Each voter will have up to three votes and it is still first past the post. This slightly concerns me because it puts those parties with fewer candidates than positions to be filled at a potential disadvantage.
As part of our general election here next week, there is voting to reelect/replace half the senate, there are 30 candidates for 12 seats, and it is elected using the "plurality-at-large" voting system, effectively the whole country is one giant multi-member constituency, and voters have to select up to 12 candidates, each candidate scores one point for each ballot paper they are selected on, and the 12 candidates with the highest number of points get the gig, it's going to be interesting!
Please can you upload the following article I have written denouncing altruism. Sorry its quite short.
"I denounce altruism on the basis that it doesn't exist because of the very existence of motivation for an altruistic act. If an act is motivated it cannot be selfless and therefore cannot be altruistic."
Please also forward my bank details to Innocent Abroad who wants to transfer £1000 to me and a further £1000 to the site. Many thanks.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
It's a remarkably stupid pact on every level - almost nothing in common between their supporters, and a cosy losers insider stitch up to stop the runaway favourite. I saw a stat somewhere saying only 3% of Cruz/Kasich voters would play their game.
A runway favourite whose entire platform and USP is basically that he is the clean outsider who is in town to cut through the stitch ups and cosy deals and sort the country out.... makes you wonder which bozo having seen this for the last couple of months though a cosy stitch up of party insiders was going to be a good look.
On matters American, I caught some coverage of the Cruz-Kasich Pact on Fox News. It wasn't about last night which was clearly going to be Trump's night with the best the other candidates could hope for was some damage limitation.
The point of the Pact was or were Indiana, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico. The theory was if they could stop Trump (or slow him down there), then given California would be a likely Trump winner, the Donald would still be short of 1237 - Fox calculated 1202.
The Cruz-Kasich Pact reminds me of the Clarke-Redwood deal during the 1997 Conservative leadership election which was praised by some as daring and audacious and not so favourably viewed by others. I'll leave the Conservatives on here to muse on how well a Clarke leadership with Redwood as Shadow Chancellor would have fared...
The premise of my enemy's enemy being my friend may seem superficially attractive but your supporters won't always see it that way
That's a very good summary. It's a losers' pact made because they're losing and is so counter-intuitive that it highlights the fact that they're losing.
If Trump does end up on 1202, I'd expect enough unbounds to ride in to see him over the line. 1175 is probably somewhere near the point where it starts to get dubious for him.
Each voter will have up to three votes and it is still first past the post. This slightly concerns me because it puts those parties with fewer candidates than positions to be filled at a potential disadvantage.
As part of our general election here next week, there is voting to reelect/replace half the senate, there are 30 candidates for 12 seats, and it is elected using the "plurality-at-large" voting system, effectively the whole country is one giant multi-member constituency, and voters have to select up to 12 candidates, each candidate scores one point for each ballot paper they are selected on, and the 12 candidates with the highest number of points get the gig, it's going to be interesting!
How clean is politics down your way?
Erm... perhaps I better not comment on that one, I like my visa
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Only someone obscenely rich could utter those words. It says it all in the last sentence. Can you explain how he could give his wife over £400M dividend and have £500M deficit in the pension scheme. How does that seem real if you take your silver spoon out.
Easy.
One was 12 years ago when the company was profitable...
The second is after 9 years of 0% interest rates which has destroyed any company with a defined benefits pension scheme. The one thing Gordon Brown successfully did for most people was destroy their pension....
Hmm, if the pension fund was losing money (deficit widening) then the company wasn't actually profitable, the loss making parts are just off the books.
The reason people are incensed is because he has paid himself a £400m dividend from a company which has collapsed with a £500-600m pension black hole, a black hole that existed and grew while he owned it. Now it is going to be the taxpayer who picks up the bill, it isn't fair on us and it isn't fair on the workers.
Mr. Royale, quite. The OECD, like so many of the great and the good, simply think 'more EU' is good and 'less EU' is bad, regardless of reality or past experience.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
OMG!! Topping has entered fantasy land. No PBer is likely to survive such a situation. What would you like to lose first; your head or your private parts?
It's a remarkably stupid pact on every level - almost nothing in common between their supporters, and a cosy losers insider stitch up to stop the runaway favourite. I saw a stat somewhere saying only 3% of Cruz/Kasich voters would play their game.
Yes and it will probably end about as well as Clarke-Redwood. If memory serves, Clarke and Redwood had over 100 MPs after the second ballot but only 70 voted for Clarke in the final ballot.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Only someone obscenely rich could utter those words. It says it all in the last sentence. Can you explain how he could give his wife over £400M dividend and have £500M deficit in the pension scheme. How does that seem real if you take your silver spoon out.
Easy.
One was 12 years ago when the company was profitable...
The second is after 9 years of 0% interest rates which has destroyed any company with a defined benefits pension scheme. The one thing Gordon Brown successfully did for most people was destroy their pension....
It is still unbelievable that you can take £400M out of a company , leaving the pension scheme almost bankrupt. They know that taxpayers will have to take up the slack, in any normal transaction in the real world that would be a crime. How that is legal and they are not forced to payback the money is a disgrace , but I would not expect the Tories to do anything about it other than dole out a few gongs.
They are utterly separate actions,
1 Money is taken out of the company. Then 5 or so years later.... 2 The pension fund needs money to meet defined benefits that it really should have redefined years ago...
The thing is that the money wasn't taken out at a time when the pension fund was a problem or even perceived to be a forthcoming problem. Back when the money was taken out I bet the pension fund was £300m or so in credit (as many were before interest rates hit the floor)...
While I also find it annoying that if the money hadn't been pulled out bhs probably would be in a far better state, my inkling is that it actually wouldn't be. The issue here is that with 0% interest rates plans that were based on inflation suddenly become problems.
My inkling is that Frank Field is going to make a fool of himself when he starts asking questions as Philip Green will be utterly prepared with an actuary's explanation to hand...
I have, in each case where he paid a dividend the BHS pension fund widened that year. Even taking into account the last few years where the company was losing money in the core business excluding pensions, during the "profitable" years the pension deficit widened and he pumped the company for all it was worth.
Is it right that the taxpayer, you and I, will pick up a £300-400m bill on the BHS pension scheme while Green has taken similar sums out of the company while the fund was in deficit and the deficit was widening?
If Trump does end up on 1202, I'd expect enough unbounds to ride in to see him over the line. 1175 is probably somewhere near the point where it starts to get dubious for him.
Agreed. Only caveat in my mind is that there's a long time between the last primary and the convention in which something weird can happen.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
Your wanting to give aid to starving people is altruism. The reality of much aid is that it is required in lands where there are conflicts. Very often, in order to deliver that aid you must do a "pact with the devil" whereby you surrender some or all of it to the rebels who are perpetuating the conflict.
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Profit is apparently a dirty word for hand-wringers.
Pumping a loss making company for hundreds of millions in dividends while watching the company's pension deficit widen isn't profit. I won't say what I really think to protect Mike from Sir Philip's legal team.
You're right. It's nothing to do with profit: it's cash flow and liability management.
And in 2004 BHS made profits of £112m (EBITDA would have been higher)
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Allegedly taken money out of the BHS pension fund to pay himself a dividend before selling it for £1 to a bunch of conmen.
The dividend was paid over 10 years ago (an aquaintance of mine* organised it and got all his clients' money back).
And it came from the company, not the pension fund. Because it would be illegal to take it from the pension fund.
* (known to many as Wriggly Wigley)
Money that was supposed to plug the pensions deficit, sorry. It may be legally correct, but it is still a scumbag move. You can't tell me it is right that he paid himself hundreds of millions in dividends while the company lost money and the pension deficit widened. I'm hardly a soak the rich lefty, but it's people like Green who give business people a bad name and behaviour like that needs to be punished by the regulator and the money needs to be clawed back.
Per my other post, I can't and I won't.
The company made over £100m in profit in 2004. I don't know what the pension deficit was, but I suspect it wasn't that significant.
A lot of the high pension liability numbers are caused by using a 0.5% rate to discount future obligations which may or may not be the right discount rate to use.
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
'That Schindler was a meddling do-gooder, say Tories
RESCUING child refugees is the sort of sentimental nonsense that belongs in films, senior Tories have confirmed. As pressure grows on the government to accept 3,000 vulnerable children into the UK, ministers are insisting they are all naughty little tinkers like the Artful Dodger, and should be kept away.'
Mr. Meeks, it's legitimate pointing out that many of those warbling woe about leaving the EU were singing exultations about joining the euro.
Well, it's legitimate but it's quite a weak point. At best it just suggests that the speaker once ssid something else that you might disagree with (with or without hindsight). That doesn't imply that everything they say is wrong.
The OECD is in favour of economic growth. But it said we should join the Euro! So economic growth is bad! Vote Green!
The Remain camp cannot both say "Look, everyone who's great and good agrees with us" then complain when people point out many of the same people thought the ERM and euro were jolly good ideas.
It's not reasonable to suggest these people know what they're talking about, then take umbrage when recent instances of them being completely wrong on related matters are mentioned.
Nobody said it was unfair to point out the idiocy of making Blair the Middle East peace envoy.
@Alanbrooke I can certainly accept that a consensus of the great and good could possibly be wrong. For that, however, I would need to see an argument, not the deranged squawking of conspiracy theorists.
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
Remain have an argument, it's just not a credible one. Parading celebs doesn't make credible either.
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Allegedly taken money out of the BHS pension fund to pay himself a dividend before selling it for £1 to a bunch of conmen.
The dividend was paid over 10 years ago (an aquaintance of mine* organised it and got all his clients' money back).
And it came from the company, not the pension fund. Because it would be illegal to take it from the pension fund.
* (known to many as Wriggly Wigley)
Money that was supposed to plug the pensions deficit, sorry. It may be legally correct, but it is still a scumbag move. You can't tell me it is right that he paid himself hundreds of millions in dividends while the company lost money and the pension deficit widened. I'm hardly a soak the rich lefty, but it's people like Green who give business people a bad name and behaviour like that needs to be punished by the regulator and the money needs to be clawed back.
Per my other post, I can't and I won't.
The company made over £100m in profit in 2004. I don't know what the pension deficit was, but I suspect it wasn't that significant.
A lot of the high pension liability numbers are caused by using a 0.5% rate to discount future obligations which may or may not be the right discount rate to use.
Looking at the guardian report the dividends were pulled from 2002-4. Subsequent dividends have come from Arcadia not bhs (which was kept separate)...
And the pension fund was in credit until 2008... As we both continually state the issue here is flat interest rates impacting crystallized obligations...
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
One could say a similar thing about Remain having to invent numbers like £4,300 lost income per household or 3 million jobs dependent on the EU.
@Alanbrooke I can certainly accept that a consensus of the great and good could possibly be wrong. For that, however, I would need to see an argument, not the deranged squawking of conspiracy theorists.
Farage missed an open goal on R4 this morning.
As Robinson pressed him on the opiunions of preofessional organisation he had the chance to say he was backed by Patrick Minford, the man who wrongfooted all the economic organisations on the Euro.
Mr. Meeks, it's legitimate pointing out that many of those warbling woe about leaving the EU were singing exultations about joining the euro.
Young Meeks can't quite accept that the consensus of the great and good could possibly be wrong.
This is despite the evidence of history.
The sun revolves round our flat earth you know.
There is a lot of it around, Nabavi flatly denied yesterday that the government had paid that £1.7bn to the EU for hookers earnings, despite everyone else including the EU having admitted it.
4/ The OECD recommended that we should join the Euro. 11:54 p.m. - 26 Apr 2016
Well I didn't like to point out that the ad hominem went on and on, but if you insist on drawing attention to that...
The Remain argument is entirely as hominem. They say "Vote Remain because this important person says so" and then cry foul when it is pointed out the important person has poor judgement.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
Your wanting to give aid to starving people is altruism. The reality of much aid is that it is required in lands where there are conflicts. Very often, in order to deliver that aid you must do a "pact with the devil" whereby you surrender some or all of it to the rebels who are perpetuating the conflict.
You asked for an argument against altruism.
And you've described a situation in which it's inappropriate (or, more specifically, where the need is to do something else first). That's not the same as arguing against altruism in itself.
The Remain camp cannot both say "Look, everyone who's great and good agrees with us" then complain when people point out many of the same people thought the ERM and euro were jolly good ideas.
It's not reasonable to suggest these people know what they're talking about, then take umbrage when recent instances of them being completely wrong on related matters are mentioned.
Nobody said it was unfair to point out the idiocy of making Blair the Middle East peace envoy.
I think the point about the euro then and the EU now is well made. The difference, in my mind is that then, there was a tangible consequence of joining the euro (which I was against), in the shape of a surrender of monetary policy, a key tool of sovereign nations.
For the EU debate, we know what it is like to be inside and the effects on our sovereignty and either accept that or don't. I accept it, with reservations. The arguments against are for would might happen if we stayed (EU army, forced into the EZ, etc) which is a long way from the simple and certain effects of giving away monetary policy.
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
Remain have an argument, it's just not a credible one. Parading celebs doesn't make credible either.
Quite, appealing endlessly to authority backfires all over your argument when they've a track record of being spectacularly wrong.
We should go nowhere near those 3000 children..They are in France and it is a French problem. Let the children be registered in France and then they can go through the process. The Peers calling for them to be admitted to the UK will not be impacted in any way whatsoever..the burden will fall on the tax paying little people..and who give a toss about them...
The Remain camp cannot both say "Look, everyone who's great and good agrees with us" then complain when people point out many of the same people thought the ERM and euro were jolly good ideas.
It's not reasonable to suggest these people know what they're talking about, then take umbrage when recent instances of them being completely wrong on related matters are mentioned.
Nobody said it was unfair to point out the idiocy of making Blair the Middle East peace envoy.
I think the point about the euro then and the EU now is well made. The difference, in my mind is that then, there was a tangible consequence of joining the euro (which I was against), in the shape of a surrender of monetary policy, a key tool of sovereign nations.
For the EU debate, we know what it is like to be inside and the effects on our sovereignty and either accept that or don't. I accept it, with reservations. The arguments against are for would might happen if we stayed (EU army, forced into the EZ, etc) which is a long way from the simple and certain effects of giving away monetary policy.
IMO. But it is reasonable to compare the two.
These would also be the same organisations, if not the same people who didn't predict the biggest economic crash of the last 100 years.
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
Economics textbooks abstract from crime. The real wortld doesn't. There's no such thing as an honest penny - which is why I felt safe, a while back, in offering you all a five-figure sum for nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
Your wanting to give aid to starving people is altruism. The reality of much aid is that it is required in lands where there are conflicts. Very often, in order to deliver that aid you must do a "pact with the devil" whereby you surrender some or all of it to the rebels who are perpetuating the conflict.
You asked for an argument against altruism.
And you've described a situation in which it's inappropriate (or, more specifically, where the need is to do something else first). That's not the same as arguing against altruism in itself.
Your offer was for an article denouncing altruism. In the example I cited, whereby the result of altruism would be to perpetuate conflict and to empower those responsible for it, I denounced altruism.
I realise that many Leavers struggle with such points but to go back to basics, it's an ad hominem attack to attack someone who puts forward an argument rather than the argument itself. It's not an ad hominem attack to make an argument, even if you are fortunate enough to be highly regarded and with a long track record in the public eye.
I realise that many Leavers struggle with such points but to go back to basics, it's an ad hominem attack to attack someone who puts forward an argument rather than the argument itself. It's not an ad hominem attack to make an argument, even if you are fortunate enough to be highly regarded and with a long track record in the public eye.
So when you say that you're voting Remain because you don't like the people who run Leave and what they would do , that's ad hominem voting ?
We should go nowhere near those 3000 children..They are in France and it is a French problem. Let the children be registered in France and then they can go through the process. The Peers calling for them to be admitted to the UK will not be impacted in any way whatsoever..the burden will fall on the tax paying little people..and who give a toss about them...
If Ty-phoo put the T in Britain you put the Compassionate in Compassionate Conservative. (You're not from Scunthorpe are you?)
a) too thick to understand how the owner's of companies make money for both themselves and the rest of the country
or
b) too conceited to convey this to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. Would you turn down a tax break? Would you hire an individual (other than one of your mistresses, of course) to do what a robot could do just as well? Of course you wouldn't.
nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
Your wanting to give aid to starving people is altruism. The reality of much aid is that it is required in lands where there are conflicts. Very often, in order to deliver that aid you must do a "pact with the devil" whereby you surrender some or all of it to the rebels who are perpetuating the conflict.
You asked for an argument against altruism.
And you've described a situation in which it's inappropriate (or, more specifically, where the need is to do something else first). That's not the same as arguing against altruism in itself.
Your offer was for an article denouncing altruism. In the example I cited, whereby the result of altruism would be to perpetuate conflict and to empower those responsible for it, I denounced altruism.
What more do you want?
An article? A denunciation of altruism, rather than a description of a situation in which it's premature? Preferably, both.
@Alanbrooke My vote is cast not on the basis that the argument put forward by Leave is discredited by those advocating it, but on the basis that one should cast one's vote on the basis of what is in the best interests of the country.
I shall be voting for what I consider will be in the best interests of the country. It is not in the best interests of the country to trust its governance to nitwits. That rules out trusting Leave.
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
Remain have an argument, it's just not a credible one. Parading celebs doesn't make credible either.
Quite, appealing endlessly to authority backfires all over your argument when they've a track record of being spectacularly wrong.
The whole idea is a bit bizarre.
A lot of the "Leave" movement is driven by anti-establishment sentiment, so it hard to see how wheeling out the great and the good to lecture them is going to go down well. It seems that the establishment, being the establishment, can't understand why people would not take them seriously, and think that the answer to the problem is "more establishment".
Relatively few peope love the government, of the quarter of the voting population that could be bothered to vote for them, a lot of people voted for them because they were not Ed Miliband or Alex Salmond, so appeals to trust the government, especially at a time when Cameron is scoring below the marxist tit in a beard would seem optimistic.
I am not going to do remains job for them, but they would seem to need credible people from outside the establishment to promote their cause, because all the insiders are being group by a lot of voters according to the Mandy Rice-Davies criteria.
Mr. Meeks, it's legitimate pointing out that many of those warbling woe about leaving the EU were singing exultations about joining the euro.
Young Meeks can't quite accept that the consensus of the great and good could possibly be wrong.
This is despite the evidence of history.
The sun revolves round our flat earth you know.
There is a lot of it around, Nabavi flatly denied yesterday that the government had paid that £1.7bn to the EU for hookers earnings, despite everyone else including the EU having admitted it.
Well the government has admitted it as well, the additional payment was in a PSF release last year some time. The payment was made in two instalments of £850m on which no rebate was given as it was a back payment which had already taken the British rebate into account.
@Alanbrooke My vote is cast not on the basis that the argument put forward by Leave is discredited by those advocating it, but on the basis that one should cast one's vote on the basis of what is in the best interests of the country.
I shall be voting for what I consider will be in the best interests of the country. It is not in the best interests of the country to trust its governance to nitwits. That rules out trusting Leave.
Oh.. is the government going to change after the referendum ? I thought we were going to have a conservative government until 2020. You might say you don't want Boris in charge, but you may well get him anyway irrespective of the result.
@Indigo If Leave wins, the government will in practice change after the referendum. All the Tory loonies like Iain Duncan Smith will gain much more influence.
In practice, there might very well be a general election later this year if Leave wins. It is hard to see how the government would have a mandate to enter into negotiations with the EU without one.
We should go nowhere near those 3000 children..They are in France and it is a French problem. Let the children be registered in France and then they can go through the process. The Peers calling for them to be admitted to the UK will not be impacted in any way whatsoever..the burden will fall on the tax paying little people..and who give a toss about them...
I never hear the simple question asked by the media of all the do gooders that are constantly pressuring the UK government...."Why aren't you pressuring the French government to take them".
Also there are lots of doubts over how many are actually children.
Again, Cameron has called this one correct with the general principle of we will assist those that are playing by the rules and that we have checked out that their stories are legitimate.
@Alanbrooke My vote is cast not on the basis that the argument put forward by Leave is discredited by those advocating it, but on the basis that one should cast one's vote on the basis of what is in the best interests of the country.
I shall be voting for what I consider will be in the best interests of the country. It is not in the best interests of the country to trust its governance to nitwits. That rules out trusting Leave.
So your vote is based on people you don't like and by a happy coincidence not trusting them coincides in the national interest in your view.
No problem with that except when you advance that argument why do you criticise those who may see the nitwits as the very organisations which steered us in to a massive recession ? The biggest exercise is value destruction in living memory.
If others see those people as the nitwits isn't it a tad hypocritical to criticise them for taking your own approach and seeing the national interest better represented by avoiding them ?
Seriously on the GDP figures, production down, construction down, agriculture down and services up. It is just a continuation of previous quarters. Osborne has rebalanced the economy, it's just that he's done the opposite of what people were hoping for!
@Morris_Dancer It's a substitute for an argument. Since Vote Leave opted to put out a conspiracy theory and a series of attacks on the person making the argument, it's legitimate to wonder whether they actually have an argument.
Remain have an argument, it's just not a credible one. Parading celebs doesn't make credible either.
Quite, appealing endlessly to authority backfires all over your argument when they've a track record of being spectacularly wrong.
A lot of the "Leave" movement is driven by anti-establishment sentiment, so it hard to see how wheeling out the great and the good to lecture them is going to go down well. It seems that the establishment, being the establishment, can't understand why people would not take them seriously, and think that the answer to the problem is "more establishment".
The Remain campaign is aimed at undecideds, not the Leave movement.
It's pretty pointless speculating further until the Pensions Regulator has had the chance to look at this properly.
I'll assume the pension scheme has legacy DB elements in it. With a company as large as BHS then the corridor accounting method should have been used (One would hope), and both the fair value of the assets, and the pension benefit obligation assessed at at least annually (And perhaps internally) quarterly reviews.
If the PBO is under the FV by over 10% then the loss to be amortized into the income statement.
My questions are:
Were the corridor or similiar rules followed ? Was the amortisation too lax ? Were the assets valued fairly at each period ? Did the actuaries/accountants all of a sudden notice that people were all ... living longer ?!
The extent of heading from £5 million surplus to ~ £500 million deficit seems extraordinary to me at a time when, unless it was all invested in oil the stock market has been relatively flat, property has at least stayed flat if not risen. I can't think of how a well balanced portfolio could drop to such an extent !
@Alanbrooke Vote Leave reach at point 1 of their rebuttal for a conspiracy theory. There's a difference between not liking someone and not trusting them with sharp implements.
We should go nowhere near those 3000 children..They are in France and it is a French problem. Let the children be registered in France and then they can go through the process. The Peers calling for them to be admitted to the UK will not be impacted in any way whatsoever..the burden will fall on the tax paying little people..and who give a toss about them...
I never hear the simple question asked by the media of all the do gooders that are constantly pressuring the UK government...."Why aren't you pressuring the French government to take them".
Also there are lots of doubts over how many are actually children.
Again, Cameron has called this one correct with the general principle of we will assist those that are playing by the rules and that we have checked out that their stories are legitimate.
Seriously on the GDP figures, production down, construction down, agriculture down and services up. It is just a continuation of previous quarters. Osborne has rebalanced the economy, it's just that he's done the opposite of what people were hoping for!
This along with that stat from yesterday were nearly half of working age adults don't pay income tax are very worrying for the general balance of the economy.
London alert: Postal votes are now being opened at town halls. We need Labour to break the law and blurt what is happening. Can anyone prod them!
Perhaps the Tories could bus in coachloads of activists to oversee the count. No need to put them on the tab.
Good idea, except, it already happens; each party watches the count. It is illegal to communicate what is happening though. It's only the evil Labour party that blurt. Decent Tories won't break the law. Come on you reds, get some blogs out there on what is happening.
NB - Labour maintain from their own returns that Khan is 100% certainty. Their words, not mine, their dreams, certainly not mine.
Seriously on the GDP figures, production down, construction down, agriculture down and services up. It is just a continuation of previous quarters. Osborne has rebalanced the economy, it's just that he's done the opposite of what people were hoping for!
So after having to endure several years of hi-vis jackets, construction is DOWN ?
Still not sure if journos are: to their readerships
Thoughts?
Owners only make money for other people as & when they are too dim to keep it all for themselves.
Heard of taxes? Salaries?
Right, Morty. Let me imagine you own a company. ouldn't.
nothing. I knew you'd all be too clever by half and see a catch that wasn't there.
Hey, this is a betting site. I don't expect to find altruism here, and neither do you. But it does exist - elsewhere.
So here's another offer: £1,000 to whoever writes an article for the site denouncing altruism, and another £1,000 for OGH for publishing it.
You are at the gates of a refugee camp full of starving IDPs in darkest Africa. You have sackloads of vital food and medical supplies in your convoy of trucks. At the gates of the camp are the very rebels whose actions brought about the migration in the first place.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
They wouldn't. They'd either deny who they were or else open fire.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
Your wanting to give aid to starving people is altruism. The reality of much aid is that it is required in lands where there are conflicts. Very often, in order to deliver that aid you must do a "pact with the devil" whereby you surrender some or all of it to the rebels who are perpetuating the conflict.
You asked for an argument against altruism.
And you've described a situation in which it's inappropriate (or, more specifically, where the need is to do something else first). That's not the same as arguing against altruism in itself.
Your offer was for an article denouncing altruism. In the example I cited, whereby the result of altruism would be to perpetuate conflict and to empower those responsible for it, I denounced altruism.
What more do you want?
An article? A denunciation of altruism, rather than a description of a situation in which it's premature? Preferably, both.
I denounced it thus!
You said denounce altruism; I denounced it, and even used an example to do so. I said "I denounce altruism when it leads to greater harm than the harm the altruism sought to address."
But you are right about the article bit. It wasn't one.
@Alanbrooke Vote Leave reach at point 1 of their rebuttal for a conspiracy theory. There's a difference between not liking someone and not trusting them with sharp implements.
LOL our great recession was caused by people with Oxbridge degrees and Harvard MBAs.
Frankly plumbers with sharp instruments would have done the nation a better service.
And if Leave point out that failed forecasters with an interest in keeping their jobs all agree then that's just politics. You might not like it , but the message isn't aimed at you.
Mr. Urquhart, the relentless upward drive of the personal allowance must be behind that.
It is for the raw number, but what it actually shows that we have far too many people paid very little i.e. we clearly have a huge number of people on £10-11k a year if the bump in personal allowance results in such a huge jump in the number of those not paying any income tax.
I would suggest more evidence that minimum wage equates to effective maximum wage for a huge sway of service sector and of course the service sector is the only area growing. Just continuing bumping minimum wage by 50p won't do it.
And there isn't an easy solution to this. We need other areas such as skilled manufacturing to be growing and they aren't. Because of course it isn't just not paying income tax, it is also we pay a large proportion of these people a huge amount in tax credits (irony there given no income tax paid) as well.
@Alanbrooke Of course the message isn't aimed at me. It's aimed at angry befuddled elderly men who are used to being led through hops over gaps in logic by the Daily Mail to be alternately outraged and frightened into bad decisions.
Hmm, I would like Osborne to point at specific items in this release that show such factors to be true. I can't find any. Construction is down, but there is no detail. The Index of Services came in at +0.7% today against expectations of +0.3% from our forecaster so there isn't much evidence that the economy is slowing down. We're in danger of talking ourselves into a recession and stupid statements like that from the chancellor don't exactly help. At some point predictions of a downturn or recession because of brexit fears will become a self fulfilling prophecy. I don't know about you but damaging the economy is what the remain vote is supposed to be trying to protect or are they now subscribing to the "break eggs, make omelettes" school of thought as well?
OT. I'd just like to repeat the warning I gave Cameron six years ago when he appointed Philip Green 'Waste Tsar'
'He gives tax avoiding Monaco based asset strippers a bad name'
Can you tell me what he's done wrong?
Allegedly taken money out of the BHS pension fund to pay himself a dividend before selling it for £1 to a bunch of conmen.
The dividend was paid over 10 years ago (an aquaintance of mine* organised it and got all his clients' money back).
And it came from the company, not the pension fund. Because it would be illegal to take it from the pension fund.
* (known to many as Wriggly Wigley)
Money that was supposed to plug the pensions deficit, sorry. It may be legally correct, but it is still a scumbag move. You can't tell me it is right that he paid himself hundreds of millions in dividends while the company lost money and the pension deficit widened. I'm hardly a soak the rich lefty, but it's people like Green who give business people a bad name and behaviour like that needs to be punished by the regulator and the money needs to be clawed back.
Per my other post, I can't and I won't.
The company made over £100m in profit in 2004. I don't know what the pension deficit was, but I suspect it wasn't that significant.
A lot of the high pension liability numbers are caused by using a 0.5% rate to discount future obligations which may or may not be the right discount rate to use.
Looking at the guardian report the dividends were pulled from 2002-4. Subsequent dividends have come from Arcadia not bhs (which was kept separate)...
And the pension fund was in credit until 2008... As we both continually state the issue here is flat interest rates impacting crystallized obligations...
I don't want to sound like I work for Oxfam or any of the other parasitic charities so despised on this site but doesn't anyone find this troubling? (From the Guardian)
"Tina, who since 2004 has been the legal owner of BHS – and the Arcadia Group, which includes Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins – is based in Monaco. The handover of BHS to Green’s wife was completed just before the family paid themselves £1.2bn in dividends from Arcadia in 2005, the biggest pay cheque in British corporate history, equivalent to four times the group’s then profits."
@Alanbrooke Of course the message isn't aimed at me. It's aimed at angry befuddled elderly men who are used to being led through hops over gaps in logic by the Daily Mail to be alternately outraged and frightened into bad decisions.
Well of course that's the youngsters view.
When you're one of those "befuddled" oldies, you'll have changed your tune again and be arguing about the joys of wisdom and experience.
You change your position faster than a weasel on a hot griddle.
And there isn't an easy solution to this. Just continuing bumping minimum wage by 50p won't do it. We need other areas such as skilled manufacturing to be growing and they aren't.
and won't, we are massively undercut by developing Asia.
This just the manifestation of the UK having a standard of living it doesn't earn. In general terms it produces the same quality goods as developing Asia, with dramatically less productivity, and higher costs, and wonders why most of the customers go elsewhere. At the moment it sustains the standard of living largely on the back of the magic money tree and the City. Welcome to globalisation, we are competing against people who are better educated and work harder for less money, I can't see it ending well. It's certainly not going to end well with the EU pouring endless regulation all over UK businesses.
It is for the raw number, but what it actually shows that we have far too many people paid very little i.e. we clearly have a huge number of people on £10-11k a year if the bump in personal allowance results in such a huge jump in the number of those not paying any income tax.
And doing basically the same work as someone does here for £1,500 a year.
@Alanbrooke My vote is cast not on the basis that the argument put forward by Leave is discredited by those advocating it, but on the basis that one should cast one's vote on the basis of what is in the best interests of the country.
I shall be voting for what I consider will be in the best interests of the country. It is not in the best interests of the country to trust its governance to nitwits. That rules out trusting Leave.
Since Leave aren't running for government, who is the nitwit?
And there isn't an easy solution to this. Just continuing bumping minimum wage by 50p won't do it. We need other areas such as skilled manufacturing to be growing and they aren't.
and won't, we are massively undercut by developing Asia.
This just the manifestation of the UK having a standard of living it doesn't earn. In general terms it produces the same quality goods as developing Asia, with dramatically less productivity, and higher costs, and wonders why most of the customers go elsewhere. At the moment it sustains the standard of living largely on the back of the magic money tree and the City. Welcome to globalisation, we are competing against people who are better educated and work harder for less money, I can't see it ending well. It's certainly not going to end well with the EU pouring endless regulation all over UK businesses.
I don't disagree with much of that. Education, education, education and work ethic....not good enough and too many of the wrong sort of graduates i.e. not enough engineers.
I spent a month last year with a South Korean and got to learn a huge amount about just how hard they work at school and in employment. By UK standards, all abnormal in terms of effort and hours.
And there isn't an easy solution to this. Just continuing bumping minimum wage by 50p won't do it. We need other areas such as skilled manufacturing to be growing and they aren't.
and won't, we are massively undercut by developing Asia.
This just the manifestation of the UK having a standard of living it doesn't earn. In general terms it produces the same quality goods as developing Asia, with dramatically less productivity, and higher costs, and wonders why most of the customers go elsewhere. At the moment it sustains the standard of living largely on the back of the magic money tree and the City. Welcome to globalisation, we are competing against people who are better educated and work harder for less money, I can't see it ending well. It's certainly not going to end well with the EU pouring endless regulation all over UK businesses.
I;m not sure that's true.
The UK has a large deficit with Europe, where we compete with medium to high cost countries producing medium technology goods.
Most of our deficit in these areas is structural. 10 years ago we used to have 3 van producers now we have one and import the rest. Vans aren't that much more difficut to make than cars but Blair's government made no effort to keep production in the country.
Comments
Please can you upload the following article I have written denouncing altruism. Sorry its quite short.
"I denounce altruism on the basis that it doesn't exist because of the very existence of motivation for an altruistic act. If an act is motivated it cannot be selfless and therefore cannot be altruistic."
Please also forward my bank details to Innocent Abroad who wants to transfer £1000 to me and a further £1000 to the site. Many thanks.
They say that to let you in, they require 50% of your provisions which they will use both to feed themselves and sell to buy weapons to continue the insurgency.
3/ The OECD said that the UK would receive “great benefits” from joining the ERM
11:54 p.m. - 26 Apr 2016
Vote Leave – Verified account @vote_leave
4/ The OECD recommended that we should join the Euro.
11:54 p.m. - 26 Apr 2016
If Trump does end up on 1202, I'd expect enough unbounds to ride in to see him over the line. 1175 is probably somewhere near the point where it starts to get dubious for him.
The reason people are incensed is because he has paid himself a £400m dividend from a company which has collapsed with a £500-600m pension black hole, a black hole that existed and grew while he owned it. Now it is going to be the taxpayer who picks up the bill, it isn't fair on us and it isn't fair on the workers.
That you cannot see that will leave you a spectacularly unpersuasive persuader of others.
Good.
I don't even understand the point you're trying to make.
That ought to have told us everything there was to know about the man.
when did Alistair turn in to Scott ?
1 Money is taken out of the company. Then 5 or so years later....
2 The pension fund needs money to meet defined benefits that it really should have redefined years ago...
The thing is that the money wasn't taken out at a time when the pension fund was a problem or even perceived to be a forthcoming problem. Back when the money was taken out I bet the pension fund was £300m or so in credit (as many were before interest rates hit the floor)...
While I also find it annoying that if the money hadn't been pulled out bhs probably would be in a far better state, my inkling is that it actually wouldn't be. The issue here is that with 0% interest rates plans that were based on inflation suddenly become problems.
My inkling is that Frank Field is going to make a fool of himself when he starts asking questions as Philip Green will be utterly prepared with an actuary's explanation to hand...
Is it right that the taxpayer, you and I, will pick up a £300-400m bill on the BHS pension scheme while Green has taken similar sums out of the company while the fund was in deficit and the deficit was widening?
You asked for an argument against altruism.
And in 2004 BHS made profits of £112m (EBITDA would have been higher)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4333488.stm
The fact that it subsequently ran into trouble, many years later may not have been foreseeable.
I don't know what the pension fund deficit was in 2004, but I'd suspect that it was post 2004 that the deficit became significant
The company made over £100m in profit in 2004. I don't know what the pension deficit was, but I suspect it wasn't that significant.
A lot of the high pension liability numbers are caused by using a 0.5% rate to discount future obligations which may or may not be the right discount rate to use.
This is despite the evidence of history.
The sun revolves round our flat earth you know.
'That Schindler was a meddling do-gooder, say Tories
RESCUING child refugees is the sort of sentimental nonsense that belongs in films, senior Tories have confirmed.
As pressure grows on the government to accept 3,000 vulnerable children into the UK, ministers are insisting they are all naughty little tinkers like the Artful Dodger, and should be kept away.'
http://tinyurl.com/zraq2dt
The OECD is in favour of economic growth. But it said we should join the Euro! So economic growth is bad! Vote Green!
The Remain camp cannot both say "Look, everyone who's great and good agrees with us" then complain when people point out many of the same people thought the ERM and euro were jolly good ideas.
It's not reasonable to suggest these people know what they're talking about, then take umbrage when recent instances of them being completely wrong on related matters are mentioned.
Nobody said it was unfair to point out the idiocy of making Blair the Middle East peace envoy.
http://order-order.com/2016/04/27/naz-shah-runs-charity-with-anti-semitic-labour-councillor/
More regular than buses nowadays.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/25/bhs-philip-green-family-millions-administration-arcadia
And the pension fund was in credit until 2008... As we both continually state the issue here is flat interest rates impacting crystallized obligations...
(And now I'm turning into Sunil)
As Robinson pressed him on the opiunions of preofessional organisation he had the chance to say he was backed by Patrick Minford, the man who wrongfooted all the economic organisations on the Euro.
He fluffed it, but the point holds.
For the EU debate, we know what it is like to be inside and the effects on our sovereignty and either accept that or don't. I accept it, with reservations. The arguments against are for would might happen if we stayed (EU army, forced into the EZ, etc) which is a long way from the simple and certain effects of giving away monetary policy.
IMO. But it is reasonable to compare the two.
http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/04/25/pensions-regulator-to-probe-bhs/
It's pretty pointless speculating further until the Pensions Regulator has had the chance to look at this properly.
Let the children be registered in France and then they can go through the process.
The Peers calling for them to be admitted to the UK will not be impacted in any way whatsoever..the burden will fall on the tax paying little people..and who give a toss about them...
What more do you want?
I shall be voting for what I consider will be in the best interests of the country. It is not in the best interests of the country to trust its governance to nitwits. That rules out trusting Leave.
A lot of the "Leave" movement is driven by anti-establishment sentiment, so it hard to see how wheeling out the great and the good to lecture them is going to go down well. It seems that the establishment, being the establishment, can't understand why people would not take them seriously, and think that the answer to the problem is "more establishment".
Relatively few peope love the government, of the quarter of the voting population that could be bothered to vote for them, a lot of people voted for them because they were not Ed Miliband or Alex Salmond, so appeals to trust the government, especially at a time when Cameron is scoring below the marxist tit in a beard would seem optimistic.
I am not going to do remains job for them, but they would seem to need credible people from outside the establishment to promote their cause, because all the insiders are being group by a lot of voters according to the Mandy Rice-Davies criteria.
#BrexitFears #VoteRemain
In practice, there might very well be a general election later this year if Leave wins. It is hard to see how the government would have a mandate to enter into negotiations with the EU without one.
Also there are lots of doubts over how many are actually children.
Again, Cameron has called this one correct with the general principle of we will assist those that are playing by the rules and that we have checked out that their stories are legitimate.
No problem with that except when you advance that argument why do you criticise those who may see the nitwits as the very organisations which steered us in to a massive recession ? The biggest exercise is value destruction in living memory.
If others see those people as the nitwits isn't it a tad hypocritical to criticise them for taking your own approach and seeing the national interest better represented by avoiding them ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/27/if-jeremy-hunt-can-defeat-the-junior-doctors-he-can-become-prime/
With a company as large as BHS then the corridor accounting method should have been used (One would hope), and both the fair value of the assets, and the pension benefit obligation assessed at at least annually (And perhaps internally) quarterly reviews.
If the PBO is under the FV by over 10% then the loss to be amortized into the income statement.
My questions are:
Were the corridor or similiar rules followed ?
Was the amortisation too lax ?
Were the assets valued fairly at each period ?
Did the actuaries/accountants all of a sudden notice that people were all ... living longer ?!
The extent of heading from £5 million surplus to ~ £500 million deficit seems extraordinary to me at a time when, unless it was all invested in oil the stock market has been relatively flat, property has at least stayed flat if not risen. I can't think of how a well balanced portfolio could drop to such an extent !
NB - Labour maintain from their own returns that Khan is 100% certainty. Their words, not mine, their dreams, certainly not mine.
You said denounce altruism; I denounced it, and even used an example to do so. I said "I denounce altruism when it leads to greater harm than the harm the altruism sought to address."
But you are right about the article bit. It wasn't one.
Frankly plumbers with sharp instruments would have done the nation a better service.
And if Leave point out that failed forecasters with an interest in keeping their jobs all agree then that's just politics. You might not like it , but the message isn't aimed at you.
I would suggest more evidence that minimum wage equates to effective maximum wage for a huge sway of service sector and of course the service sector is the only area growing. Just continuing bumping minimum wage by 50p won't do it.
And there isn't an easy solution to this. We need other areas such as skilled manufacturing to be growing and they aren't. Because of course it isn't just not paying income tax, it is also we pay a large proportion of these people a huge amount in tax credits (irony there given no income tax paid) as well.
http://tinyurl.com/z2d2fdu
Perhaps she could check out a few safe seats while she's down.
"Tina, who since 2004 has been the legal owner of BHS – and the Arcadia Group, which includes Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins – is based in Monaco. The handover of BHS to Green’s wife was completed just before the family paid themselves £1.2bn in dividends from Arcadia in 2005, the biggest pay cheque in British corporate history, equivalent to four times the group’s then profits."
When you're one of those "befuddled" oldies, you'll have changed your tune again and be arguing about the joys of wisdom and experience.
You change your position faster than a weasel on a hot griddle.
This just the manifestation of the UK having a standard of living it doesn't earn. In general terms it produces the same quality goods as developing Asia, with dramatically less productivity, and higher costs, and wonders why most of the customers go elsewhere. At the moment it sustains the standard of living largely on the back of the magic money tree and the City. Welcome to globalisation, we are competing against people who are better educated and work harder for less money, I can't see it ending well. It's certainly not going to end well with the EU pouring endless regulation all over UK businesses. And doing basically the same work as someone does here for £1,500 a year.
I spent a month last year with a South Korean and got to learn a huge amount about just how hard they work at school and in employment. By UK standards, all abnormal in terms of effort and hours.
The UK has a large deficit with Europe, where we compete with medium to high cost countries producing medium technology goods.
Most of our deficit in these areas is structural. 10 years ago we used to have 3 van producers now we have one and import the rest. Vans aren't that much more difficut to make than cars but Blair's government made no effort to keep production in the country.
New Labour, New economy.
neither work.