Whatever Trump’s buffoonery, who ever wrote this EO did so with forensic and crystalline precision:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Well personally I agree with that. The madness is ending. And it would appear being replaced by an entirely different madness. Unfortunately I don't see that it's any use to those of us in Britain whi share this view.
I think it may refocus the spotlight for example on NHS communication over “pregnant people” or “people with cervixes should get cancer screening.”
How many non-native English speaking women will end up getting cancer because they didn’t realise it referred to them?
Probably none unless you can provide a citation for your quote. The NHS website says:
It's offered to women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64
If that's not tautologous then it implies it's offered to women without a cervix.
You might not be a fan of the Oxford comma (@TheScreamingEagles might want a word), but that sentence does make sense. It only has the meaning you state if you put a comma after women, or you don't believe in the Oxford comma and enjoy confusion.
This is the greatest example of why Oxford commas matter.
I love these.
However in fairness to @Driver the sentence was confusing because the addition of the word women was logically unnecessary and therefore causes confusion and the benefit of an Oxford comma is only useful when added. If not needed as here it can be confusing as to whether it is not needed (as in the example Driver quoted) or the person writing it doesn't realise it is needed. if that makes sense.
I love cooking my family and pets.
Don’t be a psychopath, use commas.
More, more. I can never remember them. I vaguely remember a book dedication implying someone whom it was dedicated to was god and also one involving jack and a horse (you can probably get the drift of that one). Can people remember them?
"dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God"
And the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and your uncle jack off a horse.
Also the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
She's gone further. She has publicly stated that all she knows about politics was learnt from her aunt and she had people from the Awami League campaigning for her as well as representing them in the U.K. and so on. She was willing to use her family connections when she thought it would help so she can hardly complain now that people are asking questions about precisely what these connections amounted to.
It raises two further questions:
1. What sort of due diligence was Labour doing on its candidates and those given Ministerial jobs because to my eyes it looks either non-existent or piss poor. 2. Starmer's judgment in making her a Minister, especially in the role she was given. How on earth did he think that appropriate? By all accounts their families are friendly and they have gone on holiday together. It is poor judgment on his part, especially for someone who's always boasting about being DPP.
It would be like having a minister who was a member of Assad’s family. They aren’t necessarily responsible for their relative’s crimes, but you’d expect enhanced due diligence.
"Two shocking facts around knife crime" emerged during this case, Cooper says.
The home secretary says it emerged that Rudakubana admitted to carrying a knife "more than 10 times".
"Yet the action against him was far too weak. And despite the fact he'd been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon.
"That's a total disgrace and it must change. So, we will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring."
Yeah, instead of increasing stop and search and the punishment for carrying knives, let's crack down on internet shopping.
Well quite, internet shopping is clearly the problem. Let's blame the internet for the failings of the authorities.
REFORM SHOULD WALK IT. The only elephant in the room is the Lib Dems. They have been polling where well in Labour northern areas recently, coming up from third fourth even no show for the last 20 years. Accept that his is more west of Pennines than east. If they decide to go hell for leather, you know local candidate, the daily leaflet, mass canvassing etc, they may throw the whole thing into the melting pot, there could then be a three way contest.
No, it's not a strong area for the LDs.
They'll save their fire for the possible by-election in Hampstead. Any campaigning they'll do in Runcorn will be to develop strength in any possibly winnable local ward.
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
Somebody’s just watched Kaos.
The Boys is very much the same thing.
Also, did Leon really only just work this out ?
{a Golden Retriever puppy thinks…}
This is awesome. The bestest thing in the universe. I! have! discovered! It!
I shall call it a…. tail!
That's mean; it will make a cracking article. Anyone can have the idea; he'll get paid to write it up.
William Gibson framed it well with Joseph Virek
So, not you @Malmesbury and not @Nigelb - you didn’t have the idea and you didn’t discuss it on here
And someone else had a SIMILAR ish idea but not the same, just checking
So it was just something you thought but… never mentioned… lol ok
This matters to me because ideas are, to an extent; my currency - my coin - and I dislike using old ones or stealing the coin of others - wittingly or not
A random Pinterest picture with no explanatory text bothers me less
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
Somebody’s just watched Kaos.
The Boys is very much the same thing.
Also, did Leon really only just work this out ?
{a Golden Retriever puppy thinks…}
This is awesome. The bestest thing in the universe. I! have! discovered! It!
I shall call it a…. tail!
That's mean; it will make a cracking article. Anyone can have the idea; he'll get paid to write it up.
William Gibson framed it well with Joseph Virek
So, not you @Malmesbury and not @Nigelb - you didn’t have the idea and you didn’t discuss it on here
And someone else had a SIMILAR ish idea but not the same, just checking
Whatever Trump’s buffoonery, who ever wrote this EO did so with forensic and crystalline precision:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Well personally I agree with that. The madness is ending. And it would appear being replaced by an entirely different madness. Unfortunately I don't see that it's any use to those of us in Britain whi share this view.
I think it may refocus the spotlight for example on NHS communication over “pregnant people” or “people with cervixes should get cancer screening.”
How many non-native English speaking women will end up getting cancer because they didn’t realise it referred to them?
Probably none unless you can provide a citation for your quote. The NHS website says:
It's offered to women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64
If that's not tautologous then it implies it's offered to women without a cervix.
You might not be a fan of the Oxford comma (@TheScreamingEagles might want a word), but that sentence does make sense. It only has the meaning you state if you put a comma after women, or you don't believe in the Oxford comma and enjoy confusion.
Eh? You can group it as:
It's offered to (women) and (people with a cervix) - which is either tautologous or implies some women don't have a cervix It's offered to (women and people) with a cervix - which implies women aren't people
Unless I'm missing something - how do you group it to make it make sense?
The serial comma is irrelevant because there are only two items in the list.
No it implies that some people with a cervix might not identify as women. But you knew that.
"might not identify as" is, in a medical context, absurd.
It's telling people to come for a screening. Are you being deliberately obtuse? You might not like it or think it's needed (I'm neutral on this) but the intended meaning is clear, obvious, logical, and not a tautology. Now either you already knew this, or your ideological opposition to people who have a cervix not identifying as a woman has made you incapable of understanding a pretty simple English sentence.
Whatever Trump’s buffoonery, who ever wrote this EO did so with forensic and crystalline precision:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Well personally I agree with that. The madness is ending. And it would appear being replaced by an entirely different madness. Unfortunately I don't see that it's any use to those of us in Britain whi share this view.
I think it may refocus the spotlight for example on NHS communication over “pregnant people” or “people with cervixes should get cancer screening.”
How many non-native English speaking women will end up getting cancer because they didn’t realise it referred to them?
Probably none unless you can provide a citation for your quote. The NHS website says:
It's offered to women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64
If that's not tautologous then it implies it's offered to women without a cervix.
You might not be a fan of the Oxford comma (@TheScreamingEagles might want a word), but that sentence does make sense. It only has the meaning you state if you put a comma after women, or you don't believe in the Oxford comma and enjoy confusion.
Eh? You can group it as:
It's offered to (women) and (people with a cervix) - which is either tautologous or implies some women don't have a cervix It's offered to (women and people) with a cervix - which implies women aren't people
Unless I'm missing something - how do you group it to make it make sense?
The serial comma is irrelevant because there are only two items in the list.
See my reply to @TheScreamingEagles where I acknowledge to you that it was a very poor sentence. But it was logically correct.
Try saying the sentence twice and each time pause just once but at two different points. Pause after women the first time and then after people the second time.
If you put an Oxford comma after women it reads like you think it reads, but it hasn't got one. Without an Oxford comma, but read by someone who would expect an Oxford comma if it were necessary (so as presented) it is logical.
However it is very confusing. Presumably they want to be politically correct so have added 'people with a cervix' to 'women with a cervix' and created the confusion. If they want to be politically correct it would have been easier to just take out 'women and'.
How was it "logically correct"? What exactly are they trying to say that is neither a tautology nor absurd?
I'm not sure I can explain any further. @Viewcode did a better explanation than me. I acknowledge it was badly written, but it is correct. Try this pausing at the dots?:
'It is offered to......women and people.....with a cervix'
The 'women and' was unnecessary, but not wrong.
To have got the meaning you interpreted it to be, you would have had to put an Oxford comma after 'women'. There wasn't one so assuming you accept the use of Oxford commas you should read accordingly.
Rachel has invited me for a business breakfast on how to grow the economy next month so she’s definitely asking the right people.
Well me about 100 other companies are invited to this breakfast.
How to grow the economy.
More Lawyers ?
It's mostly going to be bankers (sic) at this lunch.
On business banking - Allowing more flexibility for individual account managers to assess risk of clients (Commercial, not talking AML or legal which I know MUST be adhered to) and apply a bit more disgression instead of computer says Yes/No would aid the UK economy. It's gone sharply the other way in recent years. Residential/domestic banking is much better imo than commercial in the UK.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
Tulip was an accident waiting to happen; her dubious links with the Awami League were well known and even her receipt of property from Awami benefactors.
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
Rachel has invited me for a business breakfast on how to grow the economy next month so she’s definitely asking the right people.
Well me about 100 other companies are invited to this breakfast.
How to grow the economy.
More Lawyers ?
It's mostly going to be bankers (sic) at this lunch.
On business banking - Allowing more flexibility for individual account managers to assess risk of clients (Commercial, not talking AML or legal which I know MUST be adhered to) and apply a bit more disgression instead of computer says Yes/No would aid the UK economy. It's gone sharply the other way in recent years. Residential/domestic banking is much better imo than commercial in the UK.
High street banks really don't want to deal with business banking apart from the cash. Have you tried Handelsbanken?
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
Ruben Amorim damages TV in Manchester United dressing room in angry criticism of players
Ruben Amorim caused damage to the big screen television in Manchester United’s dressing room during a furious critique of his players’ performance in the 3-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.
The United head coach unleashed his emotions after witnessing the seventh defeat of his 15 games in charge, fiercely voicing his displeasure at his team and showing his frustrations physically.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the incident, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that the TV used to go through tactics before kick-off was caught as collateral and will require fixing before the visit of Rangers in the Europa League on Thursday night.
Amorim’s reaction was striking to those on the receiving end who have experienced angry managers before, but even more pronounced on this occasion because usually the Portuguese does not say a word in the immediate aftermath of matches. As he has done his whole coaching career, Amorim prefers to stay silent straight after the final whistle and instead go through analysis the next day in a more sober fashion.
Whatever Trump’s buffoonery, who ever wrote this EO did so with forensic and crystalline precision:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Well personally I agree with that. The madness is ending. And it would appear being replaced by an entirely different madness. Unfortunately I don't see that it's any use to those of us in Britain whi share this view.
I think it may refocus the spotlight for example on NHS communication over “pregnant people” or “people with cervixes should get cancer screening.”
How many non-native English speaking women will end up getting cancer because they didn’t realise it referred to them?
Probably none unless you can provide a citation for your quote. The NHS website says:
It's offered to women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64
If that's not tautologous then it implies it's offered to women without a cervix.
You might not be a fan of the Oxford comma (@TheScreamingEagles might want a word), but that sentence does make sense. It only has the meaning you state if you put a comma after women, or you don't believe in the Oxford comma and enjoy confusion.
Eh? You can group it as:
It's offered to (women) and (people with a cervix) - which is either tautologous or implies some women don't have a cervix It's offered to (women and people) with a cervix - which implies women aren't people
Unless I'm missing something - how do you group it to make it make sense?
The serial comma is irrelevant because there are only two items in the list.
See my reply to @TheScreamingEagles where I acknowledge to you that it was a very poor sentence. But it was logically correct.
Try saying the sentence twice and each time pause just once but at two different points. Pause after women the first time and then after people the second time.
If you put an Oxford comma after women it reads like you think it reads, but it hasn't got one. Without an Oxford comma, but read by someone who would expect an Oxford comma if it were necessary (so as presented) it is logical.
However it is very confusing. Presumably they want to be politically correct so have added 'people with a cervix' to 'women with a cervix' and created the confusion. If they want to be politically correct it would have been easier to just take out 'women and'.
How was it "logically correct"? What exactly are they trying to say that is neither a tautology nor absurd?
I'm not sure I can explain any further. @Viewcode did a better explanation than me. I acknowledge it was badly written, but it is correct. Try this pausing at the dots?:
'It is offered to......women and people.....with a cervix'
The 'women and' was unnecessary, but not wrong.
To have got the meaning you interpreted it to be, you would have had to put an Oxford comma after 'women'. There wasn't one so assuming you accept the use of Oxford commas you should read accordingly.
That makes it a tautology, which was one of my original options. I'm not sure which meaning you think I have interpreted as I came up with three options, none of which really made sense. Yes, I'm sure the tautologous meaning was the one intended, but they should have owned it and just put "people with a cervix".
And, once again, there are only two items in the list so a serial comma is always unnecessary.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
Rachel has invited me for a business breakfast on how to grow the economy next month so she’s definitely asking the right people.
Well me about 100 other companies are invited to this breakfast.
How to grow the economy.
More Lawyers ?
It's mostly going to be bankers (sic) at this lunch.
On business banking - Allowing more flexibility for individual account managers to assess risk of clients (Commercial, not talking AML or legal which I know MUST be adhered to) and apply a bit more disgression instead of computer says Yes/No would aid the UK economy. It's gone sharply the other way in recent years. Residential/domestic banking is much better imo than commercial in the UK.
High street banks really don't want to deal with business banking apart from the cash. Have you tried Handelsbanken?
Too small. Our customers require our bank(s) to have tier 1 facilities/$0.5T+ balance sheets, which in practice in the UK means one of the big boys.
Whatever Trump’s buffoonery, who ever wrote this EO did so with forensic and crystalline precision:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Well personally I agree with that. The madness is ending. And it would appear being replaced by an entirely different madness. Unfortunately I don't see that it's any use to those of us in Britain whi share this view.
I think it may refocus the spotlight for example on NHS communication over “pregnant people” or “people with cervixes should get cancer screening.”
How many non-native English speaking women will end up getting cancer because they didn’t realise it referred to them?
Probably none unless you can provide a citation for your quote. The NHS website says:
It's offered to women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64
If that's not tautologous then it implies it's offered to women without a cervix.
You might not be a fan of the Oxford comma (@TheScreamingEagles might want a word), but that sentence does make sense. It only has the meaning you state if you put a comma after women, or you don't believe in the Oxford comma and enjoy confusion.
Eh? You can group it as:
It's offered to (women) and (people with a cervix) - which is either tautologous or implies some women don't have a cervix It's offered to (women and people) with a cervix - which implies women aren't people
Unless I'm missing something - how do you group it to make it make sense?
The serial comma is irrelevant because there are only two items in the list.
No it implies that some people with a cervix might not identify as women. But you knew that.
"might not identify as" is, in a medical context, absurd.
It's telling people to come for a screening. Are you being deliberately obtuse? You might not like it or think it's needed (I'm neutral on this) but the intended meaning is clear, obvious, logical, and not a tautology. Now either you already knew this, or your ideological opposition to people who have a cervix not identifying as a woman has made you incapable of understanding a pretty simple English sentence.
They can identify as whatever the hell they like, I'm not going to stop them as long as they reciprocate the courtesy.
Rachel has invited me for a business breakfast on how to grow the economy next month so she’s definitely asking the right people.
Well me about 100 other companies are invited to this breakfast.
How to grow the economy.
More Lawyers ?
It's mostly going to be bankers (sic) at this lunch.
On business banking - Allowing more flexibility for individual account managers to assess risk of clients (Commercial, not talking AML or legal which I know MUST be adhered to) and apply a bit more disgression instead of computer says Yes/No would aid the UK economy. It's gone sharply the other way in recent years. Residential/domestic banking is much better imo than commercial in the UK.
Nobody wants to have the discussion about personal/parental guarantees these days.
"Two shocking facts around knife crime" emerged during this case, Cooper says.
The home secretary says it emerged that Rudakubana admitted to carrying a knife "more than 10 times".
"Yet the action against him was far too weak. And despite the fact he'd been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon.
"That's a total disgrace and it must change. So, we will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring."
Yeah, instead of increasing stop and search and the punishment for carrying knives, let's crack down on internet shopping.
Maybe we’ll eventually get to the point where private kitchens are banned and everyone has to eat out or buy pre-prepared food.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Rachel has invited me for a business breakfast on how to grow the economy next month so she’s definitely asking the right people.
Well me about 100 other companies are invited to this breakfast.
How to grow the economy.
More Lawyers ?
It's mostly going to be bankers (sic) at this lunch.
On business banking - Allowing more flexibility for individual account managers to assess risk of clients (Commercial, not talking AML or legal which I know MUST be adhered to) and apply a bit more disgression instead of computer says Yes/No would aid the UK economy. It's gone sharply the other way in recent years. Residential/domestic banking is much better imo than commercial in the UK.
SME customers don't get a good deal from banks generally. It isn't a commodity business like retail, nor do they have the bargaining power of corporates who will get a customised service.
Tulip was an accident waiting to happen; her dubious links with the Awami League were well known and even her receipt of property from Awami benefactors.
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
It is becoming a habit with SKS. Although far less serious than any of the allegations against Siddiq was the Louise Haigh appointment. You would have thought they would have known about that too.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
Pillar 2 has a few different parts to it. When you read things like "USA will cancel Pillar 2" they're not talking about the whole thing, but a very specific piece of it called the Under-Taxed Profits Rule or UTPR.
The global minimum tax is supposed to have 3 layers, allowing for different countries to collect it:
1. QDMTT (Qualifying domestic minimum top-up tax): A country with a low tax rate can introduce domestic legislation so that it collects a top-up from local taxpayers up to the 15% rate. That way it gets first dibs on its own tax base. Quite right - nobody argues against that. QDMTTs are already in place in lots of erstwhile low tax countries.
2. IIR (Income inclusion rule): This allows the headquarters country of a multinational - e.g. the UK if it's British tax structuring plc or the US if it's Base Erosion Inc - to collect the top up if those low tax countries mentioned in 1 fail to implement a QDMTT themselves. So the HQ location gets second dibs
3. UTPR: if a company is subject to tax at below 15% in a country that hasn't implemented QDMTT, AND it's headquartered in a country that hasn't implemented IIR, then 3rd dibs goes to countries where there are intercompany payments going out from their domestic base into that low tax location. They can collect the top-up as a kind of withholding. This is what the US doesn't like. Particularly the GOP but plenty of Democrats too.
Why doesn't the US like it? Because although their headline tax rate is comfortably above 15%, they have various incentive regimes in their domestic legislation that can take your effective rate below it. Unlike countries like the UK whose regimes are designed to be exempted from the Pillar 2 rules (too complex to explain here), the US doesn't see the need to adjust any of its incentives.
They want to have their cake and eat it. No low tax shenanigans overseas, but let Uncle Sam keep all his special industrial incentives without those dastardly Europeans getting their hands on them.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
It's because of Greta types that we've made any progress at all. If we'd sat back and listened to the deniers and now the defeatists we'd be pumping far more carbon into the atmosphere than we are now.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
Bollocks. We were making progress well before crank Greta and her XR/JSO fringe nutcases came along.
They way these people go on is, as Sandpit says, as if we have done nothing when we have done plenty and continue to do so.
I think the extreme activists for any cause actually hurt their cause. There is always a backlash, even from people who actually support the cause. Global warming, animal rights, trans, abortion.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
Pillar 2 has a few different parts to it. When you read things like "USA will cancel Pillar 2" they're not talking about the whole thing, but a very specific piece of it called the Under-Taxed Profits Rule or UTPR.
The global minimum tax is supposed to have 3 layers, allowing for different countries to collect it:
1. QDMTT (Qualifying domestic minimum top-up tax): A country with a low tax rate can introduce domestic legislation so that it collects a top-up from local taxpayers up to the 15% rate. That way it gets first dibs on its own tax base. Quite right - nobody argues against that. QDMTTs are already in place in lots of erstwhile low tax countries.
2. IIR (Income inclusion rule): This allows the headquarters country of a multinational - e.g. the UK if it's British tax structuring plc or the US if it's Base Erosion Inc - to collect the top up if those low tax countries mentioned in 1 fail to implement a QDMTT themselves. So the HQ location gets second dibs
3. UTPR: if a company is subject to tax at below 15% in a country that hasn't implemented QDMTT, AND it's headquartered in a country that hasn't implemented IIR, then 3rd dibs goes to countries where there are intercompany payments going out from their domestic base into that low tax location. They can collect the top-up as a kind of withholding. This is what the US doesn't like. Particularly the GOP but plenty of Democrats too.
Why doesn't the US like it? Because although their headline tax rate is comfortably above 15%, they have various incentive regimes in their domestic legislation that can take your effective rate below it. Unlike countries like the UK whose regimes are designed to be exempted from the Pillar 2 rules (too complex to explain here), the US doesn't see the need to adjust any of its incentives.
They want to have their cake and eat it. No low tax shenanigans overseas, but let Uncle Sam keep all his special industrial incentives without those dastardly Europeans getting their hands on them.
The UK is introducing its UTPR in the current Finance Bill going through parliament for accounting periods commencing on or after 31 December 2024.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
It's because of Greta types that we've made any progress at all. If we'd sat back and listened to the deniers and now the defeatists we'd be pumping far more carbon into the atmosphere than we are now.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
Bollocks. We were making progress well before crank Greta and her XR/JSO fringe nutcases came along.
They way these people go on is, as Sandpit says, as if we have done nothing when we have done plenty and continue to do so.
I think the extreme activists for any cause actually hurt their cause. There is always a backlash, even from people who actually support the cause. Global warming, animal rights, trans, abortion.
Thunberg didn't start off extreme - she got very upset about an issue and staged a lone school strike that caught everyone's imagination.
The problem with her is that the schtick hasn't changed or evolved. It's gone on for years and she is still saying the same things. After a while if you want to continue being heard you have to move from protest to constructive engagement, but she's never been able to do that.
XR/JSO a different matter. Self-destructive from the start.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
Pillar 2 has a few different parts to it. When you read things like "USA will cancel Pillar 2" they're not talking about the whole thing, but a very specific piece of it called the Under-Taxed Profits Rule or UTPR.
The global minimum tax is supposed to have 3 layers, allowing for different countries to collect it:
1. QDMTT (Qualifying domestic minimum top-up tax): A country with a low tax rate can introduce domestic legislation so that it collects a top-up from local taxpayers up to the 15% rate. That way it gets first dibs on its own tax base. Quite right - nobody argues against that. QDMTTs are already in place in lots of erstwhile low tax countries.
2. IIR (Income inclusion rule): This allows the headquarters country of a multinational - e.g. the UK if it's British tax structuring plc or the US if it's Base Erosion Inc - to collect the top up if those low tax countries mentioned in 1 fail to implement a QDMTT themselves. So the HQ location gets second dibs
3. UTPR: if a company is subject to tax at below 15% in a country that hasn't implemented QDMTT, AND it's headquartered in a country that hasn't implemented IIR, then 3rd dibs goes to countries where there are intercompany payments going out from their domestic base into that low tax location. They can collect the top-up as a kind of withholding. This is what the US doesn't like. Particularly the GOP but plenty of Democrats too.
Why doesn't the US like it? Because although their headline tax rate is comfortably above 15%, they have various incentive regimes in their domestic legislation that can take your effective rate below it. Unlike countries like the UK whose regimes are designed to be exempted from the Pillar 2 rules (too complex to explain here), the US doesn't see the need to adjust any of its incentives.
They want to have their cake and eat it. No low tax shenanigans overseas, but let Uncle Sam keep all his special industrial incentives without those dastardly Europeans getting their hands on them.
The UK is introducing its UTPR in the current Finance Bill going through parliament for accounting periods commencing on or after 31 December 2024.
Yes it's already in the books.
General expectation is that a fudge will be done enabling the US's various regimes like its R&D credits to qualify as Pillar-2 proof.
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
Somebody’s just watched Kaos.
The Boys is very much the same thing.
Also, did Leon really only just work this out ?
{a Golden Retriever puppy thinks…}
This is awesome. The bestest thing in the universe. I! have! discovered! It!
I shall call it a…. tail!
That's mean; it will make a cracking article. Anyone can have the idea; he'll get paid to write it up.
William Gibson framed it well with Joseph Virek
So, not you @Malmesbury and not @Nigelb - you didn’t have the idea and you didn’t discuss it on here
And someone else had a SIMILAR ish idea but not the same, just checking
So it was just something you thought but… never mentioned… lol ok
This matters to me because ideas are, to an extent; my currency - my coin - and I dislike using old ones or stealing the coin of others - wittingly or not
A random Pinterest picture with no explanatory text bothers me less
You're entirely welcome to steal anything I say, in the unlikely event you want to. And lol at your anxiety to be original.
Tulip was an accident waiting to happen; her dubious links with the Awami League were well known and even her receipt of property from Awami benefactors.
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
What will give it legs is that Labour seem to have other questionable links to Bangladeshi politics.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
“The Bearer of This Letter Has Acted Under My Orders and for the Good of the State
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
Which was predicted well before he went ahead with them - not least by a number of Democrats who were strongly opposed. Some are regrettably trying to justify them after the fact. I was sincerely hoping he wouldn't, and it was pretty craven to sneak them out on the final day of his term.
I'm afraid the fact that Trump very probably would have gone on a retribution tour, with the complete complicity of his party, isn't really an excuse.
One of Trump's executive orders is to attack the new global OECD BEPS2 regime that is being introduced by a number of countries, including the UK.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
I'm not sure I fully understand this, but this sounds like bad news for Ireland?
The really naughty structures involving Ireland (like the Double Irish) were legislated away years ago. The mainstream CT rate there has been 12.5% for decades, but they've already enacted an increase for large companies to 15%.
So Ireland remains more competitive than the UK, France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Italy all of which are around 25%, and Germany at around 30%. But the biggest bad news for all European countries looking for US FDI is the double whammy of massive US tax incentives from the IRA (and doubtless some new Trump admin incentives) and the prospect of trade tariffs.
Tulip was an accident waiting to happen; her dubious links with the Awami League were well known and even her receipt of property from Awami benefactors.
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
What will give it legs is that Labour seem to have other questionable links to Bangladeshi politics.
So when Reform have links to Musk and the USA labour say that is bad for democracy and we must reform as a priority.
When labour have questionable links to Bangladeshi politics that is fine.
Politicians and political parties. Got to love em.
Tulip was an accident waiting to happen; her dubious links with the Awami League were well known and even her receipt of property from Awami benefactors.
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
I have a theory on this.
There is a pretty large and cohesive Bangladeshi community in Starmer's Holborn & St Pancras constituency, much of it centred on estates pretty close to where @Leon is based. They were very closely and successfully targeted by the insurgent Corbynite Andrew Feinstein at the last GE and their votes were central to the sharp fall in Starmer's majority. I wonder whether, in part at least, the appointment of Sidiqq was about trying to shore up relations with them, based on the flawed belief that the Awami League is well entrenched in that community.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
Which was predicted well before he went ahead with them - not least by a number of Democrats who were strongly opposed. Some are regrettably trying to justify them after the fact. I was sincerely hoping he wouldn't, and it was pretty craven to sneak them out on the final day of his term.
I'm afraid the fact that Trump very probably would have gone on a retribution tour, with the complete complicity of his party, isn't really an excuse.
An alternative of Biden and his family seeking asylum in another country would have been interesting.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
It's because of Greta types that we've made any progress at all. If we'd sat back and listened to the deniers and now the defeatists we'd be pumping far more carbon into the atmosphere than we are now.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
Bollocks. We were making progress well before crank Greta and her XR/JSO fringe nutcases came along.
They way these people go on is, as Sandpit says, as if we have done nothing when we have done plenty and continue to do so.
I think the extreme activists for any cause actually hurt their cause. There is always a backlash, even from people who actually support the cause. Global warming, animal rights, trans, abortion.
I think you are absolutely correct and some of the founders of XR realise this and have proposed a more peaceful process of engaging people and winning hearts and minds. Blocking roads and not letting through ambulances just wins few friends.
As for the likes of Greta who was lauded and feted by the political class, remember Theresa May being empty chaired when Greta and some of her chums rocked up to Parliament to radiate their wisdom on our politicians. Theresa May having the business of running the country not pandering to activists egos taking precedent.
Thunberg seems to have moved onto other left wing causes such as the Palestinians.
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
Somebody’s just watched Kaos.
The Boys is very much the same thing.
Also, did Leon really only just work this out ?
{a Golden Retriever puppy thinks…}
This is awesome. The bestest thing in the universe. I! have! discovered! It!
I shall call it a…. tail!
That's mean; it will make a cracking article. Anyone can have the idea; he'll get paid to write it up.
William Gibson framed it well with Joseph Virek
So, not you @Malmesbury and not @Nigelb - you didn’t have the idea and you didn’t discuss it on here
And someone else had a SIMILAR ish idea but not the same, just checking
So it was just something you thought but… never mentioned… lol ok
This matters to me because ideas are, to an extent; my currency - my coin - and I dislike using old ones or stealing the coin of others - wittingly or not
A random Pinterest picture with no explanatory text bothers me less
You're entirely welcome to steal anything I say, in the unlikely event you want to. And lol at your anxiety to be original.
Why is it laughable that I am anxious to be original?
Surely it’s admirable. You should be morally impressed. It’s also true, I don’t have many rules in my life (OK almost none) but one of them is - don’t steal ideas, don’t “accidentally borrow them” either. I have enough new ideas of my own, I don’t NEED to do this
Following this rule also means that you stay fresh and surprising, which is quite important in my various jobs
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
Which was predicted well before he went ahead with them - not least by a number of Democrats who were strongly opposed. Some are regrettably trying to justify them after the fact. I was sincerely hoping he wouldn't, and it was pretty craven to sneak them out on the final day of his term.
I'm afraid the fact that Trump very probably would have gone on a retribution tour, with the complete complicity of his party, isn't really an excuse.
An alternative of Biden and his family seeking asylum in another country would have been interesting.
How is the UK going to respond to the ban on British people buying Spanish property?
There is no ban on British people buying property. There is a new tax, intended one presumes to avoid overseas money inflating houseprices, from which Britons will not be immune, since Britain has left the EU.
I haven’t yet read any decent analysis of the various Executive Orders.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
The same, of course, can be said of the Biden “pre emptive” pardons
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
Gardenwalker was critical of the Biden pardons yesterday even when the Kamala fanboys here were trying to excuse them.
The Biden pardons are an absolute disgrace. The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
Which was predicted well before he went ahead with them - not least by a number of Democrats who were strongly opposed. Some are regrettably trying to justify them after the fact. I was sincerely hoping he wouldn't, and it was pretty craven to sneak them out on the final day of his term.
I'm afraid the fact that Trump very probably would have gone on a retribution tour, with the complete complicity of his party, isn't really an excuse.
I don't think you can pardon for something they haven't been convicted of. You can grant someone a licence to do something in the future. But the time between when the act was committed and the time when a conviction is issued must be a no man's land. I wouldn't like to rely on one of these pre-emptive pardons.
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And the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and your uncle jack off a horse.
Also the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
Perhaps fining Amazon for every stabbing ?
They'll save their fire for the possible by-election in Hampstead. Any campaigning they'll do in Runcorn will be to develop strength in any possibly winnable local ward.
This matters to me because ideas are, to an extent; my currency - my coin - and I dislike using old ones or stealing the coin of others - wittingly or not
A random Pinterest picture with no explanatory text bothers me less
https://www.academuseducation.co.uk/post/prometheus-in-the-modern-age-elon-musk#:~:text=The Prometheus myths of antiquity,an opinion as a fact.
If you can under It's telling people to come for a screening. Are you being deliberately obtuse? You might not like it or think it's needed (I'm neutral on this) but the intended meaning is clear, obvious, logical, and not a tautology. Now either you already knew this, or your ideological opposition to people who have a cervix not identifying as a woman has made you incapable of understanding a pretty simple English sentence.
'It is offered to......women and people.....with a cervix'
The 'women and' was unnecessary, but not wrong.
To have got the meaning you interpreted it to be, you would have had to put an Oxford comma after 'women'. There wasn't one so assuming you accept the use of Oxford commas you should read accordingly.
This sets a minimum jurisdictional tax rate of 15% with rules enabling group parent companies and other group companies to collect tax on the undertaxed profits.
Under Biden the US did not adopt these rules but in general accepted what was happening.
Trump appears to be challenging this and asking why US multinational companies are being taxed extrajurisdictionally.
@TimS will be able to comment further.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/the-organization-for-economic-co-operation-and-development-oecd-global-tax-deal-global-tax-deal/
Her appointment as City Minister is by far Starmer’s biggest “scandal” to date, much more that the flim-flam about Lord Alli. It shows very poor judgement from him.
However, since Tulip nor Labour derived any direct benefit from her short-lived ministership, this scandal will disappear and won’t leave a lasting mark except for professional Catos like myself.
He speaks the truth about Europe needing to step up, but you can feel the electricity has gone
Polite applause follows him. Certainly no standing ovations. They need to seek peace
Ruben Amorim damages TV in Manchester United dressing room in angry criticism of players
Ruben Amorim caused damage to the big screen television in Manchester United’s dressing room during a furious critique of his players’ performance in the 3-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.
The United head coach unleashed his emotions after witnessing the seventh defeat of his 15 games in charge, fiercely voicing his displeasure at his team and showing his frustrations physically.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the incident, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that the TV used to go through tactics before kick-off was caught as collateral and will require fixing before the visit of Rangers in the Europa League on Thursday night.
Amorim’s reaction was striking to those on the receiving end who have experienced angry managers before, but even more pronounced on this occasion because usually the Portuguese does not say a word in the immediate aftermath of matches. As he has done his whole coaching career, Amorim prefers to stay silent straight after the final whistle and instead go through analysis the next day in a more sober fashion.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6077915/2025/01/21/manchester-united-ruben-amorim-dressing-room/
And, once again, there are only two items in the list so a serial comma is always unnecessary.
The most troubling is obviously the pardoning of the J6 insurrectionists, which shows a contempt for democracy, rule of law, and creates an incentive for new, extra-judicial violence in support of the regime.
There’s a NYT piece today which points out that Biden has established the priinciple that if you come and work for an administration you can hope to commit crimes, not get caught, and then get “pre emptively pardoned”
The precedents set by both Trump AND Biden are absolutely horrific for US democracy
It is just clumsy.
But there's merit in keeping Oxford open.
The global minimum tax is supposed to have 3 layers, allowing for different countries to collect it:
1. QDMTT (Qualifying domestic minimum top-up tax): A country with a low tax rate can introduce domestic legislation so that it collects a top-up from local taxpayers up to the 15% rate. That way it gets first dibs on its own tax base. Quite right - nobody argues against that. QDMTTs are already in place in lots of erstwhile low tax countries.
2. IIR (Income inclusion rule): This allows the headquarters country of a multinational - e.g. the UK if it's British tax structuring plc or the US if it's Base Erosion Inc - to collect the top up if those low tax countries mentioned in 1 fail to implement a QDMTT themselves. So the HQ location gets second dibs
3. UTPR: if a company is subject to tax at below 15% in a country that hasn't implemented QDMTT, AND it's headquartered in a country that hasn't implemented IIR, then 3rd dibs goes to countries where there are intercompany payments going out from their domestic base into that low tax location. They can collect the top-up as a kind of withholding. This is what the US doesn't like. Particularly the GOP but plenty of Democrats too.
Why doesn't the US like it? Because although their headline tax rate is comfortably above 15%, they have various incentive regimes in their domestic legislation that can take your effective rate below it. Unlike countries like the UK whose regimes are designed to be exempted from the Pillar 2 rules (too complex to explain here), the US doesn't see the need to adjust any of its incentives.
They want to have their cake and eat it. No low tax shenanigans overseas, but let Uncle Sam keep all his special industrial incentives without those dastardly Europeans getting their hands on them.
Global warming, animal rights, trans, abortion.
The whole concept of “pre-emptive pardons” is a total perversion of justice.
However, their chief damage is indeed to create a spurious justification or precedent for Trump’s own actions which are designed, as I posted, to directly undermine democratic rule of law.
@Gardenwalker can be admirably clear-eyed
The problem with her is that the schtick hasn't changed or evolved. It's gone on for years and she is still saying the same things. After a while if you want to continue being heard you have to move from protest to constructive engagement, but she's never been able to do that.
XR/JSO a different matter. Self-destructive from the start.
General expectation is that a fudge will be done enabling the US's various regimes like its R&D credits to qualify as Pillar-2 proof.
Surely you mean The Fenland Poly Branch of the Patrice Lumumba University of Moscow?”
And lol at your anxiety to be original.
--Richelieu”
It looks like there is a delay in the case.
I was sincerely hoping he wouldn't, and it was pretty craven to sneak them out on the final day of his term.
I'm afraid the fact that Trump very probably would have gone on a retribution tour, with the complete complicity of his party, isn't really an excuse.
So Ireland remains more competitive than the UK, France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Italy all of which are around 25%, and Germany at around 30%. But the biggest bad news for all European countries looking for US FDI is the double whammy of massive US tax incentives from the IRA (and doubtless some new Trump admin incentives) and the prospect of trade tariffs.
When labour have questionable links to Bangladeshi politics that is fine.
Politicians and political parties. Got to love em.
There is a pretty large and cohesive Bangladeshi community in Starmer's Holborn & St Pancras constituency, much of it centred on estates pretty close to where @Leon is based. They were very closely and successfully targeted by the insurgent Corbynite Andrew Feinstein at the last GE and their votes were central to the sharp fall in Starmer's majority. I wonder whether, in part at least, the appointment of Sidiqq was about trying to shore up relations with them, based on the flawed belief that the Awami League is well entrenched in that community.
As for the likes of Greta who was lauded and feted by the political class, remember Theresa May being empty chaired when Greta and some of her chums rocked up to Parliament to radiate their wisdom on our politicians. Theresa May having the business of running the country not pandering to activists egos taking precedent.
Thunberg seems to have moved onto other left wing causes such as the Palestinians.
Surely it’s admirable. You should be morally impressed. It’s also true, I don’t have many rules in my life (OK almost none) but one of them is - don’t steal ideas, don’t “accidentally borrow them” either. I have enough new ideas of my own, I don’t NEED to do this
Following this rule also means that you stay fresh and surprising, which is quite important in my various jobs
And now, Kaos, episode 3!
There is a new tax, intended one presumes to avoid overseas money inflating houseprices, from which Britons will not be immune, since Britain has left the EU.
We severely restricted the rights of Spaniards from working here.
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