"Corning Glass Inc has a rich history of innovation starting with lightbulb glass in the late 19th century to modern cell phone glass today. Our investors experience a reliable dividend and explosive growth with each new invention. We have approximately 35000 employees worldwide and $10B in sales."
Corning invested, and prospered.
Other companies got owned by private equity, who dramatically reduced investment to pay themselves dividends. This doomed the plants to early obsolescence.
It was not Free Trade that fucked Lancaster, Ohio, but the short sightedness and greed of financiers with NetJets subscriptions.
Private equity may chose to risk investment or to milk their earlier investment depending on the prospects for the business. Private equity are currently investing vast billions in the likes of Airbnb, Tesla and Uber for example.
David: I used to work at Goldman Sachs. I'm the CFO of one of the world's leading sports technology companies. I've had a lot to do with private equity over the years. I am not nieve.
Yes: there are a great many private equity companies that like to back great businesses. But there are also many that buy stable business, cut capital expenditure, and load the resulting business up with debt. (It's not just private equity, of course. Tata Steel bought Port Talbot, and slashed capex to get dividends out.)
These are great strategies for near term financial return and to meet the maturity profiles of the average private equity firm (in and out in six years). But they are not necessarily the best for the long-term success of an economy.
No, I don't think that's true. If she had led her party's opinion, forcing them to follow in her wake owing to the speed at which she moved, she could have established a party consensus quickly and effectively.
Now everyone is parsing her every last word for purity.
Well, to be fair to her she did start off by establishing a party (and indeed parliamentary) consensus quickly, with strong support from the electorate. Her problems came when she tried to consolidate it with a big election victory. Had she achieved that, she'd have been in a superb position to lead the consensus and face down the ultras.
It was a good plan, until she tried to execute it...
And with a big election victory which way would she have headed - harder or softer? which way would a bigger Tory cohort in the Commons have pulled her?
If Theresa May had used this as her conference speech in October 2016 instead of her wretched citizens of the world effort, there would be an outside chance that by now Britain would be starting to reach some form of reconciliation over Brexit. Instead, it is heading for 29 March 2019 from the EU confused, angry, divided and with no sign of the exit wounds healing over. Moreover, options that the speech canvasses are in practice now closed off, which they would not have been 18 months ago.
Nothing good is coming of Brexit and the harm is much greater than it need have been. Theresa May's slowness is a major cause of that.
Nothing would reconcile you, however. You just want to vent at people who voted Leave.
I have already acknowledged that it was a good speech, if woefully late.
I have no particular beef with people who voted Leave. The people who sought their vote by frightening them with xenophobic lies, however, deserve to have a deep circle of hell awaiting them.
Do you refer to Camerons reference to the risk of a Third World War if we left the EU?
Ah, a perfect example of Leavers believing their own lies. David Cameron never mentioned World War Three.
I realise Leavers are desperate to evade the consequences of their xenophobic lies, but they need to start owning up and considering the effect that they have had on the nation's politics before the country can move on.
So you are going on assumptions, and not evidence. Never a good way to change the electoral process.
The electoral process is a balance between sometimes-contradictory requirements. If you change one thing, you need to consider who that change will affect the other requirements. That's what I'm concerned has not been done.
You may take the 'minimum necessary measures' to make personation more difficult, and prevent many registered voters from voting. That'd be worse for the electoral process in many ways. We need to get the balance right.
On the contrary, the essence of crime prevention is to accept and act on certain general assumptions about human nature, and to do that in advance of any specific evidence. Going back to the front door example: say you are designing a house in a country where you have never previously lived and know next to nothing about. You put locks on the doors, on the assumption that burglary is a thing in this new country because it is everywhere else. If you wait for evidence on which to base your decision, you have failed, because the most likely and convincing evidence that people are going to burgle your house, is that people burgle your house. My contention is that arrangements to prevent personation can be as cheap and effective as putting locks on your doors. It isn't free, and it isn't unproblematic (because you lock yourself out 100 times for every one time you exclude a potential burglar, but worth it.
People who go on about personation without acknowledging the other conflicting requirements are saying it is the most important issue.
That's where this move is crass: it is addressing a problem that may not be a major issue, and is being done without due consideration of the consequences of the move.
As for your questions: yes, those are important. But can I add: 3 - The system should allow as many people who are registered to vote, to vote, as possible. 4 - The system should disenfranchise as few people who are registered to vote as possible.
Do you agree with these? (And there are others, as well). Any system needs to balance out all these requirements.
"Why are you so opposed to the cleanest possible system?"
I'm unsure you've considered that the 'cleanest possible system' would be, and further doubt that you've considered what that would mean for the electoral system.
3 - nothing I have suggested would stop that 4 - you have not presented any evidence that a reasonable Voter ID system would result in mass disenfranchisement of any sort
You have presented scare stories, exaggerations and misdirection.
You also have no idea as to my thought processes with regards to this topic. I have looked at evidence from other Voter ID systems, I have looked at how it has worked in Northern Ireland over a 30 year period.
A clean electoral system is one where all of those who are eligible to vote are able to register to vote and then can vote. Setting in place checks to ensure that only those who are registered can vote and that the person presenting to vote is actually entitled to do so. And yes, that means major reform of the absentee voting system - particularly with regards to unrestricted access to postal votes - as well as Voter ID checks at polling stations. Voting shouldn't be difficult. But it is also shouldn't be without some basic checks.
These are not dangerous ideas. They would not destroy democracy - they would reinforce it.
What scares you so much about taking along a piece of ID when you go to vote?
Nothing 'scares' me about it. What scares me is that people (on all sides) look at changing the electoral process without considering how it will effect the validity of the vote.
You have not presented any evidence that impersonation is such an important issue that it needs such a change. Neither have you produced any research or 'evidence' that, when applied to our system, it will not disenfranchise people. People on this thread have already given examples, and much depends on *what* form of ID is required.
So you are going on assumptions, and not evidence. Never a good way to change the electoral process.
The electoral process is a balance between sometimes-contradictory requirements. If you change one thing, you need to consider who that change will affect the other requirements. That's what I'm concerned has not been done.
You may take the 'minimum necessary measures' to make personation more difficult, and prevent many registered voters from voting. That'd be worse for the electoral process in many ways. We need to get the balance right.
On the contrary, the essence of crime prevention is to accept and act on certain general assumptions about human nature, and to do that in advance of any specific evidence. Going back to the front door example: say you are designing a house in a country where you have never previously lived and know next to nothing about. You put locks on the doors, on the assumption that burglary is a thing in this new country because it is everywhere else. If you wait for evidence on which to base your decision, you have failed, because the most likely and convincing evidence that people are going to burgle your house, is that people burgle your house. My contention is that arrangements to prevent personation can be as cheap and effective as putting locks on your doors. It isn't free, and it isn't unproblematic (because you lock yourself out 100 times for every one time you exclude a potential burglar, but worth it.
And I have given you fundamental principles of the electoral process that you choose to ignore.
"My contention is that arrangements to prevent personation can be as cheap and effective as putting locks on your doors."
Rubbish. I'm not the world's biggest criminal mastermind, but I could get around a system that wanted most forms of ID, in the same way criminals currently get around ID-based systems (not, I hasten to add, that I want to).
So when there's a flaw in a system that wants a utility bill and someone commits electoral fraud despite this, some muppet will call for a passport to be used. And when someone impersontes with a passport, some muppet will want something else. And in the meantime, people are prevented from voting who can legally vote.
If you put this issue above all the others, then people will be disenfranchised. Because there will be people without photo ID, or without a utility bill, or those who just forget it.
And you refuse to answer my simple question (which has a point behind it that you ignore).
So leaving aside your flawed analogies, what do you think are the fundamentals of our electoral process?
I dispute your view that free trade has not worked for the US.
(Snip)
What's happened in the US is similar. The coasts and the major metropolitan areas have benefited enormously from free trade. Microsoft, Disney, Apple, Amazon, etc., are the huge beneficiaries who have leveraged smart, expensive people in California and Washington state, and become world leaders.
But that same free trade has not been great for middle American ing jobs back to the small towns of Ohio), may be very different to those for others.
In small town USA you have a negative feedback loop in place every bit as serious as that in Greece, only it's less obvious. Small towns lose employers, and have to cut funding for essential services. People leave, and property prices fall, trapping those who remain. Because of pensions granted in better times, these costs take up an ever greater portion of public sector budgets. Taxes are forced to rise, discouraging new employers from coming to the town or the state. And rising unemployment and hopelessness leads to a massive, appalling, opiates issue.
* There's a fabulous book about the decline of a US town. The big employer was a glass factory, which should - due to the breakability of the product and the opportunity to increase quality - be relatively immune to cheap Chinese competition. But private equity broke it, and then that broke the town.
The United States has been running serious deficits for decades. Much of this is because those on the west coast in particular sought to offshore manufacturing to enhance their profits. They were able to do this because of “free trade”. The result was the hollowing out of significant parts of the US , in particular the rust bucket states that swung the election Trump’s way. It has also massively undermined US power. The geeks of California have done incredibly well out of free trade and have bought politicians to promote it. But they have done terrible damage to the US.
"Much of this is because those on the west coast in particular sought to offshore manufacturing to enhance their profits."
Offshoring reduced costs which means companies can sell products at more competitive prices (or higher quality for the same price). Better for customers and in turn better for shareholders.
It is better for the companies. It is better for those with the IP rights. It is not better for the USA.
Mike Smithson appears unaware that Voter ID has been running successfully, without complaints, for years in the UK. Furthermore, the voters, and politicians, in that region are quite happy with the system, and don't raise the fake complaints that Mike over-eggs his posting with.
Mike, if Northern Ireland has happily, and successfully, used Voter ID in elections at all levels, please tell us why the Labour party resists using it in the Mainland of the UK.
You might also try to explain why, despite Labour's complaints about Voter ID, it was Labour that legislated for Voter Id in Northern Ireland. Double standards are not pretty, wherever they occur.
Comments
Yes: there are a great many private equity companies that like to back great businesses. But there are also many that buy stable business, cut capital expenditure, and load the resulting business up with debt. (It's not just private equity, of course. Tata Steel bought Port Talbot, and slashed capex to get dividends out.)
These are great strategies for near term financial return and to meet the maturity profiles of the average private equity firm (in and out in six years). But they are not necessarily the best for the long-term success of an economy.
You have not presented any evidence that impersonation is such an important issue that it needs such a change. Neither have you produced any research or 'evidence' that, when applied to our system, it will not disenfranchise people. People on this thread have already given examples, and much depends on *what* form of ID is required.
That's all I'm asking for.
"My contention is that arrangements to prevent personation can be as cheap and effective as putting locks on your doors."
Rubbish. I'm not the world's biggest criminal mastermind, but I could get around a system that wanted most forms of ID, in the same way criminals currently get around ID-based systems (not, I hasten to add, that I want to).
So when there's a flaw in a system that wants a utility bill and someone commits electoral fraud despite this, some muppet will call for a passport to be used. And when someone impersontes with a passport, some muppet will want something else. And in the meantime, people are prevented from voting who can legally vote.
If you put this issue above all the others, then people will be disenfranchised. Because there will be people without photo ID, or without a utility bill, or those who just forget it.
And you refuse to answer my simple question (which has a point behind it that you ignore).
So leaving aside your flawed analogies, what do you think are the fundamentals of our electoral process?
Mike, if Northern Ireland has happily, and successfully, used Voter ID in elections at all levels, please tell us why the Labour party resists using it in the Mainland of the UK.
You might also try to explain why, despite Labour's complaints about Voter ID, it was Labour that legislated for Voter Id in Northern Ireland. Double standards are not pretty, wherever they occur.