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  • DairDair Posts: 6,108
    Pulpstar said:

    Indigo said:

    Greece:

    Obama jumps into the Greek's corner

    The Obama administration has leapt to the defence of Greece, warning Germany and Europe’s creditor powers that they must meet Athens half-way to avert a potentially dangerous rupture and a euro break-up.

    Caroline Atkinson, the US deputy-national security adviser, said the eurozone authorities had imposed the main burden of adjustment on the weaker deficit states and should do more to accept their share of responsibility for the euro crisis. “They have asymmetric rules. They need to make it socially fairer,” she said.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/11411728/White-House-warns-Europe-on-Greek-showdown.html
    Germany and Greece both need to accept that they'd be better off with seperate currencies imo - neither seems to.

    As a thought experiment.

    Would Lombardy and Sicily be better off with separate currencies?
  • EasterrossEasterross Posts: 1,915
    Afternoon all and I see as per usual MalcolmG is spouting nonsense out of his backside.

    Margaret Thatcher's government spent more on social housing in Scotland than any government before or since. Her Scottish Secretary authorised the creation of Housing Associations (starting with one in Dennistoun) which saw the end of the wholesale ripping down of tenement homes and shipping people out to what subsequently became the crime ridden slums like Easterhouse, Castlemilk and Drumchapel. The people of Dennistoun had refused to be forced out of their homes by Glasgow's Labour dominated Corporation and in the process, created a new and highly successful model for tenant led redevelopment of social housing.

    Margaret Thatcher's government also ran huge programmes for the building of thousands of social housing stock in areas where houses had already been ripped down. The Labour Party's answer was tower blocks. Her government set up projects like GEAR which built thousands of new houses across the east end of Glasgow. If you go to e.g. the Calton area where the famous Barras market is situated and walk to Bridgeton Cross and then out to PArkhead and up to Tollcross and Shettleston you can see all the housing built under this project in the 1980s.

    The problem today is that all politicians, especially SNP ministers are obsessed with building low-cost starter homes when what in fact people need is good quality social housing to replace the older stock sold off under the sale of council housing legislation.
  • TheWatcherTheWatcher Posts: 5,262

    malcolmg said:

    Indigo said:

    Rich people do not just need their bins emptied; their quality of life is also dependent on transport infrastructure, independent policing and justice systems, ensuring that all other members of their society having proper access to health and education. So come on: just pay your tax - it really is not too much to ask.

    Even on their current "avoiding" number the top 1% pay for about a third of the country. The continued envy and cried to pay more is a little unedifying.

    If I was a billionaire, even though I am British and proud of it, I wouldn't live in the UK, its so conspicuously despises the successful and especially the self made rich. It wants to ever take more money from them but is dismissive of their philanthropy and other good works. A man can start from nothing, building up a successful multi-billion pound business, give millions of pounds to charity, employ thousands of British workers, and yet the establishment looks at him with a sneer and a look of disgust contorting their collective face.
    Watch HSBC shift their HQ to another tax regime, the Left cry Hurrah, and everyone else picks up the resulting shortfall in tax revenue. Or we make some more cuts.
    Do they pay any tax, (HSBC)
    10,000 office based HQ staff worth at least £300m in taxes, probably £500m. On top of that comes corporation taxes et etc.
    HSBC pay at least £1 billion in UK corporation tax, and another £5 billion plus overseas.
  • Why our best and bightest try to explain micro-economics to the clown-fringe is beyond me. They believe in the "Its-Ours! magic-money tree"....

    :remedial-help-needed@clowns-are-us:
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Easterross
    The problem was that after selling off the council houses at a huge discount, councils were tied down to what the little money they got in could be spent on?
  • TheWatcherTheWatcher Posts: 5,262
    Financier said:

    Re: Wealth and Charitable Giving

    As a family we find increasingly that more and more charities fall outside of our giving guidelines. We do not give to charities who have or have developed political objectives or views/bias and not to charities who have highly paid remuneration packages for their executives. We will not give money to charities that will just pass over money to a non-UK country as then it is not traceable.

    So increasingly we find that we are giving small amounts to people who are genuinely in need. Have any others found the same?

    Yes. Radio 4 have a weekly charity appeal; that's where mine normally go, after some basic research as to how they spend the money.

    Like you I avoid the giant corporate charities. It's increasingly difficult to define whether they're working for the benefit of others or themselves.
  • Mr. T, congrats to your sister, though one hopes she has less facial hair than yourself.

    And fewer penises (no offence to trans people intended).
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    Smarmeron said:

    @Financier

    "iii) Cash in Hand: Most of the tradesmen around here (small builders, plumbers, electricians, etc) tell me that between 25%-40% of their income is cash-in-hand which is not declared income. Their opinions of EdM are not printable."

    Criminals prefer Dave?

    No, EdM's part in advising Gordon's policies which brought about the deficit, as well as his silence on benefit scroungers and immigrant scroungers which mean that for many instant NHS access is nigh unobtainable - also on the very deficient education controlled locally by Labour and its advisors.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108
    Smarmeron said:

    @Easterross
    The problem was that after selling off the council houses at a huge discount, councils were tied down to what the little money they got in could be spent on?

    At least Thatcher's Council House sale is potentially fixable.

    Government will be trapped forever by Labour's Child Tax Credit and the Liberals £10k tax free allowance.
  • Marvellous, richly deserved.

    'Queen makes Prince Andrew a vice-admiral'

    http://tinyurl.com/ksjz67k

    It is protocol; and embarrasing. Shame Wee-Eck endorsed the solution before he lost the referendum.

    :grow-a-pair:
  • TheWatcherTheWatcher Posts: 5,262
    Indigo said:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11328929/Tony-Blair-cuts-his-tax-bill-despite-another-bumper-year.html

    New accounts show Tony Blair's biggest company paid just £300k corporation tax on £14m turnover with almost £13m written off as 'administrative expenses'
    I wonder who paid the higher percentage of their income as tax, him or Mr Fisk ?

    Blair continues to take the piss. Brown's not much better, clocking up eye watering expenses too.
  • Smarmeron said:

    @Indigo
    Not this one, he was as batshit insane as Maggie.
    Public spending increases were necessary, but badly done, and his government relied on "Maggie's Myth" for it's economic policy.

    :trollface:
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Dair
    I said downthread that money needed spent, I agree it was never spent wisely.
    George is pursuing basically the same economic strategy that led us into this mess, except that he has no moral inclination to stop the poor being forced further into penury.
  • anotherDaveanotherDave Posts: 6,746
    edited February 2015
    Financier said:

    Re: Wealth and Charitable Giving

    As a family we find increasingly that more and more charities fall outside of our giving guidelines. We do not give to charities who have or have developed political objectives or views/bias and not to charities who have highly paid remuneration packages for their executives. We will not give money to charities that will just pass over money to a non-UK country as then it is not traceable.

    So increasingly we find that we are giving small amounts to people who are genuinely in need. Have any others found the same?

    My donations are pretty small, but other than medical charities, and political parties, I tend to avoid the large national organisations.

    I decided to just give money to local churches. I assume they 'do good works' with the money, and it saves me spending time researching others.
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    Dair said:

    Smarmeron said:

    @Easterross
    The problem was that after selling off the council houses at a huge discount, councils were tied down to what the little money they got in could be spent on?

    At least Thatcher's Council House sale is potentially fixable.

    Government will be trapped forever by Labour's Child Tax Credit and the Liberals £10k tax free allowance.
    A £10k tax free allowance is good for the low earners as well as taking a lot of people out of self-assessment.

    Labour's Child Tax Credit without a limitation on the number of children was just a cynical vote-gathering measure. A lot of working tax credit is similar. Both sweeties are very hard to reform but it will have to be done (but doubt that EdM would) and cannot see any coalition undertaking such reform.
  • @JohnRentoul: Poll alert: we have a ComRes opinion poll in the @IndyOnSunday tonight http://t.co/Fg6nC5tQsJ

    I'm looking forward to the combined PB reaction. Two possibilities:

    Ed played a blinder

    or..

    That was the week that was.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Financier
    And handing out wodges of cash to inflate the stock markets is not?
    QE, take from the many to support the few.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited February 2015
    Charles said:

    malcolmg said:

    Charles said:

    Dair said:

    corporeal said:

    Dair said:

    corporeal said:


    Not really true. The unemployment rate changed dramatically in the 70s. Prior to thatcher with the pursuit of full employment the total number (can't remember the %) was about 700 000, rising up to about 1.4m in 1978. Then when Thatcher came in it famously went up to 3 million and spent most of the time bouncing around in the 2s.

    But I'm not talking about the Unemployment Rate (which is a SECONDARY measure of the economy). I'm talking about the primary measure - Employment Rate. It hasn't change. At all.
    Something you're concluding far too much from based on 40 years of a single measure.
    If the primary measures of an economy - Employment Rate and Growth rate - do not change AT ALL no matter what type or philosophy of government, the idea that government can do anything which improve them has no merit.

    UK GDP Growth is ALWAYS roughly 2.5% on average.
    UK Employment Rate is ALWAYS roughly 73.5% on average.

    This is at least since the 1950s for GDP and 1960s for Employment.

    Nothing any government has done has changed these trends, the UK Economy always returns to this position from any short term movement.

    It is the fundamental flaw of both the mainstream political establishment in the UK (and other countries) that they believe that they can change these fundamental measures.

    Once you understand and accept this, you realise that government can never, ever make things better for the country as a whole.
    You're ignoring the potential of supply side reforms that can change the fundamental potential. For instance, I think in the 70s the underlying growth potential was around 2% p.a. and Thatcher's reforms probably lifted it to 2.5%. Over a generation that makes a huge difference.

    They take a lot longer to take effect though, and are less noticeable in the headline figures
    Garbage , it was Scotland's oil and sale of the nations assets that raised it in that period, nothing whatsoever to do with Thatcher and her scorched earth economics.

    PS : we are still paying for her stupidity given the lack of decent social housing , public utilities privatised and chiselling the public , etc.
    No, it wasn't.

    Why don't you go and spend 3 years studying microeconomics and then we can have this debate in a rather more productive manner.

    Alternatively, go and google NAIRU and the impact of Thatcher's reforms and tell me what you find.
    In the mid eighties oil revenues made up 9.5% of the total UK tax take. It was a astronomical sum pissed way of current account spending rather than invested. As the price of oil crashed so did Thatcher's economy.
  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    edited February 2015
    @malcolmg

    'I am sure you are speaking from a position of knowledge, LOL. If you had half considered it you would have realised it is not a personal fund for the councillors to get free booze. It is for use on official functions '

    Wow, the council is spending the entire salary & expenses of a full time teacher on booze for so called 'official' functions, are you saying that people won't turn up to the function if there's no free booze?

    They could of course increase the council tax.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    edited February 2015
    Back in the dear old USSR, there was no unemployment, as the state subsidised the workers wages. Oh how we laughed at the insanity and crass stupidity.
    Are we still laughing?
  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    @Smarmeron

    'Are we still laughing?'

    The workers pretended to work and the government pretended to employ them.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @john_zims
    But the subsidised jobs in the private sector are real jobs and increase overall productivity?
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    Smarmeron said:

    @john_zims
    But the subsidised jobs in the private sector are real jobs and increase overall productivity?

    Which subsidised jobs and subsidised by whom?
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    edited February 2015
    @Financier
    Wages have to be topped up by credits and tax breaks, and the majority of the newly created small businesses are a scam to get more money off the government without the onerous task of having to register as unemployed.
  • Sean_F said:

    I've said this so many times, the national poll % for both the Libs and ukip is irrelevant, both are targeting seats they can win and ignoring the vast majority of the others. That doesn't mean it will work, but ukip are only interested in polls in their target seats. London, Scotland and vast swathes elsewhere are of no interest between now and May. The lack of national coverage is not reflected in the key target seats, as it stands they are very comfortable with progress.

    There's an interesting article in the Economist, about the hard work UKIP are putting into urban Northern constituencies where the Conservatives and Lib Dems are moribund, with a view to winning them in the next election after this.
    A year or two of the Eds in government and you have a big UKIP breakthrough in northern England.

    It's an interesting one. We'll have to wait and see about whether it works or not. Those who run UKIP are not going to be comfortable with a lot of the kinds of policies that will attract working class voters who have previously voted Labour.

    Perhaps not.

    But that doesn't mean that UKIP wouldn't still pick pick up loads of former Labour voters in northern England.

    After all where else would they go:

    Conservatives - the historic/class 'enemy' and panderer to the 'rich'
    LibDems - la-de-dah lentil eaters and hypocrites / Tory stooges as well
    Greens - even 'weirder' than the LibDems

  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    new thread next door
  • corporealcorporeal Posts: 2,549
    edited February 2015
    Dair said:

    corporeal said:

    Dair said:

    corporeal said:


    Not really true. The unemployment rate changed dramatically in the 70s. Prior to thatcher with the pursuit of full employment the total number (can't remember the %) was about 700 000, rising up to about 1.4m in 1978. Then when Thatcher came in it famously went up to 3 million and spent most of the time bouncing around in the 2s.

    But I'm not talking about the Unemployment Rate (which is a SECONDARY measure of the economy). I'm talking about the primary measure - Employment Rate. It hasn't change. At all.
    Something you're concluding far too much from based on 40 years of a single measure.
    If the primary measures of an economy - Employment Rate and Growth rate - do not change AT ALL no matter what type or philosophy of government, the idea that government can do anything which improve them has no merit.

    UK GDP Growth is ALWAYS roughly 2.5% on average.
    UK Employment Rate is ALWAYS roughly 73.5% on average.

    This is at least since the 1950s for GDP and 1960s for Employment.

    Nothing any government has done has changed these trends, the UK Economy always returns to this position from any short term movement.

    It is the fundamental flaw of both the mainstream political establishment in the UK (and other countries) that they believe that they can change these fundamental measures.

    Once you understand and accept this, you realise that government can never, ever make things better for the country as a whole.
    Then expand your sample size. For a start over that period you have effects pulling in differen. directions. The move away from full employment commitment but also the increase in the number of women wanting to work, the increase in student numbers.

    I don't think other countries have had employment rates in a consistent band (feel free to correct me), is Britain somehow peculiarly resistant to government effects?

    (16 to 64 is of course becoming outdated employment age band)
  • sladeslade Posts: 2,080
    john_zims said:

    @Smarmeron

    'Are we still laughing?'

    The workers pretended to work and the government pretended to employ them.

    I always thought it was 'the workers pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them.'

  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Charles said:

    malcolmg said:

    Charles said:

    Dair said:

    corporeal said:

    Dair said:

    corporeal said:


    Not really true. The unemployment rate changed dramatically in the 70s. Prior to thatcher with the pursuit of full employment the total number (can't remember the %) was about 700 000, rising up to about 1.4m in 1978. Then when Thatcher came in it famously went up to 3 million and spent most of the time bouncing around in the 2s.

    But I'm not talking about the Unemployment Rate (which is a SECONDARY measure of the economy). I'm talking about the primary measure - Employment Rate. It hasn't change. At all.
    Something you're concluding far too much from based on 40 years of a single measure.
    If the primary measures of an economy - Employment Rate and Growth rate - do not change AT ALL no matter what type or philosophy of government, the idea that government can do anything which improve them has no merit.

    UK GDP Growth is ALWAYS roughly 2.5% on average.
    UK Employment Rate is ALWAYS roughly 73.5% on average.

    This is at least since the 1950s for GDP and 1960s for Employment.

    Nothing any government has done has changed these trends, the UK Economy always returns to this position from any short term movement.

    It is the fundamental flaw of both the mainstream political establishment in the UK (and other countries) that they believe that they can change these fundamental measures.

    Once you understand and accept this, you realise that government can never, ever make things better for the country as a whole.
    You're ignoring the potential of supply side reforms that can change the fundamental potential. For instance, I think in the 70s the underlying growth potential was around 2% p.a. and Thatcher's reforms probably lifted it to 2.5%. Over a generation that makes a huge difference.

    They take a lot longer to take effect though, and are less noticeable in the headline figures
    Garbage , it was Scotland's oil and sale of the nations assets that raised it in that period, nothing whatsoever to do with Thatcher and her scorched earth economics.

    PS : we are still paying for her stupidity given the lack of decent social housing , public utilities privatised and chiselling the public , etc.
    No, it wasn't.

    Why don't you go and spend 3 years studying microeconomics and then we can have this debate in a rather more productive manner.

    Alternatively, go and google NAIRU and the impact of Thatcher's reforms and tell me what you find.
    Mr Smug , why don't you go and get a personality and then we could have a conversation , I am not one of your lackeys fawning for attention.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    Afternoon all and I see as per usual MalcolmG is spouting nonsense out of his backside.

    Margaret Thatcher's government spent more on social housing in Scotland than any government before or since. Her Scottish Secretary authorised the creation of Housing Associations (starting with one in Dennistoun) which saw the end of the wholesale ripping down of tenement homes and shipping people out to what subsequently became the crime ridden slums like Easterhouse, Castlemilk and Drumchapel. The people of Dennistoun had refused to be forced out of their homes by Glasgow's Labour dominated Corporation and in the process, created a new and highly successful model for tenant led redevelopment of social housing.

    Margaret Thatcher's government also ran huge programmes for the building of thousands of social housing stock in areas where houses had already been ripped down. The Labour Party's answer was tower blocks. Her government set up projects like GEAR which built thousands of new houses across the east end of Glasgow. If you go to e.g. the Calton area where the famous Barras market is situated and walk to Bridgeton Cross and then out to PArkhead and up to Tollcross and Shettleston you can see all the housing built under this project in the 1980s.

    The problem today is that all politicians, especially SNP ministers are obsessed with building low-cost starter homes when what in fact people need is good quality social housing to replace the older stock sold off under the sale of council housing legislation.

    sucking up to your southern betters again easterross, you hoping to get a leg up the greasy Tory poll by ingratiating yourself with the southern Tory chums on here.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,411
    Just listened to "Any Questions"

    Harriet Harman came over extremely shy when asked if Trident would be a red line in the negotiations with the SNP...
This discussion has been closed.