, East Thanet to Bolsover and Bassetlaw, North Durham to Blyth and Ashington, Burnley and Hyndburn to Stoke on Trent North and Kingston Upon Hull East
    We know you aren’t stupid, so it’s just dogmatic bloody-mindedness. Reform don’t take the seats now, if we hold an election tomorrow. But there won’t be an election tomorrow, will there?

    Play the trends forward for another 4 years and surmise what seat exchanges my look like then.
    Extrapolating trends on polling forward is as foolish as assuming that the general election will look just like now.
    When Boris was elected and Hartlepool happened, I seriously started to work out how to bet a large proportion of my life savings on Con winning in 2024. There was a defacto limit of £120-ish on political bets in the shops at the time, so it involved me walking from shop to shop each Saturday, laying down about £350 each week for about four years. COVID, lockdown and a basic laziness prevented me, and by the time things settled down in 2022/3 they were behind in the polls.

    In short, we don't really know what will happen in 2029. My guess is that the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas has Ratnered the brand, but I don't know and won't know until the election campaign proper starts in four year's time.
    I would be surprised if "the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas" make the top ten issues at the next general election.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 29,053
    ...
    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Never seems to have troubled her in the past.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151
    edited December 2024
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    On topic in the last couple of years I’ve been contacted by headhunters looking to fill vacancies at financial services regulators, I said no.

    Regulators, for me, always seem to relighting the last war rather than looking at new threats.

    Look at Andrew Bailey and how he fell upwards.

    And you're not up for the challenge of changing that?

    Fair enough - you prefer an easy life I suppose.
    It wasn’t for an easy life, I would have had to give up PB and that was a deal breaker.

    They have strict social media policies.
    Well, I'm glad you're still here.

    As long as that's the case, there's still the hope of educating you about the excellence of Hannibal and the finer points of history.
    Indeed. I've just been looking at the Drachinfels youtube on Greek fire recommended by @MattW yesterday. Definitely something not in my Latin lessons at school - though that might have been because they didn't get into the Byzantine period, on reflection.
    It's exactly the sort of thing my teachers would have enjoyed - we never got beyond hydrogen / oxygen 2/3 / 1/3 (other 2way round?) explosions.

    But these days the 14 year olds would probably apply it to the school buildings, or someone who looked at them the wrong way.

    Is Naptha the same root work as Napalm?
    Napalm = Naphthenate + Palmitate, ie.carboxylic (fatty) acid salts used (apparently) (do not try this at home)

    Naphthenic acid = a carboxylic acid derived from stuff in petroleum

    Naphtha = ancient word for petroleum, more recently a word for certain fractions from distilling petroleum

    So the first two and a half letters (on average) are the same root ... somehwat to my surprise as I thought Napalm was short for sodium palmitate.

    And school lessons or not I'd have used eye/face protection and a screen ...

    PS OED also comes up with this little gem:

    Cooked roux is called Cajun napalm in my restaurant's kitchen because it is extremely hot and sticks to your skin.
    Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen i. 28
    Yes - they used screens for the hydrogen / oxygen one.

    And in the vid you may have watched Drach (being a Chartered Mechanical Engineer I think) used overalls, a respirator and mask ("I like my lungs"), as he added his ingredients (naptha, pine resin to make it thicker, sulphur and quicklime to make it go fizz and provide heat in water) to damp sticks (to simulate a wet ship), outside.

    And worked in quantities of "1/3 of a shot glass".

    This is the experimental archaeology section:
    https://youtu.be/2KFIZk7wK40?t=2042
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,577
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    On topic in the last couple of years I’ve been contacted by headhunters looking to fill vacancies at financial services regulators, I said no.

    Regulators, for me, always seem to relighting the last war rather than looking at new threats.

    Look at Andrew Bailey and how he fell upwards.

    And you're not up for the challenge of changing that?

    Fair enough - you prefer an easy life I suppose.
    It wasn’t for an easy life, I would have had to give up PB and that was a deal breaker.

    They have strict social media policies.
    Well, I'm glad you're still here.

    As long as that's the case, there's still the hope of educating you about the excellence of Hannibal and the finer points of history.
    Indeed. I've just been looking at the Drachinfels youtube on Greek fire recommended by @MattW yesterday. Definitely something not in my Latin lessons at school - though that might have been because they didn't get into the Byzantine period, on reflection.
    It's exactly the sort of thing my teachers would have enjoyed - we never got beyond hydrogen / oxygen 2/3 / 1/3 (other 2way round?) explosions.

    But these days the 14 year olds would probably apply it to the school buildings, or someone who looked at them the wrong way.

    Is Naptha the same root work as Napalm?
    Napalm = Naphthenate + Palmitate, ie.carboxylic (fatty) acid salts used (apparently) (do not try this at home)

    Naphthenic acid = a carboxylic acid derived from stuff in petroleum

    Naphtha = ancient word for petroleum, more recently a word for certain fractions from distilling petroleum

    So the first two and a half letters (on average) are the same root ... somehwat to my surprise as I thought Napalm was short for sodium palmitate.

    And school lessons or not I'd have used eye/face protection and a screen ...

    PS OED also comes up with this little gem:

    Cooked roux is called Cajun napalm in my restaurant's kitchen because it is extremely hot and sticks to your skin.
    Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen i. 28
    Yes - they used screens for the hydrogen / oxygen one.

    And in the vid you may have watched Drach (being a Chartered Mechanical Engineer I think) used overalls, a respirator / mask ("I like my lungs"), as he added his ingredients (naptha, pine resin to make it thicker, sulphur and quicklime to make it go fizz and provide heat in water) to damp sticks (to simulate a wet ship).

    And worked in quantities of "1/3 of a shot glass".
    Quite, all a good start, but I'd still have worn eye protection and used a polycarbonate screen. If something is suspected of spitting when mixed with water ...

    (Haven't got to the hydrogen/oxygen one yet.)
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    J

    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The difference being that all the international observers have said that both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were fraudulent. Not something that could be claimed about Trump's 2020 loss.
    https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/georgia/579376

    No claims of fraudulence here. Yes some parties had advantages. However there was a wide choice of candidates who could campaign freely but some had advantages especially due to money.

  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151
    edited December 2024

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men; it doesn't mean he deserved a hearing.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    ...

    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Never seems to have troubled her in the past.
    I’m sure she could work Centrist Dad in there somehow.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,098

    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The difference being that all the international observers have said that both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were fraudulent. Not something that could be claimed about Trump's 2020 loss.
    Not for want of various Republican state Senates trying to "clean" their polling registers though.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,710

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    Or, alternatively, he was always this way. His first wife may have evidence towards this...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,870

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 29,053
    DavidL said:

    Britain will never be great again until we stop flogging our top companies to the US
    Tech selloffs not only cost tax revenue and jobs, but are turning the UK into a vassal state

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/29/britain-great-again-stop-flogging-our-top-companies-to-the-us

    And growth!

    And it's not just tech, it's everything from trains to football clubs.

    I read this piece and thought it was on point. Let’s take the party politics out of it and step back from the snipers nest. Our economy is structurally broken. We long ago stopped investing and started selling off everything we had. We have a serious productivity issue. We’ve made existence expensive via weaponising property (an investment, not a home), and marketising energy costs to the point where despite being increasingly flush with clean energy we price it based on imported gas we don’t import.

    Then we have Europe. Mention it and the usual suspects on both sides freak out. Park the politics remember and just look at the economy. Cutting ourselves off from our primary market is bonkers. The primary market isn’t the EU - that’s why it’s called the EEA and isn’t the same as the EU. Nd yet we can’t have free access to it like non-EU states such as Iceland because morons think it’s the EU / think we can’t join without begging the EU to let us back in.

    My manifesto for change:
    1. National program to invest in our infrastructure. Roads, railways, fibre broadband etc all pays positive ROI. It’s called capitalism. Look it up.
    2. Tax businesses getting bought by foreigners looking to expatriate them. The reason why Germany still ha industry is that Germany didn’t let them be sold to foreigners looking to expatriate them.
    3. Invest in education, training and universities. We can’t afford to go progressively stupider no matter how much stupid people insist that we can’t afford teachers or research.
    4. Build a shitton of houses through housing associations. Rent. Not buy. Decouple housing from investments.
    5. Decouple energy costs from imported crap we import in declining numbers. Invest in building the hardware we’re installing - lunacy to need 20k turbines nd import ll of the because we can’t afford to invest

    1. National program to invest in our infrastructure. Roads, railways, fibre broadband etc all pays positive ROI. It’s called capitalism. Look it up.

    I agree but we cannot afford to increase our deficit by enough to make a difference so we need to cut current spending to release money for capital spending.

    2. Tax businesses getting bought by foreigners looking to expatriate them. The reason why Germany still ha industry is that Germany didn’t let them be sold to foreigners looking to expatriate them.

    No. We need to sell £50bn of assets a year to offset our trade deficit. This means we have to put up with people buying our businesses and, hopefully, developing them here. We need tax policies that encourages that not tax policies which would encourage foreigners to get out of dodge soonest. Of course eliminating our trade deficit is even more important for our future well being than growth.

    3. Invest in education, training and universities. We can’t afford to go progressively stupider no matter how much stupid people insist that we can’t afford teachers or research.

    We actually do spend reasonable money on basic research. What we are really poor at is converting that research into businesses and then getting the capital to those businesses to allow them to grow. That is the problem. I am not seeing many answers right now.

    4. Build a shitton of houses through housing associations. Rent. Not buy. Decouple housing from investments.

    We certainly need a lot more houses. Personally, I am not fussed if they are publicly or privately owned.

    5. Decouple energy costs from imported crap we import in declining numbers. Invest in building the hardware we’re installing - lunacy to need 20k turbines nd import ll of the because we can’t afford to invest.

    In an open economy with a large number of interconnectors it is silly to pretend that we can decouple our energy costs from the going rate to a material extent. What we need to do is build up our capacity so we become a net energy exporter (see balance of payments).
    Your thinking on foreign takeovers is a little odd. You say we need to sell those assets because of our trade deficit, but seem to fail to understand that the loss of those profit-making engines is worsening our trade deficit. Flogging off the golden egg-laying geese is a losing strategy, and I am surprised that you favour it, given your sensible views on cutting current spending to preserve capital spending. That is the opposite strategy - short term sacrifice for long term gain. And is a sensible one.

    One of Labour's policies that I actually support (though I have no trust that they are implementing it in an effective way) is to raise capital gains tax. It needs to be much easier and cheaper to have a UK business, but a good deal less attractive than it is now to flog off a UK business.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,578
    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Kazoo ...
    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Was the only thing that ever felt true.

    I dreamt every night of of us saying “I do”
    Whilst he only dreamt of taking me up the kazoo.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995
    edited December 2024

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    His legatee was his sister, and then the Nazi Party, but in practice most of what remained of his wealth in gold and art was seized.

    Yes, he was very rich, as was Himmler, principally by taking their cut of the money robbed from the Jews and other victims of the Nazis.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083
    DavidL said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    What is it about the billionaire Taylor Swift that first attracted you?
    The figure, the symmetrical facial features, the singing voice, the songwriting talent, she's liberal, and her youth ( I am old enough to be her father).

    The billion dollar bank account is just a circumstantial bonus.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    ydoethur said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    His legatee was his sister, and then the Nazi Party, but in practice most of what remained of his wealth in gold and art was seized.

    Yes, he was very rich, as was Himmler, principally by taking their cut of the money robbed from the Jews and other victims of the Nazis.
    Ah, thanks. Don't think that was mentioned in 'The Last Days'. Makes sense, though.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    boulay said:

    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Kazoo ...
    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Was the only thing that ever felt true.

    I dreamt every night of of us saying “I do”
    Whilst he only dreamt of taking me up the kazoo.

    Is it pronounced gezoo or gezow. I did wonder.

  • Taz said:

    J

    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The difference being that all the international observers have said that both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were fraudulent. Not something that could be claimed about Trump's 2020 loss.
    https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/georgia/579376

    No claims of fraudulence here. Yes some parties had advantages. However there was a wide choice of candidates who could campaign freely but some had advantages especially due to money.

    The devil is in the detail. The report makes accusations of buying of votes, voter intimidation, threats of sanction against public sector workers and a lack of secrecyninnthe voting process that allowed these things to happen. It falls far short of the standards we would expect in a free and fair election.

    And the Presidential vote was notveven a proper election. They changed the system so the President is appointed by a 300 member electoral college dominated by the new ruling party where previously it was by a proper national election.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,710
    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,578
    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Kazoo ...
    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Was the only thing that ever felt true.

    I dreamt every night of of us saying “I do”
    Whilst he only dreamt of taking me up the kazoo.

    Is it pronounced gezoo or gezow. I did wonder.

    Good point!

    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Made my ovaries twitch and my Fanny go wow

    But my heart was broken and plunged to despair
    When he saw my tax bill and said I didn’t pay my fair share.

    However I felt has left me now
    You lefty bastard, Bondegezou.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,108

    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The difference being that all the international observers have said that both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were fraudulent. Not something that could be claimed about Trump's 2020 loss.
    Not for want of various Republican state Senates trying to "clean" their polling registers though.
    Or Zuckerberg pouring money into buying turnout in blue areas.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083
    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her? Instead it became a positive internet sensation.
  • Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    I wonder what Paisley would have made of him.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083
    boulay said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    "One of [Reform's] senior figures told me last week that he expected to take more than 400 seats."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/28/without-tory-reform-pact-britain-sunk-egos-get-in-the-way/

    I expect to marry Taylor Swift next year.
    Congrats. We should expect to hear the songs about you in what early 2026?
    What rhymes with bondegezou?
    Kazoo ...
    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Was the only thing that ever felt true.

    I dreamt every night of of us saying “I do”
    Whilst he only dreamt of taking me up the kazoo.

    Is it pronounced gezoo or gezow. I did wonder.

    Good point!

    My crazy love for Bondegezou
    Made my ovaries twitch and my Fanny go wow

    But my heart was broken and plunged to despair
    When he saw my tax bill and said I didn’t pay my fair share.

    However I felt has left me now
    You lefty bastard, Bondegezou.
    I thought he wanted a song from Taylor Swift not Lily Allen.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 5,108

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    From what I understand, it was complicated (and the "Diaries" of the early 80s led to court cases) but most of it went to the Bavarian state government.
  • Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her? Instead it became a positive internet sensation.
    I have to agree that the film is not embarrassing, particularly as she clearly has good rhythm. Losing to a complete c**t like Trump was more than a bit embarrassing though!
  • kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083
    ....

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her? Instead it became a positive internet sensation.
    I have to agree that the film is not embarrassing, particularly as she clearly has good rhythm. Losing to a complete c**t like Trump was more than a bit embarrassing though!
    It was catastrophic.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    edited December 2024

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance. 😂😂😂😂😂

    She’s got all the poise and elegance of a drunk divorcee at a wedding screaming for attention.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her?
    Can’t say I do. No.

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,710
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her?
    Can’t say I do. No.

    You'd love it. She was great.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
    As an aside Fungible was the winning answer on The Wheel last night.

    I’d be interested in @RochdalePioneers thoughts on this as he’s in the trade.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,713
    edited December 2024

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
    Not at all. It still relies on the ability to transport the food from one place to another. And it still relies on the supplier being willing to maintain supplies over the long term. The more you rely upon imported food the greater the risk of disruption. It is a simple fact and one you seem to be unwilling or unable to accept.

    Moreover it exposes us to much higher food inflation. From the ONS:

    "The price of imported food materials has been rising at twice the rate of domestic food materials. Producer input prices for home-produced food materials rose by 15.1% in the 12 months to March 2023, while for imported food materials the increase was 29.1%."
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151
    edited December 2024

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ

    It worked the other way, too, in that Hitler organised large donations to his senior military to ensure their support. Others here may know more about this side - I haven't read widely about it.
    Another Mark Felton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKroNuzQIQQ


  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    edited December 2024

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her?
    Can’t say I do. No.

    You'd love it. She was great.
    I prefer the original film.

    I don’t mind AOC. She’s consistent on her beliefs and I think is principled.

    The ‘We will rock you’ video with democrat politicians look like they’re giving a handjob was even more embarrassing
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,605
    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her? Instead it became a positive internet sensation.
    I have to agree that the film is not embarrassing, particularly as she clearly has good rhythm.
    ‘Good rhythm’ that’s a bit of a stereotype old chap.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,098
    Looks like Forest going second. 2-0 up.

    More interestingly, it will be only the secod time that Forest have won at both Anfield and Goodison in the same season since eighteen hundred and something.
  • Taz said:

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
    As an aside Fungible was the winning answer on The Wheel last night.

    I’d be interested in @RochdalePioneers thoughts on this as he’s in the trade.
    I believe the proposal is to close down agriculture and “use our limited land for something more valuable”. It would need to be - the price of imports go up when the purchaser is a supplicant.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151
    edited December 2024
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Not embarrassing at all.

    Do you remember when GOP media flunkies pitched AOC dancing the sequence from the Breakfast Club in order to humiliate her? Instead it became a positive internet sensation.
    I have to agree that the film is not embarrassing, particularly as she clearly has good rhythm.
    ‘Good rhythm’ that’s a bit of a stereotype old chap.
    She's been associated with a black-lead church for a long time; of course she has good rhythm !

    Harris is a Baptist, holding membership of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, a congregation of the American Baptist Churches USA.

    I bet she claps off the beat, too.

    The UK version of such dancing is a shuffle at random points unrelated to the music from one foot to the other, and back, whilst looking something between embarrassed mortified. For this I blame the Church of England, and equivalents.
  • Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,710
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,042
    edited December 2024
    Completely OT. Anyone know where this statue is? The large shot by Robert Doisneau with the couple infront

    https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-doisneau-untitled-5
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
    As an aside Fungible was the winning answer on The Wheel last night.

    I’d be interested in @RochdalePioneers thoughts on this as he’s in the trade.
    I believe the proposal is to close down agriculture and “use our limited land for something more valuable”. It would need to be - the price of imports go up when the purchaser is a supplicant.
    Thanks.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,870
    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    What's embarrassing there?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,870
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
    Nobody's having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,578
    Roger said:

    Completely OT. Anyone know where this statue is? The large shot by Robert Doisneau with the couple infront

    https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-doisneau-untitled-5

    Hi Roger

    The location is in the technical details towards the bottom.

    https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Crauk_combat_du_Centaure.jpg
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 53,098

    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!
    Soon be springtime.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,042
    boulay said:

    Roger said:

    Completely OT. Anyone know where this statue is? The large shot by Robert Doisneau with the couple infront

    https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-doisneau-untitled-5

    Hi Roger

    The location is in the technical details towards the bottom.

    https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Crauk_combat_du_Centaure.jpg
    Many thanks. A great help
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    It’s amazing what knowledge colleagues on here can pass on. Thanks for the info, everyone. Although what, if anything, I’ll do with it …..
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283
    >

    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!
    Soon be springtime.
    He was just a paper hanger, no one more obscurer.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,319
    edited December 2024
    Roger said:

    Completely OT. Anyone know where this statue is? The large shot by Robert Doisneau with the couple infront

    https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-doisneau-untitled-5

    It looks like the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths, after the Centaurs got drunk at a wedding and kidnapped some young Lapith women.

    It's one of the themes of the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum, but that isn't one of those statues, I think.


  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151
    edited December 2024
    Perun of the Day.

    I haven't listened yet, but I think it is a little different.

    Building the Worst WW2 Air Force - Terrible Aircraft and How to Sell Them
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g37zdE8jrg4

    CONGRATULATIONS - You are in charge of military procurement for the fictional state of Emutopia in 1946. Your official job is to buy the best aircraft possible for the air force in order to prepare for an invasion of the neighbouring state of Kiwiland.

    Unofficially, you are a Kiwi sympathiser, and your task is to deploy every trick you know to make sure Emutopia buys awful kit - while not giving anyone reason to suspect that you're sandbagging the force on purpose.

    The challenge is simple, and owes a lot to the old concept of the fictional state of Elbonia and its storied history of military procurement that many of you would be familiar from past forgotten weapons content.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
    Do as much as you can while you’re fit enough to do it. One of the problems with getting older is that things start to fall off or otherwise go wrong.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151

    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    It’s amazing what knowledge colleagues on here can pass on. Thanks for the info, everyone. Although what, if anything, I’ll do with it …..
    If you were Born in the USA, you'd be standing for President ...
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,283

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
    Do as much as you can while you’re fit enough to do it. One of the problems with getting older is that things start to fall off or otherwise go wrong.
    Thanks OKC. I’m 59. I reckon I’ve got 8 to 10 years before I really start to slow down. And spend less. It’s One of the reasons I want to go now. I’ve stopped cycling to work as last time I did it I pulled a thigh muscle. Used to do it daily.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    MattW said:

    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    It’s amazing what knowledge colleagues on here can pass on. Thanks for the info, everyone. Although what, if anything, I’ll do with it …..
    If you were Born in the USA, you'd be standing for President ...
    I’m even older than Biden so no!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,801
    edited December 2024
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
    Do as much as you can while you’re fit enough to do it. One of the problems with getting older is that things start to fall off or otherwise go wrong.
    Thanks OKC. I’m 59. I reckon I’ve got 8 to 10 years before I really start to slow down. And spend less. It’s One of the reasons I want to go now. I’ve stopped cycling to work as last time I did it I pulled a thigh muscle. Used to do it daily.
    If you’re reasonably fit you might well have fifteen to twenty years before you need to slow down much.
    Good luck!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995
    edited December 2024

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    Musk ‘s political ‘advice’ (which barely deserves the description), has bugger all to do with UK growth.
    Since Musk says a British civil war is ‘inevitable’, I guess it would be useful to know how to avoid it. Vote Farage would be part of it I imagine.

    Peter York on the radio this morning said Musk was now living his teenage years in opposition to the prematurely balding nerdy adolescent he was; (I paraphrase) chaotic Ill judged relationships with girls, lots of drugs and bellowing his half informed opinions at the world.
    That Mar-a-Lago photocall after the election, the Trump family plus Musk and his infant son. Trump's voice just audible as he beckons Musk in, "and that perfect boy," he says in this croony creepy way.

    Really spooky. Like a cross between the Godfather and the Omen. Final scene probably. Viewers left to imagine the horrors now set to unfold.
    Almost as utterly embarrassing as this

    https://x.com/altkaak/status/1835505593651749353?s=61
    Nah, because you can see she's having fun. I doubt Trump's ever had fun in his life, given his demeanour. He'd make a good member of the Orange Order.
    Having fun or not it’s embarrassing.

    She can’t even dance.
    Oddly enough, I disagree. She's having fun.

    You should try it sometime.
    Lol.

    I have plenty of fun and a happy life and a, about to retire and am planning with my wife all the things we will do, and have had a cracking weekend, but thanks for the advice 😂😂😂😂
    But you don't recognise when other people are having fun?

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy your retirement, and find lots of interesting (and fun) stuff to do.
    Girls just wanna have fun. People are having a dig at Trump for a bit of fun. So im just using this as a counter.

    Thanks, I have quite a few things planned and we have rejoined the National Trust too. I have mastered home brew. Made far too much last year. About to start on a bottle of raisin wine. Good at bread and piccalilli. Plan to get into Cheese making, chutnies, charity shops for DVDs I can sell, Vinted, clearing the loft of my Dr Who books. Also art. I’m shit at it. Remember getting an E for a picture of David Gower I copied from a newspaper at school.
    Do as much as you can while you’re fit enough to do it. One of the problems with getting older is that things start to fall off or otherwise go wrong.
    Thanks OKC. I’m 59. I reckon I’ve got 8 to 10 years before I really start to slow down. And spend less. It’s One of the reasons I want to go now. I’ve stopped cycling to work as last time I did it I pulled a thigh muscle. Used to do it daily.
    If you’re reasonably fit you might well have fifteen to twenty years before you need to slow down much.
    Good luck!
    And if you're not, give it 20 years and then aim to be President.

    Seriously, enjoy what I am sure is a well-earned retirement.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,314

    viewcode said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil said:

    HYUFD said:

    'Sir Keir Starmer has been warned his ratings have suffered a “catastrophic” fall among countryside voters angered by his “family farm tax”.

    Just one in five voters believes Labour cares about people who live and work in the countryside, polling for The Telegraph has found.

    A survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted by Public First, the political consultancy, found only 22 per cent believed Labour cared about those in rural areas.

    Even among those who voted for Labour at the most recent general election, this only rose to two in five (40 per cent).'
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/28/starmers-ratings-catastrophic-with-rural-voters-farm-tax/

    “Public First is a Westminster-based research and PR firm founded in 2016 by political strategists and former Conservative advisers, Rachel Wolf and James Frayne.”

    I’m sure this is a completely unbiased article in the Telegraph, that well known bastion of support for the Labour Party.
    I'm not sure it's much change on the support Labour got in rural seats in July, whether polled by ex-advisors or highlighted in The Telegraph. Their actual percentage vote achieved across the eligible population was little different to this.

    It is reflected in today's MoreinCommon MRP poll which shows Labour losing its majority and losing lots of rural seats it won in July.

    Seats like SW Norfolk, Suffolk Coastal, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, NE Hertfordshire, NE Somerset and Hainham, Mid and South Pembrokeshire, NW Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire Dales, Hexham, North Northumberland, Penrith and Solway, and Banbury for instance all rural marginal seats the Tories are projected to regain from Labour
    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/poll-labour-lose-seats-rghscklnk
    No, it doesn’t. Because there isn’t an election soon. And you are focusing only on the trend you like - Lab to Con - and not the one you dislike - Con to Ref.

    Apparently we can ignore all trends when they disagree with us.
    The same MRP poll has the Tories losing not a single seat to Reform. While Labour would lose 67 seats to Reform, from Dagenham and Thurrock to Llanelli, East Thanet to Bolsover and Bassetlaw, North Durham to Blyth and Ashington, Burnley and Hyndburn to Stoke on Trent North and Kingston Upon Hull East
    We know you aren’t stupid, so it’s just dogmatic bloody-mindedness. Reform don’t take the seats now, if we hold an election tomorrow. But there won’t be an election tomorrow, will there?

    Play the trends forward for another 4 years and surmise what seat exchanges my look like then.
    Extrapolating trends on polling forward is as foolish as assuming that the general election will look just like now.
    When Boris was elected and Hartlepool happened, I seriously started to work out how to bet a large proportion of my life savings on Con winning in 2024. There was a defacto limit of £120-ish on political bets in the shops at the time, so it involved me walking from shop to shop each Saturday, laying down about £350 each week for about four years. COVID, lockdown and a basic laziness prevented me, and by the time things settled down in 2022/3 they were behind in the polls.

    In short, we don't really know what will happen in 2029. My guess is that the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas has Ratnered the brand, but I don't know and won't know until the election campaign proper starts in four year's time.
    I would be surprised if "the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas" make the top ten issues at the next general election.
    By the next election it will be £50 billion committed to CCS, if the rollout of the remainder of Track 1, Track 1 Expansion and Track 2 is going to happen.

    But not all of that will go to multinational oil companies.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,314
    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,308
    viewcode said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil said:

    HYUFD said:

    'Sir Keir Starmer has been warned his ratings have suffered a “catastrophic” fall among countryside voters angered by his “family farm tax”.

    Just one in five voters believes Labour cares about people who live and work in the countryside, polling for The Telegraph has found.

    A survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted by Public First, the political consultancy, found only 22 per cent believed Labour cared about those in rural areas.

    Even among those who voted for Labour at the most recent general election, this only rose to two in five (40 per cent).'
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/28/starmers-ratings-catastrophic-with-rural-voters-farm-tax/

    “Public First is a Westminster-based research and PR firm founded in 2016 by political strategists and former Conservative advisers, Rachel Wolf and James Frayne.”

    I’m sure this is a completely unbiased article in the Telegraph, that well known bastion of support for the Labour Party.
    I'm not sure it's much change on the support Labour got in rural seats in July, whether polled by ex-advisors or highlighted in The Telegraph. Their actual percentage vote achieved across the eligible population was little different to this.

    It is reflected in today's MoreinCommon MRP poll which shows Labour losing its majority and losing lots of rural seats it won in July.

    Seats like SW Norfolk, Suffolk Coastal, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, NE Hertfordshire, NE Somerset and Hainham, Mid and South Pembrokeshire, NW Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire Dales, Hexham, North Northumberland, Penrith and Solway, and Banbury for instance all rural marginal seats the Tories are projected to regain from Labour
    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/poll-labour-lose-seats-rghscklnk
    No, it doesn’t. Because there isn’t an election soon. And you are focusing only on the trend you like - Lab to Con - and not the one you dislike - Con to Ref.

    Apparently we can ignore all trends when they disagree with us.
    The same MRP poll has the Tories losing not a single seat to Reform. While Labour would lose 67 seats to Reform, from Dagenham and Thurrock to Llanelli, East Thanet to Bolsover and Bassetlaw, North Durham to Blyth and Ashington, Burnley and Hyndburn to Stoke on Trent North and Kingston Upon Hull East
    We know you aren’t stupid, so it’s just dogmatic bloody-mindedness. Reform don’t take the seats now, if we hold an election tomorrow. But there won’t be an election tomorrow, will there?

    Play the trends forward for another 4 years and surmise what seat exchanges my look like then.
    Extrapolating trends on polling forward is as foolish as assuming that the general election will look just like now.
    When Boris was elected and Hartlepool happened, I seriously started to work out how to bet a large proportion of my life savings on Con winning in 2024. There was a defacto limit of £120-ish on political bets in the shops at the time, so it involved me walking from shop to shop each Saturday, laying down about £350 each week for about four years. COVID, lockdown and a basic laziness prevented me, and by the time things settled down in 2022/3 they were behind in the polls.

    In short, we don't really know what will happen in 2029. My guess is that the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas has Ratnered the brand, but I don't know and won't know until the election campaign proper starts in four year's time.
    Curiously the carbon capture scheme has come through as far as I can tell unaltered from the previous Conservative government, including the 20 billion "investment" figure. But no-one is admitting this.

    https://www.ccsassociation.org/all-news/ccsa-news/government-launches-uk-ccus-industry-with-20-billion-for-early-deployment/
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,710

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Really? I'm surprised.

    I would have thought there would be a 100% correlation with being a ginormous arsehole.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,577
    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    Completely OT. Anyone know where this statue is? The large shot by Robert Doisneau with the couple infront

    https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-doisneau-untitled-5

    It looks like the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths, after the Centaurs got drunk at a wedding and kidnapped some young Lapith women.

    It's one of the themes of the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum, but that isn't one of those statues, I think.


    I got C19 vibes and Paris/France so tried searching for a centaur battle in Paris and got this ...

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crauk_combat_du_Centaure.jpg
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995
    #notatallbehavinglikeadictator

    New elections could take up to four years, Syria rebel leader says https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g29e1lejvo
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,578

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,977
    ydoethur said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Really? I'm surprised.

    I would have thought there would be a 100% correlation with being a ginormous arsehole.
    That's Lamborghinis. And it's a 1 to 1 correspondence. Which is odd because I doubt they do much letter writing.

  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,308
    FF43 said:

    viewcode said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil said:

    HYUFD said:

    'Sir Keir Starmer has been warned his ratings have suffered a “catastrophic” fall among countryside voters angered by his “family farm tax”.

    Just one in five voters believes Labour cares about people who live and work in the countryside, polling for The Telegraph has found.

    A survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted by Public First, the political consultancy, found only 22 per cent believed Labour cared about those in rural areas.

    Even among those who voted for Labour at the most recent general election, this only rose to two in five (40 per cent).'
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/28/starmers-ratings-catastrophic-with-rural-voters-farm-tax/

    “Public First is a Westminster-based research and PR firm founded in 2016 by political strategists and former Conservative advisers, Rachel Wolf and James Frayne.”

    I’m sure this is a completely unbiased article in the Telegraph, that well known bastion of support for the Labour Party.
    I'm not sure it's much change on the support Labour got in rural seats in July, whether polled by ex-advisors or highlighted in The Telegraph. Their actual percentage vote achieved across the eligible population was little different to this.

    It is reflected in today's MoreinCommon MRP poll which shows Labour losing its majority and losing lots of rural seats it won in July.

    Seats like SW Norfolk, Suffolk Coastal, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, NE Hertfordshire, NE Somerset and Hainham, Mid and South Pembrokeshire, NW Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire Dales, Hexham, North Northumberland, Penrith and Solway, and Banbury for instance all rural marginal seats the Tories are projected to regain from Labour
    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/poll-labour-lose-seats-rghscklnk
    No, it doesn’t. Because there isn’t an election soon. And you are focusing only on the trend you like - Lab to Con - and not the one you dislike - Con to Ref.

    Apparently we can ignore all trends when they disagree with us.
    The same MRP poll has the Tories losing not a single seat to Reform. While Labour would lose 67 seats to Reform, from Dagenham and Thurrock to Llanelli, East Thanet to Bolsover and Bassetlaw, North Durham to Blyth and Ashington, Burnley and Hyndburn to Stoke on Trent North and Kingston Upon Hull East
    We know you aren’t stupid, so it’s just dogmatic bloody-mindedness. Reform don’t take the seats now, if we hold an election tomorrow. But there won’t be an election tomorrow, will there?

    Play the trends forward for another 4 years and surmise what seat exchanges my look like then.
    Extrapolating trends on polling forward is as foolish as assuming that the general election will look just like now.
    When Boris was elected and Hartlepool happened, I seriously started to work out how to bet a large proportion of my life savings on Con winning in 2024. There was a defacto limit of £120-ish on political bets in the shops at the time, so it involved me walking from shop to shop each Saturday, laying down about £350 each week for about four years. COVID, lockdown and a basic laziness prevented me, and by the time things settled down in 2022/3 they were behind in the polls.

    In short, we don't really know what will happen in 2029. My guess is that the WFA and 22bn to Miliband for magic gas has Ratnered the brand, but I don't know and won't know until the election campaign proper starts in four year's time.
    Curiously the carbon capture scheme has come through as far as I can tell unaltered from the previous Conservative government, including the 20 billion "investment" figure. But no-one is admitting this.

    https://www.ccsassociation.org/all-news/ccsa-news/government-launches-uk-ccus-industry-with-20-billion-for-early-deployment/
    I mean the Conservatives aren't admitting the "magic gas" is actually their scheme and Labour aren't admitting that they were apparently launching a project that was already underway.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995
    Omnium said:

    ydoethur said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Really? I'm surprised.

    I would have thought there would be a 100% correlation with being a ginormous arsehole.
    That's Lamborghinis. And it's a 1 to 1 correspondence. Which is odd because I doubt they do much letter writing.

    Do they worry about being stamped out?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,977

    MattW said:

    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    My main experience of regulators (FCA) is that they have imposed huge burden on industry, particularly where none was asked or necessary. Creating huge, expensive, complex requirements on businesses that fail to solve problems or target wrong areas. To the point, where it was one of the reasons for not wanting to go back into the industry.

    Ultimately, all of this endless regurgitated regulation was always being paid for by customers.

    These people would be the last ones I would ask for opinions on growth.

    Anyway, I could have sworn that just a few months ago, Starmer and Reeves hosted a growth summit, specifically excluding Musk. Looks like that went well. They haven't a clue. Desperate times.

    You think aligning yourself with Musk would look good? The man who this week pissed off the half of Americans who still liked him? The man who has shown himself to be incredibly petty by banning or demonetising people who disagree with him on X? The man who said Matt Gaetz was a great choice for Attorney General?
    You don't have to align yourself to him. You could maybe just listen, rather than completely snub (he probably wouldn't have turned up). At least it would look like you were trying.

    This government is showing it has no ideas, it's telling everyone it has no ideas. It's sounding desperate.
    And how would Musk turning up and ranting about the AfD and Reform UK being the future have benefitted a growth summit?

    If anyone wants to “listen” to Musk, he posts non-stop on X. If anyone reads everything Musk posts, they’ll soon realise that there’s very little value in listening to him.
    It's this type of thinking that shows your bias, that imagines that the world's richest person, the head of Department of Government Efficiency for US, a man who has had a lifetime of involvement in tech companies and is now prominent in government, has nothing to tell us.

    That instead, we should be listening to a group of regulators to lead us into growth.

    All because you don't like him (nor do I particularly). No wonder we have no growth, when we have no imagination.
    It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted.

    I don't see any reason to listen to Musk - he comes across as a lobotomised, bigoted, self-obsessed nutjob. I don't care whether he is the richest man in the world - that is irrelevant. I require a measure of evidence-based thinking, and logic.

    The weird thing about Musk's content (which I put down to something in Musk's head - perhaps a feedback loop from spending too much time on Twatter), is that the stuff he puts out is overwhelmingly either fabrications he ha made up or swallowed, or BS.

    It's not just that he has no filters, he has no engaged grey cells either.
    Love that you can say 'It isn't "instead" - that's a lazy comment. It's one set of people who can usefully be consulted' and you can completely dismiss the world's richest man as irrelevant.

    Well done, you made laugh.
    I didn't dismiss him as irrelevant - read what I said, though I think you are deliberately misinterpreting. I suggested his wealth makes no difference to the process of evaluating what he says.

    BS is BS, no matter who it comes from.

    At the risk of Godwinning, Hitler was one of the world's richest men.
    Was Hitler really rich; I'd always assumed he was too busy politicking to make money.

    Who got it all after April 1945? His missus was dead, too, and there were no little (by blood) Hitlers.
    Yes. The index linked figure (according to the Wiki piece) comes out at something like $5bn.

    Someone sent him a fine for tax evasion soon after he became Chancellor, and the response went back that tax law did not apply to the Fuehrer:

    The head of the Munich tax office declared: "All tax reports delivering substance for a tax obligation by the Führer are annulled from the start. The Führer is therefore tax-exempt."

    Then he received royalties for the Government published copies of Mein Kampf, his head on stamps etc.

    And there was a whole gangster state system around donations demanded from German industrialists. Plus donations from foreign supporters such as Henry Ford.

    Wiki:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_wealth_and_income

    A Mark Felton: (10 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QERDzr6HSQ
    He earned a good living as an interior decorator, too.
    It’s amazing what knowledge colleagues on here can pass on. Thanks for the info, everyone. Although what, if anything, I’ll do with it …..
    If you were Born in the USA, you'd be standing for President ...
    I’m even older than Biden so no!
    That's very old. But with JackW around you're barely a baby! Didn't he bounce Moses on his knee?
  • What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,977

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    Why? x2!
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,577

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    Oh, you had a Scalextric set?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,584
    ydoethur said:

    #notatallbehavinglikeadictator

    New elections could take up to four years, Syria rebel leader says https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g29e1lejvo

    That sounds actually reasonable. Withholding judgment on the new regime still seems the right course.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,544
    edited December 2024

    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The difference being that all the international observers have said that both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections were fraudulent. Not something that could be claimed about Trump's 2020 loss.
    The other difference being the mass crowds turning out to protest the stolen election, every night for the last month, while masked ‘security forces’ kidnap opposition leaders.

    Day 31:
    https://x.com/AnnaGvarishvili/status/1873406458324558256

    Yesterday’s human chain.
    https://x.com/SteDjokovic/status/1872982948959695155
  • Carnyx said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    Oh, you had a Scalextric set?
    That too.

    Thanks to my parents giving me a great start in life and my own hard work, I paid off my mortgage before I was 28.

    Best vehicle I ever owned was the Porsche Cayenne Turbo. A sports car on a 4x4 floor plan.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,544

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    It’s also a gross slur on Sir Lewis.
  • Nigelb said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    It’s also a gross slur on Sir Lewis.
    Indeed.
  • boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,578

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    They aren’t trying to race you, they are just trying to keep up to make sure it’s really their girlfriend they have just seen, bent over in your lap, before they go home to their mum’s house to cry.
  • boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    The wrong Corsa action?
  • kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Joining the EU would help.

    We had someone yesterday claiming that stopping UK farmers from exporting to the EU and getting in cheap labour from the EU was great. Because they could send their meat and two veg to Australasia instead.

    I wonder what he'd have said if Musk City had been started on Mars.
    Your post indicates you find selling food to Australia and NZ unlikely - so why the danger of a flood of Australian beef and New Zealand lamb to our plucky farmers? If food can be imported from there, it can also be exported to there.
    I'm struggling with the logic there. You import things you don't have, have a shortage in or which is cheaper elsewhere. You export for the reverse reasons. You don't export what you don't have or have a shortage in or which is more expensive than the importer can produce it for. So the logic of if we can import something from someone we can also export it to them is odd. Although will happen a little, particularly if we/they add value, but generally we won't export much lamb to New Zealand. It is 'Coals to Newcastle' scenario. It will happen and kudos if you achieve it, but it isn't normal.

    Aus/NZ farms have scale which our farms do not. Scale means lower costs means cheaper food. We have a desire for cheap food, they don’t have a desire for more expensive versions of the same food they already have.

    The deal was simple: Truss is simple. She wanted deals for performative reasons, who cares what the deal is or how it works.
    What's wrong with cheaper food?

    If they can do food for cheaper then we should import it, pay less for food, and use our limited land for something far more valuable than unproductive agriculture.

    Win/win.
    The same problem as with imported energy. It's fine until it isn't there. As we might find shortly with imports from Norway. One would think it is a nice stable country which can give us a stable supply. Of course that assumes we can stop our enemies cutting that supply.

    But even without that threat it seems we might not be able to rely on that supply much longer as there is very strong political pressure in Norway to end the energy export deals as they have caused a massive increase in energy prices in Norway.

    The more you rely on imports of good and energy the greater your exposure to price shocks and possible supply interruptions.
    Food is a lot more fungible than energy with a loy more sources able to supply it from and less of a reliance upon infrastructure that can be cut or only used by a single exporter.

    If anything the security argument further reinforces that we'd be more secure using our limited land to supply other things we need for a modern society such as energy or manufacturing and not putting all our eggs in the agriculture basket.
    You really do need to get out more! That said, it is quite amusing to occasionally come on here and find out what subject you have chosen to talk out of your arse on today! I am sure many of us come on here to talk bollox, but you really have a PhD in that capacity.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    The wrong Corsa action?
    Per ardua, add Astra?
  • boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    They are not trying to race you, you have simply made that assumption when in reality they are simply trying to wave the wanker sign at you.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,977

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    So are we to understand that you spent your life when owning a Ferrari worrying about the little guy with the revvy engine next to you at the lights?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 24,151

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Oi, I used to be a Ferrari driver, my first car was a Volvo.
    Why do you think that Volvos are any different to Ferraris as a reputation-trasher? :smile:

    Volvo pivoted some time ago to huge tonka-tanks. They are not as Ratnered as say BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Land-Rover or some VWs, but they are working on it. At least they don't - as far as I am aware anyway - do Volvo 18ft long Crew Cab pickups.

    Prejudiced - moi?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,525
    ydoethur said:

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    The wrong Corsa action?
    Per ardua, add Astra?
    Don't put the Mokkas on it.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,083

    ydoethur said:

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    The wrong Corsa action?
    Per ardua, add Astra?
    Don't put the Mokkas on it.
    These motorists have a Cavalier attitude to driving.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,017
    Taz said:

    Georgia swears it’s new president in as the previous President, in a Trumplike fit of pique refused to accept the loss.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rn2w0zw08o

    The Georgian election really was rigged. Very blatantly. Comparing to Trump's defeat in 2020 is very poor.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,995

    ydoethur said:

    boulay said:

    What I learnt today:

    Solid white lines in the middle of the road don't apply if you are driving a Ferrari.

    Either that, or the person who overtook me was a bit of an arsehole.

    I find there is a 1 to 1 correlation between driving a Ferrari and being a bit of an arsehole...
    Hmm. You might need to expand your circle of Ferrari driving acquaintances. Seems a bit like an envy thing maybe. Loads of genuinely lovely, generous, considerate and caring people drive Ferraris, they just happen to like driving Ferraris occasionally and can.
    The problem when you have a performance super car then every boy racer and bellend on the road in a souped 1 litre Corsa thinks they can race you.
    The wrong Corsa action?
    Per ardua, add Astra?
    Don't put the Mokkas on it.
    These motorists have a Cavalier attitude to driving.
    Have we discovered a brave new Frontera of puns?
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