I'd like to see some proper taxation of food in order to get people to consume less, something like a flat 1p tax per 10kcals, plus 1p per gramme of sugar (with fruit, veg, milk, and uncooked chicken/turkey excluded)
A 200g bar of dairy milk goes from £2 to £4.18, B&Jerry's cookie dough tub from £4.50 to £6.70, a bagel from 32p to 60p.
We need to do something radical to sustain good quality free healthcare, the UK doesn't need a nudge, but a kick up the a*se.
Taxing food to sustain free healthcare makes no sense because we all eat. You might as well charge for healthcare so that those it use most, pay most.
Better to tackle the symptoms than the cause, and those who consume responsibly (averaged over the course of a year) will be basically unaffected (+-£100), while those who consume far too much will be penalised. Co-incidentally those who consume far too much also consume the most healthcare resources, plus this way we don't penalise those with conditions that they had no part in getting (e.g. T1 Diabetes, epilepsy etc).
£850 is the amount of tax 2000kcals, 30g of sugar per day would approximately come out to over the course of a year.
The logic of what you are saying is that those who eat the healthiest are actually the healthiest and will therefore use the health service less. The effect is therefore the same without the danger that Gov will use tax on food for other purposes.
People who eat healthily don’t live longer... it just seems that way
H/t Clement Freud
What a load of rot! Eating healthily just means not eating tasteless, fat-laced, over-sugared calorific junk, but I am not going to waste my time talking you out of it. The more junk you eat then it means more fresh, tasty and nutritious stuff for me
I live on chicken, salmon, steamed vegetables...and chocolate cake...
If it weren't for the chocolate that could be one of those premium dog foods...
In my experience dogs like chocolate cake as much as anything.
Chocolate cake flavoured dog food containing chicken, salmon and steamed vegetables could be a marketing winner.
Chocolate is toxic for dogs
My dogs have often eaten chocolate (usually by larceny), and were rather fond of it. No visible harm, indeed they looked rather chipper, albeit rather sheepish after scoffing it.
I think that even a small dog needs to eat about a pound of chocolate for it to be fatal.
One thing for sure, Mr Meeks is right about entrenched positions.
Had Christmas dinner with my daughter's family in Kent: mainly Leavers, some Remainers, sort-of middle class, not rich by any means.
I was not surprised by the age divide - the younger were more Remainery. What surprised me was that the Leavers accepted that Brexit had been botched, and that Crash Brexit could be calamitous, but had they changed their minds? Not a jot. There was a wistfulness about the ending of Free Movement, but in the end the crunch argument was: we don't want to be ruled by people we cannot elect or eject.
And they live in a part of Kent which may be hardest hit by Crash Brexit chaos.
I suspect a 2nd referendum would be very very close, and might easily - probably? - produce another very narrow Leave win.
Which would be the worst of all worlds, for everyone.
As a country we are fucked by Article 50, written by our very own Lord Kerr for the EU Constitution. My present opinion is that we should therefore burn down Lord Kerr's house and set fire to his pets. For starters.
That's bang out of order. His family are fair game, but his dog? That's just barbaric!
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
High Streets thrived in the Happy Families card game and Dads Army.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
I forgot to mention the space shuttle. Reusable for values of reusable, Challenger led to the bad taste joke of my childhood, “Why do astronauts drink Pepsi? Because they can’t get 7-Up.” Still, I suppose they could have been working at Chernobyl.
What does NASA stand for? Need another seven astronauts
How do we know astronauts have dandruff? They left their head and shoulders on the beach
And (my favourite)
what were Christa McAuliffe’s last words? What does this button do?
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
The iPhone was *not* revolutionary. Nor was the iPad. Both built long-standing concepts on existing technologies and packaged them exquisitely. And congrats to them on that; but the 'revolutionary' tag was created by Apple, and fed by journos who received free goodies and handsets (yes, really).
All the technologies that made the iPhone existed; and all had been used in other devices. I believe even the capacative touchscreen had been used in a smartphone (IIRC a couple of LG / Samsung ones) What they did was a brilliant unification of these technologies. And it was brilliant.
Interestingly enough, Apple are doing more genuine innovation now, when they're starting to suffer a little.
As an aside, at company X we were looking to sell our operating system into other markets, as a tiny, functional embedded OS on ARM processors. Management said no, as it was co-operative multitasking, and everyone wanted the better pre-emptive multi-tasking. Imagine my amusement when, a few years later, the iPhone was released with a single-tasking iOS, and Android with a basic bare-shell OS. A little investment and some marketing, and we could have been ruling the world ...
An extraordinary trading session on Wall Street with the DJIA up over 1000 points (just under 5%) on the session). Oil jumped 10% with WTI back to $46.95 and Brent Crude to $55.53.
Dead cat bounce or were last week and Monday's falls overdone?
I wonder if the FTSE will gain 10% in the last three trading sessions and close the year at 7200.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
This is incredible, even uplifting (in a sobering way
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
Immunology will be absolutely transformational. From a sheer invention perspective it is better than antibiotics (which was serendipity, sharp observation and good chemistry but not great science). Immunology - especially IO - is truly ground breaking
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
The iPhone was *not* revolutionary. Nor was the iPad. Both built long-standing concepts on existing technologies and packaged them exquisitely. And congrats to them on that; but the 'revolutionary' tag was created by Apple, and fed by journos who received free goodies and handsets (yes, really).
All the technologies that made the iPhone existed; and all had been used in other devices. I believe even the capacative touchscreen had been used in a smartphone (IIRC a couple of LG / Samsung ones) What they did was a brilliant unification of these technologies. And it was brilliant.
Interestingly enough, Apple are doing more genuine innovation now, when they're starting to suffer a little.
As an aside, at company X we were looking to sell our operating system into other markets, as a tiny, functional embedded OS on ARM processors. Management said no, as it was co-operative multitasking, and everyone wanted the better pre-emptive multi-tasking. Imagine my amusement when, a few years later, the iPhone was released with a single-tasking iOS, and Android with a basic bare-shell OS. A little investment and some marketing, and we could have been ruling the world ...
Ah bad luck on missing out on that. It would be quite interesting to collate a book on heroic 'near misses' - I bet there are a lot out there.
I would contend that what Apple did with the iPhone was revolutionary, not because of the underlying technologies but in the way they were packaged together to meet a need people didn't know they had.
This is incredible, even uplifting (in a sobering way
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
Immunology will be absolutely transformational. From a sheer invention perspective it is better than antibiotics (which was serendipity, sharp observation and good chemistry but not great science). Immunology - especially IO - is truly ground breaking
Interesting. I confess I had to google Immunology IO. Found this paper which I found helpful:
I wasn't of course trying to say we won't continue to make technological advances, I just wonder if the pace will be as great in the future. AI may be a key that unlocks an even quicker pace of course.
In the 1900 -1960 two global wars aggressively drove technology - it's probably the only upside of war.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
All of this is utter nonsense, designed to distract from the fact that you would prefer that this country had not benefitted from a rebate, all because, though obtained legally and politely, it was seen as a national victory against your precious project.
It wasn't much of a triumph. 0.25% of GDP at the most generous conceivable evaluation? In fact the UK had a lot of leverage in the EU and could and did use it to pick up much juicier plums than a bit of a discount on the membership fee. I am quite sure that whoever got the EMA located in London did a sight more for GDP than whoever came up with the handbag PR stunt. If you think the rebate is anything to write home about you are poorly informed about where the UK's true interests lie.
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
It was less than 66 years from the Wright Brothers to Neil Armstrong.
I wonder if anyone saw both.
I've read that the year with the biggest technological breakthroughs was in the 19th century - but I don't remember which year it was.
Mr. Ace, alcohol duty has certainly led to the absence of drunkenness in the UK.
You can't regulate a lifestyle into people.
Of course governments can and do. Drink driving used to be common and socially acceptable.
If people are ashamed of their behaviour, then governments can regulate it. Smoking bans in public places can either be very successful (if smokers are ashamed of their behaviour) or completely ineffectual (if they aren't ).
The fox hunting ban is an example of an effort to change behaviour that failed, because hunters feel no shame about hunting.
Most paedophiles probably feel little shame and quite happily carry on with their behaviour- that is until they get caught and low and behold they start feeling very sorry for what they have done, surprise, surprise.
But to the vast majority of the population fox hunting is disgusting.
Lots of people find fox hunting disgusting, but that makes no difference to hunters, because they consider their behaviour morally correct.
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
It was less than 66 years from the Wright Brothers to Neil Armstrong.
I wonder if anyone saw both.
I've read that the year with the biggest technological breakthroughs was in the 19th century - but I don't remember which year it was.
I'd be surprised, but interested to know what the year and the breakthroughs might have been.
It's hard to pin most technological breakthroughs down to just one year.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
Your April 'empty shelves' reports after No Deal will be a great comfort in our hour of darkness.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
Your April 'empty shelves' reports after No Deal will be a great comfort in our hour of darkness.
Somebody mentioned yesterday a piece of second hand gossip ... about half of the civil servants in the Brexit department are stock piling food...
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
I had just graduated university 15 years ago and paid tuition fees the entire time.
15 years ago we were in the Iraq War and I'm not sure many of the people at the time would use the phrase sane as the first adjective to use about POTUS Dubya.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
Your April 'empty shelves' reports after No Deal will be a great comfort in our hour of darkness.
Somebody mentioned yesterday a piece of second hand gossip ... about half of the civil servants in the Brexit department are stock piling food...
I suspect even with a No Deal crash-out Brexit there would be no need to stockpile food... ...if it weren't for other people stockpiling food.
If No Deal looks likely as we get to the end of February, I'd expect severe shortages in March - before Brexit.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
Your April 'empty shelves' reports after No Deal will be a great comfort in our hour of darkness.
Somebody mentioned yesterday a piece of second hand gossip ... about half of the civil servants in the Brexit department are stock piling food...
If they haven't ruined their own economy by then, maybe the Americans will consider sending "care packages" as they did immediatey after WWII.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
I had just graduated university 15 years ago and paid tuition fees the entire time.
15 years ago we were in the Iraq War and I'm not sure many of the people at the time would use the phrase sane as the first adjective to use about POTUS Dubya.
I confess, I choked a bit on the POTUS point
I notice you didn't quibble with the "A Government actually governing" point though.
FWIW, the high street of my childhood was a combination of shoe shops, building societies and estate agents. When did high streets thrive, as it wasn’t then. People thought Ronald Reagan was planning to have the USSR nuke Bielefeld (remember Able Archer), genuinely stupid people weren’t going to university, Concorde was only used by Joan Collins and people were perhaps a little divided on the merits of the Thatcher government.
You forgot to mention that the Top 40 had good songs. That’s traditional but, fwiw, most were absolutely shite.
Nostalgia’s a terrible thing.
Nostalgia's definitely overrated but I think 15 years ago takes back to 2003 not 1983!
People thought Bush the 2nd was the reincarnation of Washington....
Boeing was close to green lighting the Sonic Cruiser in 2001 the WTC, that would have been the new Concorde. The space shuttle was a hangover from the Cold War.
If there’s a real point, it’s an atrophying of ambition. Just as the media measures distances in London buses so, in this country anything ambitious and involving Goverment spending is measured in terms of how the money could be spent on the NHS. Better speak to the 24 hour media.
Medicine and medical care have definitely improved in the past 15 years, offset to a degree by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
It was less than 66 years from the Wright Brothers to Neil Armstrong.
I wonder if anyone saw both.
I've read that the year with the biggest technological breakthroughs was in the 19th century - but I don't remember which year it was.
I'd be surprised, but interested to know what the year and the breakthroughs might have been.
It's hard to pin most technological breakthroughs down to just one year.
There's certainly a very subjective aspect as to how important technological and scientific breakthrough were and to when they were actually made.
But with the likes of telephones, electrical usage and the internal combustion engine all being developed in the late 19th century there may have been a year when 'everything happened'.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
'You lose.'
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
As the conversation seems to be increasingly opaque perhaps we should leave it agreement that the economists were wrong.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
Your April 'empty shelves' reports after No Deal will be a great comfort in our hour of darkness.
Somebody mentioned yesterday a piece of second hand gossip ... about half of the civil servants in the Brexit department are stock piling food...
If they haven't ruined their own economy by then, maybe the Americans will consider sending "care packages" as they did immediatey after WWII.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
The iPhone was *not* revolutionary. Nor was the iPad. Both built long-standing concepts on existing technologies and packaged them exquisitely. And congrats to them on that; but the 'revolutionary' tag was created by Apple, and fed by journos who received free goodies and handsets (yes, really).
All the technologies that made the iPhone existed; and all had been used in other devices. I believe even the capacative touchscreen had been used in a smartphone (IIRC a couple of LG / Samsung ones) What they did was a brilliant unification of these technologies. And it was brilliant.
Interestingly enough, Apple are doing more genuine innovation now, when they're starting to suffer a little.
As an aside, at company X we were looking to sell our operating system into other markets, as a tiny, functional embedded OS on ARM processors. Management said no, as it was co-operative multitasking, and everyone wanted the better pre-emptive multi-tasking. Imagine my amusement when, a few years later, the iPhone was released with a single-tasking iOS, and Android with a basic bare-shell OS. A little investment and some marketing, and we could have been ruling the world ...
Ah bad luck on missing out on that. It would be quite interesting to collate a book on heroic 'near misses' - I bet there are a lot out there.
I would contend that what Apple did with the iPhone was revolutionary, not because of the underlying technologies but in the way they were packaged together to meet a need people didn't know they had.
Company X created the ARM processor, so it had at least one direct hit.
It also had many, many near misses. And all can be put, in part, down to management decisions.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
I had just graduated university 15 years ago and paid tuition fees the entire time.
15 years ago we were in the Iraq War and I'm not sure many of the people at the time would use the phrase sane as the first adjective to use about POTUS Dubya.
I confess, I choked a bit on the POTUS point
I notice you didn't quibble with the "A Government actually governing" point though.
Well it took a certain amount of governing to get our troops into Iraq.
Whether that is some governing that should have happened I'll leave to you.
Interesting list. Most of these are really down to the iPhone, which was truly revolutionary. There are 5 or 6 on there I have never heard of (Lyft, Waze, Slack, Square, Venmo, Hulu), which probably says more about me than the list.
I was thinking whether there was a corresponding list of things we don't have anymore. A quick thought threw up:
Concorde* Space Shuttle Free University tuition (ok that was >20 years ago) Thriving High Streets A sane POTUS A Government actually governing
... I bet there are others.
(*Yes ok, 15 years and 2 months ago)
I had just graduated university 15 years ago and paid tuition fees the entire time.
15 years ago we were in the Iraq War and I'm not sure many of the people at the time would use the phrase sane as the first adjective to use about POTUS Dubya.
I confess, I choked a bit on the POTUS point
I notice you didn't quibble with the "A Government actually governing" point though.
Well it took a certain amount of governing to get our troops into Iraq.
Whether that is some governing that should have happened I'll leave to you.
I am not sure it was that difficult since the Conservative opposition supported it.
Social acceptance of large tattoos Increased legalisation of marijuana MCU superhero movies. Extremely convincing computer generated imagery. Widespread use of big data software. I think we've now violated Moore's Law, although some say 3D architecture will reenable it. Growth in isolationism and the possible destruction of the West as a concept. Resurgence in Russian military ability, to the point where I don't think we can take them. Growth in antibiotic resistant bacteria and related infections. Growth in commercially viable electric cars. Growth in identity politics. Decrease in class identity, especially as a predictor of voting.
There would be more money in British coffers if we had adopted a more positive approach to the EU project than that which was exemplified by the contrived row over the so-called rebate. It was sadly typical of the hamfistedness of the Thatcher regime which made something of a speciality of coffer emptying.
As
The statistics from the Thatcher era tell a very different story from the fantasy peddled by partisan myth-makers. The reality is that she blew the North Sea Oil windfall on mass unemployment and tax cuts.
To
d.
That was different from the early 1980s recession that did happen presumably?
'Company earnings decline 35%. Unemployment rises from 5.3% of the working population in August 1979 to 11.9% in 1984[18] Took thirteen quarters for GDP to recover to its pre-recession peak at the end of 1979.[10] Annual inflation was 18.0% in 1980, 11.9% in 1981, 8.6% in 1982 and 4.6% in 1983.[15] Interest rates generally declined during the recession from a peak of 17.0% at the beginning of 1980 to a low of 9.6% in October 1982.'
The recession which had already happened before the 1981 Budget and the letter of the 364 economists ?
The recession that happened as a result of the tight fiscal policies of the government, and which they were shortly to reverse. The economists would’ve been correct in their prediction if the government did not change this policy.
All of this is utter nonsense, designed to distract from the fact that you would prefer that this country had not benefitted from a rebate, all because, though obtained legally and politely, it was seen as a national victory against your precious project.
It wasn't much of a triumph. 0.25% of GDP at the most generous conceivable evaluation? In fact the UK had a lot of leverage in the EU and could and did use it to pick up much juicier plums than a bit of a discount on the membership fee. I am quite sure that whoever got the EMA located in London did a sight more for GDP than whoever came up with the handbag PR stunt. If you think the rebate is anything to write home about you are poorly informed about where the UK's true interests lie.
Your views on this subject are akin to a mania.
No they are not. They are a considered evaluation of the evidence.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
Perhaps you'd like to explain why there was a global recession at that time if it was all the consequence of UK economic policy ?
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
Perhaps you'd like to explain why there was a global recession at that time if it was all the consequence of UK economic policy ?
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
Perhaps you'd like to explain why there was a global recession at that time if it was all the consequence of UK economic policy ?
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
Clearly you are bitter about that.
Britain did worst than comparable countries.
Did it ?
I rather doubt you've bothered to look up the actual data.
Yet it was the UK which re-elected its government whereas those in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and other countries lost power.
Still you seem to have accepted that the 1981 Budget did not deepen the recession and that the economists were wrong.
There would be more money in British coffers if we had adopted a more positive approach to the EU project than that which was exemplified by the contrived row over the so-called rebate. It was sadly typical of the hamfistedness of the Thatcher regime which made something of a speciality of coffer emptying.
That is just laughable rubbish. At no time were the EU ever willing to change in a way that would have suited the UK and nor did we have any right to ask that of them. As for Thatcher she helped turn a failing industrial wasteland of a country into a dynamic economy that manged to maintain our position in the world in spite of the growth of cheap labour economies of the Far East.
It is only the irredeemable socialist lunatics and Eurofanatics who still think like you.
The statistics from the Thatcher era tell a very different story from the fantasy peddled by partisan myth-makers. The reality is that she blew the North Sea Oil windfall on mass unemployment and tax cuts.
The unemployment was part of the restructuring of the economy. It is you and the lunatic socialists who peddle the myths.
There would be more money in British coffers if we had adopted a more positive approach to the EU project than that which was exemplified by the contrived row over the so-called rebate. It was sadly typical of the hamfistedness of the Thatcher regime which made something of a speciality of coffer emptying.
That is just laughable rubbish. At no time were the EU ever willing to change in a way that would have suited the UK and nor did we have any right to ask that of them. As for Thatcher she helped turn a failing industrial wasteland of a country into a dynamic economy that manged to maintain our position in the world in spite of the growth of cheap labour economies of the Far East.
It is only the irredeemable socialist lunatics and Eurofanatics who still think like you.
The statistics from the Thatcher era tell a very different story from the fantasy peddled by partisan myth-makers. The reality is that she blew the North Sea Oil windfall on mass unemployment and tax cuts.
The unemployment was part of the restructuring of the economy. It is you and the lunatic socialists who peddle the myths.
There was a plan to restructure the economy? That involved creating mass unemployment? Really? Then should we not have heard about it before the event rather than afterwards?
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
Perhaps you'd like to explain why there was a global recession at that time if it was all the consequence of UK economic policy ?
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
Clearly you are bitter about that.
Britain did worst than comparable countries.
Did it ?
I rather doubt you've bothered to look up the actual data.
Yet it was the UK which re-elected its government whereas those in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and other countries lost power.
Still you seem to have accepted that the 1981 Budget did not deepen the recession and that the economists were wrong.
In what way were the economists wrong? The point they were making was that reducing aggregate demand in the economy would reduce output and lead to businesses failing and jobs being lost. That was already in process when they made their warning. The 1981 budget was part of the fiscal tightening. The policy changed shortly afterwards. That the whole disaster has still not been admitted as a mistake by partisans for the Conservative party is rather pitiful.
2) Some economists wrote a letter saying it would deepen the recession
3) The recession did not deepen instead it ended
The exchange you barged in upon was about economists predicting a recession, not predicting a deepening of an existing recession. Toddle off and bury yourself in some supermarket food pricing, old sport.
Is that really the best you can come up with ???
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
The economists weren't wrong. They pointed out the consequences of the extreme reduction of demand in the economy. This was obviously what was going on and the effects in the real world were very apparent at the time. The policy had to be reversed and was reversed. It is a clear cut example of incompetent economic management and left a clear set of fingerprints in the economic data of the time.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
Perhaps you'd like to explain why there was a global recession at that time if it was all the consequence of UK economic policy ?
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
Clearly you are bitter about that.
Britain did worst than comparable countries.
Did it ?
I rather doubt you've bothered to look up the actual data.
Yet it was the UK which re-elected its government whereas those in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and other countries lost power.
Still you seem to have accepted that the 1981 Budget did not deepen the recession and that the economists were wrong.
In what way were the economists wrong? The point they were making was that reducing aggregate demand in the economy would reduce output and lead to businesses failing and jobs being lost. That was already in process when they made their warning. The 1981 budget was part of the fiscal tightening. The policy changed shortly afterwards. That the whole disaster has still not been admitted as a mistake by partisans for the Conservative party is rather pitiful.
Comments
I think that even a small dog needs to eat about a pound of chocolate for it to be fatal.
Except on Sundays and early closing afternoons.
How do we know astronauts have dandruff? They left their head and shoulders on the beach
And (my favourite)
what were Christa McAuliffe’s last words? What does this button do?
All the technologies that made the iPhone existed; and all had been used in other devices. I believe even the capacative touchscreen had been used in a smartphone (IIRC a couple of LG / Samsung ones) What they did was a brilliant unification of these technologies. And it was brilliant.
Interestingly enough, Apple are doing more genuine innovation now, when they're starting to suffer a little.
As an aside, at company X we were looking to sell our operating system into other markets, as a tiny, functional embedded OS on ARM processors. Management said no, as it was co-operative multitasking, and everyone wanted the better pre-emptive multi-tasking. Imagine my amusement when, a few years later, the iPhone was released with a single-tasking iOS, and Android with a basic bare-shell OS. A little investment and some marketing, and we could have been ruling the world ...
Dead cat bounce or were last week and Monday's falls overdone?
I wonder if the FTSE will gain 10% in the last three trading sessions and close the year at 7200.
Is the pace of change of technology continuing to accelerate or have we passed a peak?
Hard to compare one new technology with another but there were a staggering number of technological advances in the 60 years from 1900 to 1960. I am not convinced there will have been as many in 60 years from 1960.
The internet, mobile computing devices and DNA analysis are three of the biggest in the latter period. The 1900-1960 period has powered-flight, space flight, radio, television, cinema, antibiotics, nuclear power, transplants, digital computing...
I would contend that what Apple did with the iPhone was revolutionary, not because of the underlying technologies but in the way they were packaged together to meet a need people didn't know they had.
https://cdn.reachmd.com/uploads/pdf_files/i-o_fact_sheet.pdf
I wasn't of course trying to say we won't continue to make technological advances, I just wonder if the pace will be as great in the future. AI may be a key that unlocks an even quicker pace of course.
In the 1900 -1960 two global wars aggressively drove technology - it's probably the only upside of war.
The economists were wrong - end of story.
You lose.
Well, at least not far to go to see the best you can come up with.
I wonder if anyone saw both.
I've read that the year with the biggest technological breakthroughs was in the 19th century - but I don't remember which year it was.
It's hard to pin most technological breakthroughs down to just one year.
Rest assured though I will keep you informed of future bargains in the supermarket veg aisle.
15 years ago we were in the Iraq War and I'm not sure many of the people at the time would use the phrase sane as the first adjective to use about POTUS Dubya.
...if it weren't for other people stockpiling food.
If No Deal looks likely as we get to the end of February, I'd expect severe shortages in March - before Brexit.
I notice you didn't quibble with the "A Government actually governing" point though.
But with the likes of telephones, electrical usage and the internal combustion engine all being developed in the late 19th century there may have been a year when 'everything happened'.
It also had many, many near misses. And all can be put, in part, down to management decisions.
Whether that is some governing that should have happened I'll leave to you.
Social acceptance of large tattoos
Increased legalisation of marijuana
MCU superhero movies.
Extremely convincing computer generated imagery.
Widespread use of big data software.
I think we've now violated Moore's Law, although some say 3D architecture will reenable it.
Growth in isolationism and the possible destruction of the West as a concept.
Resurgence in Russian military ability, to the point where I don't think we can take them.
Growth in antibiotic resistant bacteria and related infections.
Growth in commercially viable electric cars.
Growth in identity politics.
Decrease in class identity, especially as a predictor of voting.
Who lost is obvious. The country.
And yes the economists were wrong - the recession didn't deepen it ended.
Clearly you are bitter about that.
I rather doubt you've bothered to look up the actual data.
Yet it was the UK which re-elected its government whereas those in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and other countries lost power.
Still you seem to have accepted that the 1981 Budget did not deepen the recession and that the economists were wrong.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ihyq/qna
The recession ended with the 1981 Budget, it did not deepen.
The economists were wrong.
That you are unable to look at actual economic data but prefer to wallow in your ignorant bigotry is utterly pitiful.