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Johnson exit betting: Now a 54% chance he’ll survive till at least 2024 – politicalbetting.com

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  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Well nothing will happen with NIP until next year and chances are she won't even be Speaker after November, so...
    As the tweet and responses point out, there is bipartisan opposition to any trade deal with the UK if it continues along its course.
    But we know we aren’t getting a trade deal with the US anyway. So that’s a useful non-threat they can happily make and we can ignore.
    That’s fine but it was a key part of the Brexit economic case, such as it was.
    The ability to make deals was a key part of the Brexit economic case, not making a deal explicitly and solely with the USA.

    Since we already have some deals and talks are quite advanced already on the CPTPP which would trump them all, that's a key part that is still going strong.

    Its worth remembering that if Britain joins the CPTPP then that would be a bigger trade zone than the European Union - as well as a faster growing one.
    What's the growth rate of CPTPP counries?
    Fast but (even speaking as a Brexit supporter glad of his vote) not as relevant because of distance. It’s really useful, but not a complete game changer. We will still always want to trade some things closer to home.
    I was also interested in the baseline.

    Every time I get paid my bank balance's "growth" for that day is faster than Jeff Bezos's growth rate. But only an idiot would think I was catching him up.

    The dirty secret about economic growth is that it's easier to achieve when you're poorer because of the slipstream effect. Hitching your wagon to growing markets makes a lot of superficial sense, but by the time the market has grown to be comparable to what's on your doorstep, isn't it going to be levelling off to a more "Western" growth rate?
    The problem is that the EU is poorer too and isn't growing.

    Since 1992 when the EU replaced the EEC, the EU has been growing slower than most of the rest of the developed world and is falling backwards not going forwards.

    GDP per capita in the Republic of Korea is not just growing faster by far than GDP per capita in the Eurozone, but its been catching up and will probably overtake either this year or in the next couple of years.
    The EU is not "poorer", and it certainly is growing. Chugging along at about 2% since 1980:
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/EUU/european-union/gdp-growth-rate

    As for your comment about South Korea, why are you suddenly cherry picking a country that's outside both the EU and CPTPP? Don't do a HYUFD on me, you are way better than that.
    The EU absolutely is "poorer". In the 1980s despite being a lot smaller then prior to multiple expansions it was in a famous speech by Margaret Thatcher a trade zone "bigger than the United States". Its not anymore though, despite the fact the EU has expanded repeatedly and the USA hasn't yet added a new State a lot smaller than the USA. Indeed it had already fallen a long way behind before we left too.

    US GDP per capita $63k
    Euro Area GDP per capita $35k

    As for why I gave the example of Korea, the conversation expanded from CPTPP to Asia in general, and whether nations there are growing just due to the "slipstream" effect so I used them as an example, because they're coincidentally at the crossover point. Their GDP per capita is $34k versus $35k in the Euro Area, so if there were just a "slipstream" effect then that should be clearly visible by now and their growth should have halted over the past decade, but it hasn't.

    Oh and Korea has followed the UK in announcing it is seeking accession to the CPTPP.
    The EU is relatively poorer. It is a large developed country, with a low population growth rate. (The same, of course, can be said of Japan.)

    It (and Japan) has still got absolutely richer in the last few decades - just less quickly than younger or poorer countries.

    That said, I suspect South Korea (and Taiwan) have now reached levels where their economic growth is going to slow sharply. Demographic headwinds mean that they will need to spend ever increasing portions of their earnings in looking after old people. They - basically - are the next Japan or Italy.
    That's an interesting thought, someone mentioned earlier their distaste at seeing old people working in the USA, but could the fact that people do continue working much more over there be a factor in why American growth has so vastly exceeded European growth in the past few decades?
    They have a much higher birthrate and much higher immigration too.
    This is a useful chart - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=DE-US
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    biggles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    On the subject of trade agreements... I don't think they matter that much.

    Hence Taiwan is an export powerhouse, despite not being recognized as a country by much of the world.

    There’s an interesting question. Does China charge Taiwan tariffs?
    One doesn't charge a country tariffs; tariffs are imposed on goods entering the country and are paid by the importer. Goods from Taiwan are subject to China's "rest of world" tariffs, which are used for any country with which China does not have an FTA.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    Off Topic

    Nadine Dorries claims 96% (yes 96%) of consultation responses were in favour of selling off Channel 4.

    I went to bed in Blighty and woke up in Putin's Russia.

    Worse - North Korea
  • EPG said:

    EPG said:

    Farooq said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Respectful of the will of the British people and of Brexit...
    Heh. Yes, Brexit was indeed a British choice.
    The problem with disavowing the Northern Ireland Protocol is that while it might play well in the Express, it basically pisses off everyone else and makes the UK look ever more like a dodgy dealer.

    Many will say so what, but the practical impact is the EU cannot trust the UK to maintain the integrity of the single market.

    A solution to Northern Ireland is not possible with Boris Johnson in power, he simply cannot be trusted.
    The problem with that is all the opponents of Boris Johnson have bet the house on the sanctity of "peace in Northern Ireland" and "the Good Friday Agreement".

    All Boris has to do is turn it around now and say that he is putting the Good Friday Agreement first, and with one bound he is free.
    The problem with this solution is that nobody else on planet Earth believes words he says.
    They don't need to. They need to see what he does, rather than what he says.

    So far Brussels useful idiots have been keen to paint a rational solution whereby there's no Irish Sea border, no land border and we're not in the Single Market as a "unicorn".

    But Boris can unilaterally create the unicorn. Invoke Article 16 and scrap the sea border and voila the unicorn is alive and visible.

    Then what do his opponents do next. How do you slay the unicorn, once it is alive and visible to all?
    The problem with your national brand's being "edgy law-breaker" is that previously winnable battles for hearts and minds go against you.

    For example, if a land border through Ireland were to be established by the EU, nobody in Ireland would blame the EU (as might have happened if it were in 2018, say). They would blame Boris because they are aware of him, and his character.
    The EU can't impose a land border through Ireland, the EU doesn't have the power to do anything. Ireland would have to impose the border and they're adamant they're not going to and the EU can't force them to do so.

    So if we don't, and Ireland don't, then who does? And in the impossible event that only EU officials are at the border and no British ones are, then how can that be our responsibility?

    Since we're already out of the Single Market, the moment we invoke Article 16 and drop the Sea Border the EU either has to create the land border (which it can't) or the unicorn is alive and real. Once the unicorn is real, what can anyone do about it? How can anyone slay a unicorn?
    Northern Ireland voted to Remain by 56% to 44%.
    Liverpool voted to Remain by 58% to 42%.

    The vote was across the whole of the UK, not just Liverpool or NI though.
    Liverpool doesn't have a GFA or NIP.
    Hopefully NI won't have an NIP for much longer either.

    The unicorn is entirely consistent with the GFA and I haven't seen a single proposal for how anyone plans to slay it once it is shown to be alive and well.

    All it takes is for Article 16 to be invoked in the name of the Good Friday Agreement, sea border checks abolished in the name of the Good Friday Agreement and wham, bam, thank you ma'am we have a real as you live and breath unicorn.

    Then good luck to anyone who wants to argue we need to kill the unicorn in order to proceed.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    It is worth noting that the Eurozone has expanded to include ever poorer countries, so it's a tiny bit misleading using GDP per capita, because every time a Slovenia, Lithuania, etc., joins, it drags down the GDP per capita number.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Well nothing will happen with NIP until next year and chances are she won't even be Speaker after November, so...
    As the tweet and responses point out, there is bipartisan opposition to any trade deal with the UK if it continues along its course.
    But we know we aren’t getting a trade deal with the US anyway. So that’s a useful non-threat they can happily make and we can ignore.
    That’s fine but it was a key part of the Brexit economic case, such as it was.
    The ability to make deals was a key part of the Brexit economic case, not making a deal explicitly and solely with the USA.

    Since we already have some deals and talks are quite advanced already on the CPTPP which would trump them all, that's a key part that is still going strong.

    Its worth remembering that if Britain joins the CPTPP then that would be a bigger trade zone than the European Union - as well as a faster growing one.
    What's the growth rate of CPTPP counries?
    Fast but (even speaking as a Brexit supporter glad of his vote) not as relevant because of distance. It’s really useful, but not a complete game changer. We will still always want to trade some things closer to home.
    I was also interested in the baseline.

    Every time I get paid my bank balance's "growth" for that day is faster than Jeff Bezos's growth rate. But only an idiot would think I was catching him up.

    The dirty secret about economic growth is that it's easier to achieve when you're poorer because of the slipstream effect. Hitching your wagon to growing markets makes a lot of superficial sense, but by the time the market has grown to be comparable to what's on your doorstep, isn't it going to be levelling off to a more "Western" growth rate?
    The problem is that the EU is poorer too and isn't growing.

    Since 1992 when the EU replaced the EEC, the EU has been growing slower than most of the rest of the developed world and is falling backwards not going forwards.

    GDP per capita in the Republic of Korea is not just growing faster by far than GDP per capita in the Eurozone, but its been catching up and will probably overtake either this year or in the next couple of years.
    The EU is not "poorer", and it certainly is growing. Chugging along at about 2% since 1980:
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/EUU/european-union/gdp-growth-rate

    As for your comment about South Korea, why are you suddenly cherry picking a country that's outside both the EU and CPTPP? Don't do a HYUFD on me, you are way better than that.
    The EU absolutely is "poorer". In the 1980s despite being a lot smaller then prior to multiple expansions it was in a famous speech by Margaret Thatcher a trade zone "bigger than the United States". Its not anymore though, despite the fact the EU has expanded repeatedly and the USA hasn't yet added a new State a lot smaller than the USA. Indeed it had already fallen a long way behind before we left too.

    US GDP per capita $63k
    Euro Area GDP per capita $35k

    As for why I gave the example of Korea, the conversation expanded from CPTPP to Asia in general, and whether nations there are growing just due to the "slipstream" effect so I used them as an example, because they're coincidentally at the crossover point. Their GDP per capita is $34k versus $35k in the Euro Area, so if there were just a "slipstream" effect then that should be clearly visible by now and their growth should have halted over the past decade, but it hasn't.

    Oh and Korea has followed the UK in announcing it is seeking accession to the CPTPP.
    The EU is relatively poorer. It is a large developed country, with a low population growth rate. (The same, of course, can be said of Japan.)

    It (and Japan) has still got absolutely richer in the last few decades - just less quickly than younger or poorer countries.

    That said, I suspect South Korea (and Taiwan) have now reached levels where their economic growth is going to slow sharply. Demographic headwinds mean that they will need to spend ever increasing portions of their earnings in looking after old people. They - basically - are the next Japan or Italy.
    That's an interesting thought, someone mentioned earlier their distaste at seeing old people working in the USA, but could the fact that people do continue working much more over there be a factor in why American growth has so vastly exceeded European growth in the past few decades?
    They have a much higher birthrate and much higher immigration too.
    This is a useful chart - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=DE-US
    What is interesting is that Germany was higher in 1992 than the USA, although the two had often been around the same level.

    That isn't the case anymore. As I said since the EU came into existence in 1992, the EU has been falling further and further behind.

    Oh and I checked @Farooq 's data where he said the EU had grown an average of 2% since 1980. That average is accurate, but the EU didn't exist for the period 1980-1992.

    Actually the EEC grew in the period 1980 to 1991 by well over 2% but since 1992 well under 2% has been achieved, and since the turn of the century its more like 1.5% (even excluding 2020 due to the pandemic).

    The EU has not succeeded in any measurable metric. People should be asking themselves why the EU is failing, not why we are leaving it.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 4,339
    rcs1000 said:

    biggles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    On the subject of trade agreements... I don't think they matter that much.

    Hence Taiwan is an export powerhouse, despite not being recognized as a country by much of the world.

    There’s an interesting question. Does China charge Taiwan tariffs?
    One doesn't charge a country tariffs; tariffs are imposed on goods entering the country and are paid by the importer. Goods from Taiwan are subject to China's "rest of world" tariffs, which are used for any country with which China does not have an FTA.
    That’s my point - it’s me being silly really, but by doing so it recognises that’s it’s “rest of world” not China.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
  • rcs1000 said:

    It is worth noting that the Eurozone has expanded to include ever poorer countries, so it's a tiny bit misleading using GDP per capita, because every time a Slovenia, Lithuania, etc., joins, it drags down the GDP per capita number.

    Though those are very small countries so only drag it down a bit, and if you believe in the slipstream theory then they should be dragging up the area's growth. Poland doesn't use the Euro.

    Also sites like the World Bank do like-for-like comparisons which is why you have access to data for Germany which didn't exist as a single unified state in the 1970s.

    Even if you want to restrict it to western European nations that were in the EEC the data still holds, since the EEC became the EU the nations that were in the EEC that combined as Thatcher noted were "larger than the United States" have instead fallen further and further behind the competition.
  • Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited May 2022
    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    BartyBobbins cannot bear too much reality, SeaShanty.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    The UK government has done nothing to undermine it. It is not the UK insisting on putting up a post-Brexit border. If you want to avoid disturbances to the peace process, maybe the US can start commenting on the Irish electing a former terrorist organization to be their largest political party.

    Though, to be honest, the US should probably spend a bit more time closer to home if it wants to protect peace. Maybe do something about the vast amount of small arms that the US allows to flood its internal market with next to no regulation? You know the ones that cause the US to have the highest rate of killing in the Western world. The ones that fuel the endless Mexican drug war. Maybe do something about prosecuting those who broke international law with secret rendition and torture? Maybe actually join the International Criminal Court before complaining the UK leaves the EU? Maybe something about holding to account the political ringleaders of the violent insurrection that stormed your seat of government? Get your own house in order before you start lecturing the UK, which is a more democratic, peaceful society than the US.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
    If Pelosi isn't using it as a political football, why does her position take absolutely no account of the views of someone like David Trimble?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
    If Pelosi isn't using it as a political football, why does her position take absolutely no account of the views of someone like David Trimble?
    David Trimble is even more senile than Nancy Pelosi, that’s why.

    To think he was once proposed for Foreign Secretary in Cameron’s first ministry.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
  • Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
    It may clearly be a football for Boris and co, but people who are willing to play football can score goals.

    You haven't addressed my point though. Let's say purely for cynical political football reasons Boris chooses to invoke Article 16 next month after the Gray Report and the Jubilee, and tears up the Sea Border to roaring cheers from the DUP.

    Let's say in an entirely cynical political football move he says in invoking Article 16 that he is doing so to protect the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.

    Let's say that he says there will be no checks in the Irish Sea and we won't be doing checks on the land border. And we obviously remain out of the EU too.

    What then do Pelosi etc do? If peace is maintained because there's no land border so the nationalists aren't being violent, and there's no sea border so the unionists aren't being violent, then just what is the problem or the objection to that?

    As time goes by, and it becomes clear that peace exists without any checks, who from America is going to be demanding a hard border be imposed? And why would they jeopardise peace by doing so?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944

    More on PA, via
    WA Post - Who’ll win in Pennsylvania? Gaming out remaining votes in Oz vs. McCormick.

    In a move jarringly reminiscent of the 2020 election, Donald Trump on Wednesday urged his preferred candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race to simply declare victory in a tight race before all the votes were even counted.

    Setting aside for a moment how anti-democratic that is, the former president has reason to worry.

    Trump-backed television doctor Mehmet Oz on Wednesday saw his lead shrink from about 2,700 votes to about 1,200, as mail-in votes that can’t be counted before Election Day and other votes were added to the tallies. And at this rate, it seems possible that former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick could overtake Oz, as McCormick’s campaign has repeatedly predicted he will.

    A little more than 20,000 votes were added to the totals in the 24 hours between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning, with McCormick gaining about 1,500 votes — in large part thanks to his superiority on mail ballots. That means that, for every 1,000 votes counted, he’s gaining about 70 on Oz. If that rate held, he would overtake Oz after about 17,500 more votes were tallied.

    It’s not totally clear how many ballots remain to be counted. The McCormick campaign estimated late Wednesday that about 20,000 mail ballots remain, although other estimates suggested it could be lower — as few as 12,000, PennLive.com reported overnight. The Pennsylvania secretary of state did not provide clarity on this number Wednesday morning. There also appear to be some Election Day ballots remaining in both Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County (strong for McCormick) and Philadelphia (strong for Oz), even as mail ballots make up the bulk of the remainder.

    But McCormick’s gains thus far could somewhat undersell how much he could close the gap. That’s because he’s doing better specifically on mail ballots, which are likely to be an increasing proportion of the ballots that are yet to be counted.

    McCormick is winning more than 32 percent of mail ballots, while Oz is winning about 23 percent. So for every 1,000 mail ballots (overall, not just the ones counted Wednesday), McCormick is gaining a little more than 90 votes. At that rate, he would overtake Oz after about 13,000 more mail votes were tallied. . . .

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/oz-mccormick-mail-votes/

    The Washington Post now includes an update at that link:-

    Update: McCormick’s campaign got some bad news late Thursday: Pennsylvania’s secretary of state announced there were only about 8,700 mail ballots left to be counted in the GOP primary. The news came at the tail end of a day in which McCormick only closed the gap by about 100 votes — far shy of his gains Wednesday. That’s in part because Oz banked votes in Philadelphia, where he leads by double digits. Oz’s lead is now 1,123 votes, with significantly fewer available votes left.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,397
    rcs1000 said: "[Germany's] secret is that they are the world's largest manufacturer of Capital Goods." Could you provide a link for that, please?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944

    O/T, it seems the Flatlands have a new city. Not sure whether that will achieve anything other than a big bill for changing the road signs.

    According to the BBC:

    "Noted for its railway heritage, the Flying Dutchman and the Mallard locomotives were both built there"
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61505857

    So Wagner got the idea for his opera from the zombies wandering around the railway station? Surely some mistake...

    And will the St Leger still be run on "Town Moor"...?
    Not sure about the St Leger but another of the new cities is Stanley in the Falklands, named after Lord Derby, so that is another tenuous link with the Classic horseraces.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Well nothing will happen with NIP until next year and chances are she won't even be Speaker after November, so...
    As the tweet and responses point out, there is bipartisan opposition to any trade deal with the UK if it continues along its course.
    But we know we aren’t getting a trade deal with the US anyway. So that’s a useful non-threat they can happily make and we can ignore.
    That’s fine but it was a key part of the Brexit economic case, such as it was.
    The ability to make deals was a key part of the Brexit economic case, not making a deal explicitly and solely with the USA.

    Since we already have some deals and talks are quite advanced already on the CPTPP which would trump them all, that's a key part that is still going strong.

    Its worth remembering that if Britain joins the CPTPP then that would be a bigger trade zone than the European Union - as well as a faster growing one.
    What's the growth rate of CPTPP counries?
    Fast but (even speaking as a Brexit supporter glad of his vote) not as relevant because of distance. It’s really useful, but not a complete game changer. We will still always want to trade some things closer to home.
    I was also interested in the baseline.

    Every time I get paid my bank balance's "growth" for that day is faster than Jeff Bezos's growth rate. But only an idiot would think I was catching him up.

    The dirty secret about economic growth is that it's easier to achieve when you're poorer because of the slipstream effect. Hitching your wagon to growing markets makes a lot of superficial sense, but by the time the market has grown to be comparable to what's on your doorstep, isn't it going to be levelling off to a more "Western" growth rate?
    The problem is that the EU is poorer too and isn't growing.

    Since 1992 when the EU replaced the EEC, the EU has been growing slower than most of the rest of the developed world and is falling backwards not going forwards.

    GDP per capita in the Republic of Korea is not just growing faster by far than GDP per capita in the Eurozone, but its been catching up and will probably overtake either this year or in the next couple of years.
    The EU is not "poorer", and it certainly is growing. Chugging along at about 2% since 1980:
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/EUU/european-union/gdp-growth-rate

    As for your comment about South Korea, why are you suddenly cherry picking a country that's outside both the EU and CPTPP? Don't do a HYUFD on me, you are way better than that.
    The EU absolutely is "poorer". In the 1980s despite being a lot smaller then prior to multiple expansions it was in a famous speech by Margaret Thatcher a trade zone "bigger than the United States". Its not anymore though, despite the fact the EU has expanded repeatedly and the USA hasn't yet added a new State a lot smaller than the USA. Indeed it had already fallen a long way behind before we left too.

    US GDP per capita $63k
    Euro Area GDP per capita $35k

    As for why I gave the example of Korea, the conversation expanded from CPTPP to Asia in general, and whether nations there are growing just due to the "slipstream" effect so I used them as an example, because they're coincidentally at the crossover point. Their GDP per capita is $34k versus $35k in the Euro Area, so if there were just a "slipstream" effect then that should be clearly visible by now and their growth should have halted over the past decade, but it hasn't.

    Oh and Korea has followed the UK in announcing it is seeking accession to the CPTPP.
    The EU is relatively poorer. It is a large developed country, with a low population growth rate. (The same, of course, can be said of Japan.)

    It (and Japan) has still got absolutely richer in the last few decades - just less quickly than younger or poorer countries.

    That said, I suspect South Korea (and Taiwan) have now reached levels where their economic growth is going to slow sharply. Demographic headwinds mean that they will need to spend ever increasing portions of their earnings in looking after old people. They - basically - are the next Japan or Italy.
    That's an interesting thought, someone mentioned earlier their distaste at seeing old people working in the USA, but could the fact that people do continue working much more over there be a factor in why American growth has so vastly exceeded European growth in the past few decades?
    They have a much higher birthrate and much higher immigration too.
    This is a useful chart - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=DE-US
    What is interesting is that Germany was higher in 1992 than the USA, although the two had often been around the same level.

    That isn't the case anymore. As I said since the EU came into existence in 1992, the EU has been falling further and further behind.

    Oh and I checked @Farooq 's data where he said the EU had grown an average of 2% since 1980. That average is accurate, but the EU didn't exist for the period 1980-1992.

    Actually the EEC grew in the period 1980 to 1991 by well over 2% but since 1992 well under 2% has been achieved, and since the turn of the century its more like 1.5% (even excluding 2020 due to the pandemic).

    The EU has not succeeded in any measurable metric. People should be asking themselves why the EU is failing, not why we are leaving it.
    That number swings around a lot with currencies, though. If you look at EUR-USD, it's been as low as 0.8, and as high as 1.3 (maybe more).

    Much of the recent outperformance has been currency related, and you can see that by overlaying the UK on there:

    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=DE-US-GB

    Basically, if the USD is strong, the US powers ahead. If it is weak, everyone else catches up.

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    OT golf -- Rory McIlroy leads after the first round of the US PGA. Given he is usually a notoriously slow starter, does this mean he will win the thing? Rory is 3/1 to win the PGA, and 40/1 with most firms to win SPotY but bear in mind we have the Commonwealth Games and World Cup this year.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778

    rcs1000 said: "[Germany's] secret is that they are the world's largest manufacturer of Capital Goods." Could you provide a link for that, please?

    Germany's exports:
    https://oec.world/en/profile/country/deu?depthSelector1=HS2Depth

    29% of its (physical) exports are capital goods, coming to around $400bn/year - that's almost twice as much as autos and auto parts.

    That's more than the US ($300bn) or Japan ($200bn).
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    More on PA, via
    WA Post - Who’ll win in Pennsylvania? Gaming out remaining votes in Oz vs. McCormick.

    In a move jarringly reminiscent of the 2020 election, Donald Trump on Wednesday urged his preferred candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race to simply declare victory in a tight race before all the votes were even counted.

    Setting aside for a moment how anti-democratic that is, the former president has reason to worry.

    Trump-backed television doctor Mehmet Oz on Wednesday saw his lead shrink from about 2,700 votes to about 1,200, as mail-in votes that can’t be counted before Election Day and other votes were added to the tallies. And at this rate, it seems possible that former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick could overtake Oz, as McCormick’s campaign has repeatedly predicted he will.

    A little more than 20,000 votes were added to the totals in the 24 hours between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning, with McCormick gaining about 1,500 votes — in large part thanks to his superiority on mail ballots. That means that, for every 1,000 votes counted, he’s gaining about 70 on Oz. If that rate held, he would overtake Oz after about 17,500 more votes were tallied.

    It’s not totally clear how many ballots remain to be counted. The McCormick campaign estimated late Wednesday that about 20,000 mail ballots remain, although other estimates suggested it could be lower — as few as 12,000, PennLive.com reported overnight. The Pennsylvania secretary of state did not provide clarity on this number Wednesday morning. There also appear to be some Election Day ballots remaining in both Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County (strong for McCormick) and Philadelphia (strong for Oz), even as mail ballots make up the bulk of the remainder.

    But McCormick’s gains thus far could somewhat undersell how much he could close the gap. That’s because he’s doing better specifically on mail ballots, which are likely to be an increasing proportion of the ballots that are yet to be counted.

    McCormick is winning more than 32 percent of mail ballots, while Oz is winning about 23 percent. So for every 1,000 mail ballots (overall, not just the ones counted Wednesday), McCormick is gaining a little more than 90 votes. At that rate, he would overtake Oz after about 13,000 more mail votes were tallied. . . .

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/oz-mccormick-mail-votes/

    The Washington Post now includes an update at that link:-

    Update: McCormick’s campaign got some bad news late Thursday: Pennsylvania’s secretary of state announced there were only about 8,700 mail ballots left to be counted in the GOP primary. The news came at the tail end of a day in which McCormick only closed the gap by about 100 votes — far shy of his gains Wednesday. That’s in part because Oz banked votes in Philadelphia, where he leads by double digits. Oz’s lead is now 1,123 votes, with significantly fewer available votes left.
    Thanks for the update, that does alter the math considerably, but still gonna be a recount, and hard to say before going in what one of those will turn up. Esp. depending on voting technology used. Which I'm now trying to research re: PA.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    edited May 2022
    ICYMI and relevant to the NIP, the universally praised finale of Derry Girls was set against the Good Friday Agreement.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61506122

    The series can be downstreamed from
    https://www.channel4.com/programmes/derry-girls
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
    It may clearly be a football for Boris and co, but people who are willing to play football can score goals.

    You haven't addressed my point though. Let's say purely for cynical political football reasons Boris chooses to invoke Article 16 next month after the Gray Report and the Jubilee, and tears up the Sea Border to roaring cheers from the DUP.

    Let's say in an entirely cynical political football move he says in invoking Article 16 that he is doing so to protect the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.

    Let's say that he says there will be no checks in the Irish Sea and we won't be doing checks on the land border. And we obviously remain out of the EU too.

    What then do Pelosi etc do? If peace is maintained because there's no land border so the nationalists aren't being violent, and there's no sea border so the unionists aren't being violent, then just what is the problem or the objection to that?

    As time goes by, and it becomes clear that peace exists without any checks, who from America is going to be demanding a hard border be imposed? And why would they jeopardise peace by doing so?
    We'd have to wait and see, right?

    Just like with a kid playing with matches - will or will he not burn himself AND also his house?
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,397
    rcs1000 said: "29% of its [Germany's] (physical) exports are capital goods, coming to around $400bn/year - that's almost twice as much as autos and auto parts."

    I hadn't thought of my Krups coffee maker (an appliance) or the fancy Bosch kitchen appliances sold around here, as capital goods -- but I suppose they could be, if I were selling the coffee I make, or the foods that others make with those fancy appliances.

    (In the US, the German appliance makers often compete with LG and Samsung.)
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,397
    The Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania continues to be close, as I write: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania#Results

    With 99 percent of the ballots counted, Mehmet Oz leads David McCormick by just over a thousand votes 417,772-416,688,
    Following the first night of results, it became clear that Oz and McCormick were the top two vote-getters in the election, however the margin between was too close to declare a victor.[104] Due to the time needed to process mail-in ballots, as well as time allocated for a potential recount, it was stated by Politico that the winner of the primary might not be known until early June. Per state law, there will be a state wide recount if there is less than 0.5 percent difference in votes between the top contenders.
    I haven't followed the details closely enough to be sure, but I think McCormick has been gaining as they count the mail-in ballots.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.
    Yes because Singapore and Switzerland are big financial hubs gaining a lot of financial rents with small populations to distribute it among.

    As for your last statement, I could send that one right back at you. There is plenty of evidence at both sector level and even macroeconomic level of low skilled immigration reducing pay and conditions. It also tallies with common sense logic of supply and demand. Unlike your claim where someone says "well I was going to work at my local Starbucks but given that there is a Laotian doing it, I will become a lawyer instead!"
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,397
    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778
    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.
    Yes because Singapore and Switzerland are big financial hubs gaining a lot of financial rents with small populations to distribute it among.

    As for your last statement, I could send that one right back at you. There is plenty of evidence at both sector level and even macroeconomic level of low skilled immigration reducing pay and conditions. It also tallies with common sense logic of supply and demand. Unlike your claim where someone says "well I was going to work at my local Starbucks but given that there is a Laotian doing it, I will become a lawyer instead!"
    Yawn.

    You have decided on an answer, and have no genuine interest in finding what report is.

    Your Google history is probably "evidence that low skilled immigration suppresses wages".

    The reality is that there are developed countries with bugger all low skilled immigration and stagnant wages (like Japan), and ones with lots and rising wages.

    Your absurd strawmanning earlier in the conversation demonstrates you to be profoundly unserious.

    You want to debate with me? Well, start by admitting that this is an extremely complex subject, and that there is no "one size fits all" answer.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,778

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I did a video on exactly that subject :-)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    It is all Boris's fault.

    Boris Johnson accused of squandering Brexit dividend
    Business leaders attack 'awful and wasted opportunity' after inflation and taxes surge to highest for decades

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/19/boris-johnson-accused-squandering-brexit-dividend/ (£££)
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Farooq said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Respectful of the will of the British people and of Brexit...
    Heh. Yes, Brexit was indeed a British choice.
    Rool “Britannia”!

    - “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?” (net badly)

    Scotland -63
    London -38
    North -26
    Midlands & Wales -20
    Rest of South -18

    GB -26

    (YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1707; Fieldwork: 5-6 May 2022)
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,548
    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748

    It is all Boris's fault.

    Boris Johnson accused of squandering Brexit dividend
    Business leaders attack 'awful and wasted opportunity' after inflation and taxes surge to highest for decades

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/19/boris-johnson-accused-squandering-brexit-dividend/ (£££)

    Well, they were never behind Brexit anyway. Fuck em, as Boris once said.

    I was thinking that the most interesting Brexit dividend is perhaps the election of a labour Council in Westminster!
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    I did suggest at the time that the integrity of this process was undermined by the decision about Southend - in the immediate aftermath of the murder of its MP.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,548
    In space news:

    Russia has lost a Cosmos satellite it recently launched with a prominent 'Z' symbol. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

    And the much-delayed Boeing Starliner launched last night on its second unmanned trial trip, after the first went (ahem) wrong in 2019, and an attempt to launch it last year failed due to sticky valves. Whilst this latest launch has gone into the correct orbit, it has had two thrusters fail already.

    If it's Boeing, I'm not going ....
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,462
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    Farooq said:

    biggles said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Well nothing will happen with NIP until next year and chances are she won't even be Speaker after November, so...
    As the tweet and responses point out, there is bipartisan opposition to any trade deal with the UK if it continues along its course.
    But we know we aren’t getting a trade deal with the US anyway. So that’s a useful non-threat they can happily make and we can ignore.
    That’s fine but it was a key part of the Brexit economic case, such as it was.
    The ability to make deals was a key part of the Brexit economic case, not making a deal explicitly and solely with the USA.

    Since we already have some deals and talks are quite advanced already on the CPTPP which would trump them all, that's a key part that is still going strong.

    Its worth remembering that if Britain joins the CPTPP then that would be a bigger trade zone than the European Union - as well as a faster growing one.
    What's the growth rate of CPTPP counries?
    Fast but (even speaking as a Brexit supporter glad of his vote) not as relevant because of distance. It’s really useful, but not a complete game changer. We will still always want to trade some things closer to home.
    I was also interested in the baseline.

    Every time I get paid my bank balance's "growth" for that day is faster than Jeff Bezos's growth rate. But only an idiot would think I was catching him up.

    The dirty secret about economic growth is that it's easier to achieve when you're poorer because of the slipstream effect. Hitching your wagon to growing markets makes a lot of superficial sense, but by the time the market has grown to be comparable to what's on your doorstep, isn't it going to be levelling off to a more "Western" growth rate?
    The problem is that the EU is poorer too and isn't growing.

    Since 1992 when the EU replaced the EEC, the EU has been growing slower than most of the rest of the developed world and is falling backwards not going forwards.

    GDP per capita in the Republic of Korea is not just growing faster by far than GDP per capita in the Eurozone, but its been catching up and will probably overtake either this year or in the next couple of years.
    The EU is not "poorer", and it certainly is growing. Chugging along at about 2% since 1980:
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/EUU/european-union/gdp-growth-rate

    As for your comment about South Korea, why are you suddenly cherry picking a country that's outside both the EU and CPTPP? Don't do a HYUFD on me, you are way better than that.
    The EU absolutely is "poorer". In the 1980s despite being a lot smaller then prior to multiple expansions it was in a famous speech by Margaret Thatcher a trade zone "bigger than the United States". Its not anymore though, despite the fact the EU has expanded repeatedly and the USA hasn't yet added a new State a lot smaller than the USA. Indeed it had already fallen a long way behind before we left too.

    US GDP per capita $63k
    Euro Area GDP per capita $35k

    As for why I gave the example of Korea, the conversation expanded from CPTPP to Asia in general, and whether nations there are growing just due to the "slipstream" effect so I used them as an example, because they're coincidentally at the crossover point. Their GDP per capita is $34k versus $35k in the Euro Area, so if there were just a "slipstream" effect then that should be clearly visible by now and their growth should have halted over the past decade, but it hasn't.

    Oh and Korea has followed the UK in announcing it is seeking accession to the CPTPP.
    The EU is relatively poorer. It is a large developed country, with a low population growth rate. (The same, of course, can be said of Japan.)

    It (and Japan) has still got absolutely richer in the last few decades - just less quickly than younger or poorer countries.

    That said, I suspect South Korea (and Taiwan) have now reached levels where their economic growth is going to slow sharply. Demographic headwinds mean that they will need to spend ever increasing portions of their earnings in looking after old people. They - basically - are the next Japan or Italy.
    That's an interesting thought, someone mentioned earlier their distaste at seeing old people working in the USA, but could the fact that people do continue working much more over there be a factor in why American growth has so vastly exceeded European growth in the past few decades?
    They have a much higher birthrate and much higher immigration too.
    And yet people ask what has Boris ever done for us.....
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,548
    Here's a question for you:

    What was the last ship built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard (according to the BBC, at least...)?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748
    https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/he-was-a-world-renowned-cancer-researcher?s=r

    This is an interesting read. A scientist who has been destroyed by having a consensual sexual relationship, which was not reported to his employer. Was then consequently "Weinstin'ed out of science".

    People want to believe these things are more complicated than they seem. That may well be true. But to my mind this is not progress at all - It as a tribal witch hunt, with revolutionary justice being dispatched through kangaroo courts - all masquerading as due process.

    If the Republicans can sort themselves out, they will win in 2024.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.


  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.

    Sweden, too, is a high income, high immigration country.

  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.
    Yes because Singapore and Switzerland are big financial hubs gaining a lot of financial rents with small populations to distribute it among.

    As for your last statement, I could send that one right back at you. There is plenty of evidence at both sector level and even macroeconomic level of low skilled immigration reducing pay and conditions. It also tallies with common sense logic of supply and demand. Unlike your claim where someone says "well I was going to work at my local Starbucks but given that there is a Laotian doing it, I will become a lawyer instead!"
    What tends to reduce pay and conditions is a lack of strong trade unions.

  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited May 2022

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.


    It's really simple. Educate girls, turn children from assets (who can work in fields or manufacturing) into liabilities (who need educating and feeding without being productive themselves) and the birth rate drops. I've seen it in my family in the UK - grandmothers one of ten or eleven kids - went on to have two and three each.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    You are entitled to your view, and to feel how you feel about it.

    I'm just telling you how we feel about it. It is NOT a political football for us. And not for you it seems.

    It clearly is for Boris Johnson & Co.
    If Pelosi isn't using it as a political football, why does her position take absolutely no account of the views of someone like David Trimble?
    Holy carp desperation setting in.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.


    It's really simple. Educate girls, turn children from assets (who can work in fields or manufacturing) into liabilities (who need educating and feeding without being productive themselves) and the birth rate drops. I've seen it in my family in the UK - grandmothers one of ten or eleven kids - went on to have two and three each.
    Looking at the declining fertility rates for Europe, there should be a big drive to roll out free or subsidised IVF.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,016
    BR seems to be speaking in guff absolutes again. On both the subject of lies, and of the GFA/NIP he bangs on and on and on from a position of supreme confidence that his opinion is fact, and that fact is someone else's opinion.

    What I don't understand is how it doesn't sink in that his opinion doesn't actually affect reality. That what he thinks and what is are two separate things.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,089

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    Farooq said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Boris is the Great Survivor of British politics.

    Save Big Cockroach!
    I thought the problem was not his multiple legs but the multiple times he's been legless?
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336

    Here's a question for you:

    What was the last ship built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard (according to the BBC, at least...)?

    Millennium falcon
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,016

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    The fact that she keeps referring to the "Good Friday Accords" just shows how detached she is from the details. She's just signalling for domestic reasons.
    Believe you are seriously understimating committment of Pelosi and other Democrats - especially politicos like her and Biden who were players in Congress during the Clinton administration when the Good Friday deal went down. And millions more who were keen observers. Not all of whom were Democrats, insiders and onlookers.

    Bringing peace - or reasonable semblence thereof - to Ireland was THE marquee foreign policy achievement of the Clinton presidency. It is NOT just some damn political talking point. We regard it as a human victory, a moral imperative.

    Which YOUR goverment has endangered & undermined, with about as much forethought let alone foresight as a blind dog pisses on handy lamp-post.
    Oh cut the virtue signalling bullshit.

    Brexit doesn't endanger peace in Northern Ireland and it doesn't require a sea border.

    If the UK invokes Article 16, which it is perfectly legally entitled to do under international law, and tears up the 'sea border' and doesn't impose any land checks then how exactly is peace in NI threatened?

    If there's no land border, no sea border, and we're not in the EU - the so-called unicorn - then how does that threaten peace?

    And if peace still exists and the "unicorn" exists post-Article 16 then what is America going to do about it? Are Pelosi and Biden going to try to slay 'the unicorn' and insist upon border checks where none are happening and so jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland? I don't think so.
    I'm busy today as I was yesterday so won't be hanging round on here to bother pulling your posts aparts.

    Do you understand the difference between what you think should happen and reality?

    "Brexit doesn't endanger peace in NI" when it has literally and demonstrably done that is HY levels of delusion.

    "If the UK invokes Article 16" is not the end of the process where you then insist we just "walk away". We can invoke A16 but in the real world will then need to propose alternatives which are acceptable to all sides. As all sides including our own say. You disagree, but you aren't involved so who cares?

    I hope that you won't be too angry when the absolutes you describe turn out to be imaginary.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684
    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,016
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
    Its the newly state owned / operated Scotrail? What do the Tories have to do with it?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    Off Topic

    Nadine Dorries claims 96% (yes 96%) of consultation responses were in favour of selling off Channel 4.

    I went to bed in Blighty and woke up in Putin's Russia.

    Today, a consultation revealed 96% of the public think Nadine Dorries is an imbecile.

    'We know she means well,' said one response, 'but it would be better if she STFU and let people with actual brains try and work out what the best thing is.'

    The response comes as Nadine Dorries showed less facility with figures than a tractor factory manager, accidentally reversing her numbers in front of a select committee.

    Nadine Dorries, contacted for comment, said, 'I think it's fantastic as many as 4% of people think I have a brain and I'm on a mission to convert the rest. It will start with nightly reruns of I'm a Celebrity on Channel 4, which I control.'
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
    ??? It's nationalised by SG, so Greens/SNP.

    "Temporary", apparently.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    Eabhal said:

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
    ??? It's nationalised by SG, so Greens/SNP.

    "Temporary", apparently.
    https://twitter.com/CalMac_Updates/status/1527505561641787399?t=4QBywdVkSCUCr-3RVF-OEQ&s=19

    It gets worse...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    Morning All!

    Comparing the Met's report with Sue Gray (if we ever see it) could be 'interesting'!
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,548
    Andy_JS said:

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
    Why shouldn't it, given the size of some of the smaller settlements granted city status in this tranche?

    It's one of England's largest towns. It has applied twice before, and been rejected. It is a county town, and has a wide catchment area.

    I'm not from Northampton, and my only connection was friends from the area (and hence many boozy nights out). But it does seem odd that MK gets the nod before Northampton - especially as there is a rivalry between the two.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,096

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.


    It's really simple. Educate girls, turn children from assets (who can work in fields or manufacturing) into liabilities (who need educating and feeding without being productive themselves) and the birth rate drops. I've seen it in my family in the UK - grandmothers one of ten or eleven kids - went on to have two and three each.
    Declining infant mortality rates are obviously part of the equation, but you’re right that, taking a broad view of history and geography, it’s possible to explain most of the variability of birth rates in terms of economic advantage and cost to the family. Even though, at individual case level, few would accept that this is part of the thinking.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184

    Andy_JS said:

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
    Why shouldn't it, given the size of some of the smaller settlements granted city status in this tranche?

    It's one of England's largest towns. It has applied twice before, and been rejected. It is a county town, and has a wide catchment area.

    I'm not from Northampton, and my only connection was friends from the area (and hence many boozy nights out). But it does seem odd that MK gets the nod before Northampton - especially as there is a rivalry between the two.
    Interesting Northampton fact: it was England's second university town, after Oxford.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336

    Here's a question for you:

    What was the last ship built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard (according to the BBC, at least...)?

    Millennium falcon
    As a resident of PD it's our proud boast.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748
    pigeon said:

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
    If you look at the total fertility rate for the UK - it has been stuck at around 1.6 since 1977.
    I'm not sure I agree that it is all about the cost of living. Lots of people with decent jobs and the means to do so put off having children. On the basis of observation the people that seem to have more children are from lower socio-economic groups, also immigrants.
    People who are earning well and have family backing don't do it, delay getting married, then go in to some sort of crisis in their late 30's, 40's etc culminating in IVF attempts.
    Also, countries with good welfare still have the same problem. IE: Iceland and Finland, both have pro child policies, but similar fertility rates to the UK.
    I see it as being more a problem with western culture. IE No idea what we are doing here, no mission, self obsession, decline of community, no religion, no purpose. So children are just entertainment and a distraction for mid to later life.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    darkage said:

    https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/he-was-a-world-renowned-cancer-researcher?s=r

    This is an interesting read. A scientist who has been destroyed by having a consensual sexual relationship, which was not reported to his employer. Was then consequently "Weinstin'ed out of science".

    People want to believe these things are more complicated than they seem. That may well be true. But to my mind this is not progress at all - It as a tribal witch hunt, with revolutionary justice being dispatched through kangaroo courts - all masquerading as due process.

    If the Republicans can sort themselves out, they will win in 2024.

    Actually, the Sabatini story sounds rather complicated. The article presents only one side of the story (Sabatini's).

    I am not sure I would draw any conclusions from the article.

    Having sex with your postdoc/grad student will get you fired from your job at most Universities. That has been the case for at least a decade.

    (Of course, things were different in the past. Otherwise, we would never have heard of Schrodinger or Feynman.)
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    🔺 NEW: Rishi Sunak today makes his debut in the Sunday Times Rich List, less than 36 hours after warning millions of people battling spiralling prices that they face a “tough” few months ahead https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-becomes-first-frontline-politician-to-join-sunday-times-rich-list-2022-zksx9bprq?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1653025494
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    pigeon said:

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
    Finances have some impact, but first people need to want to have children, and nearly always that means a settled supportive relationship first. The Median age of first birth in the UK is now over 30, in part because it takes a while to get to that emotional point. That tends to leave little time for very large families.

    If we want to boost the domestic fertility rate then it is not just about creating the economic conditions for it, but also the social conditions for such stable relationships.

    In a related topic, a fascinating article in the Atlantic on the secret of happy and successful long term relationships: fewer sexual partners:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/sexual-partners-and-marital-happiness/573493/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    So we seem to have City inflation now to go along with grade inflation and well -- inflation.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    edited May 2022
    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
    Why shouldn't it, given the size of some of the smaller settlements granted city status in this tranche?

    It's one of England's largest towns. It has applied twice before, and been rejected. It is a county town, and has a wide catchment area.

    I'm not from Northampton, and my only connection was friends from the area (and hence many boozy nights out). But it does seem odd that MK gets the nod before Northampton - especially as there is a rivalry between the two.
    Interesting Northampton fact: it was England's second university town, after Oxford.
    And I think I'm right in saying that it remains the only university in this country ever to be actually stripped of its charter and cease operating, rather than merge?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    edited May 2022
    Foxy said:

    pigeon said:

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
    Finances have some impact, but first people need to want to have children, and nearly always that means a settled supportive relationship first. The Median age of first birth in the UK is now over 30, in part because it takes a while to get to that emotional point. That tends to leave little time for very large families.

    If we want to boost the domestic fertility rate then it is not just about creating the economic conditions for it, but also the social conditions for such stable relationships.

    In a related topic, a fascinating article in the Atlantic on the secret of happy and successful long term relationships: fewer sexual partners:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/sexual-partners-and-marital-happiness/573493/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
    We have grandchildren in their 30's and in settled relationships but no sign of gt-grandchildren. Mrs C is getting wistful, especially as one of her friends is now a great-granny.
    Rationally, we understand the views of the prospective parents, but .....
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 6,778
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    Something forgotten, it seems, is that the original idea of owning your home went like this -

    1) you rent forever
    2) you pay a mortgage for 20 years. Then live rent free for the rest of your life.

    If you have no rent, you can live on a tiny income.

    A lot of people are going to find that the amount they are putting in pensions etc is not equal to the cost of property + living.

    Dr Palmer - you have very substantial pensions IIRC.

    Most people don’t

    Absolutely. There will be a vast cohort of people growing old in the coming decades who will never be able to afford to retire. They'll work and work and work until they either become physically incapable of working, or they drop down dead.
    I doubt it, by 39 most have still bought a property and most are enrolled in workplace pensions too to top up the state pension
    Much of the population are not owner-occupiers and have no hope whatsoever of becoming so. As for occupational pensions, the overwhelming majority (especially in the private sector) are money purchase, which are appalling value due to long life expectancy and the resultant rock bottom annuity rates.

    The sums you have to plough into them to achieve a comfortable fraction of your working income at retirement are colossal. I used to work in pensions administration twenty years ago and savers were often shocked by how little their fat contributions were projected to buy them in the way of income at pensionable age, and things have only got worse since. Even we lucky few who are still accruing defined benefits have seen our contributions jacked up hugely in recent years and our accrual rates slashed.

    Much of the population has nothing left after paying essential costs like rent or mortgage, food and fuel, and is already bridging the gaps with credit cards or making serious economies. How in the name of God are people meant to afford to blow a quarter or a third of their post-tax income for anything up to a fifty-year career to fund a decent pension at the end of it?

    They can't afford it, so they'll end up working until they drop.
    No, the vast majority of us will still be owner occupiers by retirement age, with neither rent nor mortgage to pay

    Occupational pensions then add further income beyond the state pension to retirement incomes
    You say No, but only respond to the owner occupier point @pigeon makes, whereas most of his point was about the very low occupational DC pension most people will get to add to their state pension.
    The fundamental issue is very basic.

    People are living for longer. There are only 3 ways to pay for that (or a mix)

    1. They work longer
    2. They save more during their working life
    3. The taxpayer pays more

    The reality is it’s going to be a mix of 1 & 2 with a bit of 3.

    It really is that simple!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
    Its the newly state owned / operated Scotrail? What do the Tories have to do with it?
    They have f***ed the UK, caused massive inflation , shambles of Brexix, I could go on ad nauseum, hence the greedy Scotrail staff desperately trying to gouge the Scottish public with stupid pay claims.
    Good old Boris thanks a million.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    edited May 2022
    darkage said:

    pigeon said:

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
    If you look at the total fertility rate for the UK - it has been stuck at around 1.6 since 1977.
    I'm not sure I agree that it is all about the cost of living. Lots of people with decent jobs and the means to do so put off having children. On the basis of observation the people that seem to have more children are from lower socio-economic groups, also immigrants.
    People who are earning well and have family backing don't do it, delay getting married, then go in to some sort of crisis in their late 30's, 40's etc culminating in IVF attempts.
    Also, countries with good welfare still have the same problem. IE: Iceland and Finland, both have pro child policies, but similar fertility rates to the UK.
    I see it as being more a problem with western culture. IE No idea what we are doing here, no mission, self obsession, decline of community, no religion, no purpose. So children are just entertainment and a distraction for mid to later life.
    I think the amount of time in education means that it takes quite a long time for careers to develop enough for people to feel comfortable having kids. I'd definitely want a least one more promotion, and my GF is at the very least 4 years away based on professional training. That's us into our 30s.

    I like @MaxPB idea about linking the personal allowance to having children (though I'd apply it to anyone under 25 too, to reward moving into work v education). Poverty stats, using equivalised income, show just how better off couples without children are (single people without kids not so much, another reason for my age qualification).
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    ydoethur said:

    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
    Why shouldn't it, given the size of some of the smaller settlements granted city status in this tranche?

    It's one of England's largest towns. It has applied twice before, and been rejected. It is a county town, and has a wide catchment area.

    I'm not from Northampton, and my only connection was friends from the area (and hence many boozy nights out). But it does seem odd that MK gets the nod before Northampton - especially as there is a rivalry between the two.
    Interesting Northampton fact: it was England's second university town, after Oxford.
    And I think I'm right in saying that it remains the only university in this country ever to be actually stripped of its charter and cease operating, rather than merge?
    Lampeter? Although I suppose that was really a merger.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,684

    Morning All!

    Comparing the Met's report with Sue Gray (if we ever see it) could be 'interesting'!

    Will be getting redacted / revised as we speak.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Yesterday:
    Elon Musk: Announces he's voting Republican and to expect political attacks against him in retribution
    All Normal People: I wonder what awful story he's already been contacted about and is coming out tomorrow that he's trying to distract from

    Today:
    Space X paid quarter million in Hush Money for Musk showing his dick and propositioning an employee.
    Weird Musk Nerds: OMG, Musk was right, look how quickly the smear stories have started!
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944

    darkage said:

    https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/he-was-a-world-renowned-cancer-researcher?s=r

    This is an interesting read. A scientist who has been destroyed by having a consensual sexual relationship, which was not reported to his employer. Was then consequently "Weinstin'ed out of science".

    People want to believe these things are more complicated than they seem. That may well be true. But to my mind this is not progress at all - It as a tribal witch hunt, with revolutionary justice being dispatched through kangaroo courts - all masquerading as due process.

    If the Republicans can sort themselves out, they will win in 2024.

    Actually, the Sabatini story sounds rather complicated. The article presents only one side of the story (Sabatini's).

    I am not sure I would draw any conclusions from the article.

    Having sex with your postdoc/grad student will get you fired from your job at most Universities. That has been the case for at least a decade.

    (Of course, things were different in the past. Otherwise, we would never have heard of Schrodinger or Feynman.)
    Yes, and not shagging underlings has been a common HR policy in many jobs for decades, although I gather in universities it is more recent that students were rules out of bounds. Nonetheless, this does seem to have spiralled down like Bonfire of the Vanities.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,096

    So we seem to have City inflation now to go along with grade inflation and well -- inflation.

    It does seem to be a one-way street; has anywhere ever lost city status?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,590

    It is all Boris's fault.

    Boris Johnson accused of squandering Brexit dividend
    Business leaders attack 'awful and wasted opportunity' after inflation and taxes surge to highest for decades

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/19/boris-johnson-accused-squandering-brexit-dividend/ (£££)

    Consumer confidence now at its lowest level since records beginning in 1974.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    BBC: a third of all Scottish rail services will be removed from the timetables, starting on Monday. Talks between the rail unions and the Scottish government have failed to find a solution to their various disagreements.

    Good old tories, sunny uplands ahead
    Its the newly state owned / operated Scotrail? What do the Tories have to do with it?
    They have f***ed the UK, caused massive inflation , shambles of Brexix, I could go on ad nauseum, hence the greedy Scotrail staff desperately trying to gouge the Scottish public with stupid pay claims.
    Good old Boris thanks a million.
    No doubt, but the SG does need to take responsibility for the service it owns.

    It will kill the night economy in Edinburgh/Glasgow (but the SNP were the original "fuck business" party), and it doesn't do much to help with carbon emissions.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,096

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    Something forgotten, it seems, is that the original idea of owning your home went like this -

    1) you rent forever
    2) you pay a mortgage for 20 years. Then live rent free for the rest of your life.

    If you have no rent, you can live on a tiny income.

    A lot of people are going to find that the amount they are putting in pensions etc is not equal to the cost of property + living.

    Dr Palmer - you have very substantial pensions IIRC.

    Most people don’t

    Absolutely. There will be a vast cohort of people growing old in the coming decades who will never be able to afford to retire. They'll work and work and work until they either become physically incapable of working, or they drop down dead.
    I doubt it, by 39 most have still bought a property and most are enrolled in workplace pensions too to top up the state pension
    Much of the population are not owner-occupiers and have no hope whatsoever of becoming so. As for occupational pensions, the overwhelming majority (especially in the private sector) are money purchase, which are appalling value due to long life expectancy and the resultant rock bottom annuity rates.

    The sums you have to plough into them to achieve a comfortable fraction of your working income at retirement are colossal. I used to work in pensions administration twenty years ago and savers were often shocked by how little their fat contributions were projected to buy them in the way of income at pensionable age, and things have only got worse since. Even we lucky few who are still accruing defined benefits have seen our contributions jacked up hugely in recent years and our accrual rates slashed.

    Much of the population has nothing left after paying essential costs like rent or mortgage, food and fuel, and is already bridging the gaps with credit cards or making serious economies. How in the name of God are people meant to afford to blow a quarter or a third of their post-tax income for anything up to a fifty-year career to fund a decent pension at the end of it?

    They can't afford it, so they'll end up working until they drop.
    No, the vast majority of us will still be owner occupiers by retirement age, with neither rent nor mortgage to pay

    Occupational pensions then add further income beyond the state pension to retirement incomes
    You say No, but only respond to the owner occupier point @pigeon makes, whereas most of his point was about the very low occupational DC pension most people will get to add to their state pension.
    The fundamental issue is very basic.

    People are living for longer. There are only 3 ways to pay for that (or a mix)

    1. They work longer
    2. They save more during their working life
    3. The taxpayer pays more

    The reality is it’s going to be a mix of 1 & 2 with a bit of 3.

    It really is that simple!
    People were living longer. Now they’re just living the same. Possibly, in future people will start living less long. Medical advances are being counter-acted by bad lifestyle choices, and it is hard to see the coming food/economic crisis helping any.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,093

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    Something forgotten, it seems, is that the original idea of owning your home went like this -

    1) you rent forever
    2) you pay a mortgage for 20 years. Then live rent free for the rest of your life.

    If you have no rent, you can live on a tiny income.

    A lot of people are going to find that the amount they are putting in pensions etc is not equal to the cost of property + living.

    Dr Palmer - you have very substantial pensions IIRC.

    Most people don’t

    Absolutely. There will be a vast cohort of people growing old in the coming decades who will never be able to afford to retire. They'll work and work and work until they either become physically incapable of working, or they drop down dead.
    I doubt it, by 39 most have still bought a property and most are enrolled in workplace pensions too to top up the state pension
    Much of the population are not owner-occupiers and have no hope whatsoever of becoming so. As for occupational pensions, the overwhelming majority (especially in the private sector) are money purchase, which are appalling value due to long life expectancy and the resultant rock bottom annuity rates.

    The sums you have to plough into them to achieve a comfortable fraction of your working income at retirement are colossal. I used to work in pensions administration twenty years ago and savers were often shocked by how little their fat contributions were projected to buy them in the way of income at pensionable age, and things have only got worse since. Even we lucky few who are still accruing defined benefits have seen our contributions jacked up hugely in recent years and our accrual rates slashed.

    Much of the population has nothing left after paying essential costs like rent or mortgage, food and fuel, and is already bridging the gaps with credit cards or making serious economies. How in the name of God are people meant to afford to blow a quarter or a third of their post-tax income for anything up to a fifty-year career to fund a decent pension at the end of it?

    They can't afford it, so they'll end up working until they drop.
    No, the vast majority of us will still be owner occupiers by retirement age, with neither rent nor mortgage to pay

    Occupational pensions then add further income beyond the state pension to retirement incomes
    You say No, but only respond to the owner occupier point @pigeon makes, whereas most of his point was about the very low occupational DC pension most people will get to add to their state pension.
    The fundamental issue is very basic.

    People are living for longer. There are only 3 ways to pay for that (or a mix)

    1. They work longer
    2. They save more during their working life
    3. The taxpayer pays more

    The reality is it’s going to be a mix of 1 & 2 with a bit of 3.

    It really is that simple!
    And some of point 1 is fair enough; if people have a realistic expectation of living until they are 80, only working from age 20 to 65 isn't really on. That means thinking what work in the final years looks like, but that thinking bis doable.

    The tricky one is point 2. With housing costs what they are for the young, meaningful personal savings can't happen.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 6,778

    Farooq said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Respectful of the will of the British people and of Brexit...
    Heh. Yes, Brexit was indeed a British choice.
    The problem with disavowing the Northern Ireland Protocol is that while it might play well in the Express, it basically pisses off everyone else and makes the UK look ever more like a dodgy dealer.

    Many will say so what, but the practical impact is the EU cannot trust the UK to maintain the integrity of the single market.

    A solution to Northern Ireland is not possible with Boris Johnson in power, he simply cannot be trusted.
    The problem with that is all the opponents of Boris Johnson have bet the house on the sanctity of "peace in Northern Ireland" and "the Good Friday Agreement".

    All Boris has to do is turn it around now and say that he is putting the Good Friday Agreement first, and with one bound he is free.

    So long as he doesn't build a land border, what's the problem? There were three things that had to be achieved - get out of the EU, no sea border, no land border. Two are done already, we're out of the EU and there's no land border - if he unilaterally drops t he sea border while neither rejoining the EU nor building a land border then the so-called 🦄 is suddenly in existance.

    Once the unicorn is real, then what do the people betting the house on the Good Friday Agreement do next? You can't say that Britain needs to build a sea border as not doing so is a unicorn, when not doing so is already the status quo. You can't say we need to be in the EU, when we're already not. You can't say we aren't allowed to build a land border, when we're saying we're not doing so anyway.

    So once the unicorn is alive and visible to all, then what do you do next? How do you slay the unicorn?
    You lift sanctions on Russia and put them on the UK?

    Because… reasons…
  • Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    The US has certainly outperformed Europe (and is out second largest trading partner).

    But we’re back to my original point; no US trade deal is on the horizon, in part because of Boris’s policy in Northern Ireland.

    Also, it’s noted that US performance has been boosted by high migration. We decided we didn’t want that either.

    US performance has been boosted by skilled immigration. Unskilled immigration is a drain on the country which is destabilizing their politics.
    Presumably the unskilled ones don’t show up in the economic stats…
    They do show up in the economic stats. The numbers showing median worked wages not moving for decades, for example. They also show up in the very high numbers of Americans in poverty and rampant inequality.
    Weirdly, though, the most successful countries in the world have lots of unskilled immigration - Singapore, Switzerland, etc.

    Why?

    Because they have extremely educated populations. No Singaporean mother wants their child to grow up to work in Starbucks. So, they import domestic workers and cleaners and food service staff. And Singaporeans get professional jobs.
    No, it's because successful societies become wealthy, and potential immigrants want to go to where the money is. And the wealthy elite that generally run politics love low skilled labor to come in, because it keeps the poor politically divided and suppresses wages for groups like domestic staff, improving the living standard of the rich.

    Singaporeans that are smart and qualified enough to get professional jobs will do so regardless of how many poor immigrants there are. And Singaporeans that aren't educated enough to get them will work in other professions. It's just the level of low skill immigrants determines how bad the pay and conditions are in those other professions. I hear they are pretty awful in Singapore.
    Yet incomes for Singaporean citizens are now quite considerably above the UK's. Which would have been utterly inconceivable two decades ago.

    Swiss incomes are also quite considerably above the UK's.

    It does rather sound like you have come to a conclusion already, and then will fit the facts around it.
    Yes because Singapore and Switzerland are big financial hubs gaining a lot of financial rents with small populations to distribute it among.

    As for your last statement, I could send that one right back at you. There is plenty of evidence at both sector level and even macroeconomic level of low skilled immigration reducing pay and conditions. It also tallies with common sense logic of supply and demand. Unlike your claim where someone says "well I was going to work at my local Starbucks but given that there is a Laotian doing it, I will become a lawyer instead!"
    What tends to reduce pay and conditions is a lack of strong trade unions.

    Ah right because Singapore is famous for its trade unions, isn't it?

    In general what determines pay and conditions is supply and demand and trade unions are tinkering at the edges of that. They can move pay above the equilibrium, but then that results in more unemployment instead, and a better ran economy can lead to a higher equilibrium and thus higher pay without the unions.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,548

    Here's a question for you:

    What was the last ship built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard (according to the BBC, at least...)?

    Millennium falcon
    As a resident of PD it's our proud boast.
    I've only been to Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven once, and that was on my coastal walk. I really liked both of them. Pembrokeshire is such a beautiful area, but it was good to get a short break from the scenery. There was lots of interest as well - particularly if you like engineering. ;)

    I preferred Pembrokeshire to the SouthWest Coast Path: the latter was far too touristy, with little honeypots every few miles. Pembrokeshire felt much more unspoilt.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Mr Observer,

    "Of course, Johnson himself was never behind Brexit. He saw an opportunity for self-advancement. That's it."

    I agree, but is that always bad? That's one of BoJo's saving graces. Save me from a politician who thinks he knows it all. and is intent on moulding the world in his own image. That way you end up with a Corbyn or a Putin. Or worse, even a Guardian reader.

    There's nothing wrong with a little populism now and again. Isn't that the aim of democracy?

    I'd call it moral flexibility.


  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    Eabhal said:

    darkage said:

    pigeon said:

    One of the great puzzles - for me, anyway -- is how four very different East Asian nations: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China, are able to produce so many things, but not children. Here are their total fertility rates: 1.1, 0.8, 1.4, and 1.3 (or possibly, 1.1). (source: the demographic articles at Wikipedia.)

    By the way, although I am sure others have figured this out before me, I don't recall seeing it before, one day, I realized that China's one-child policy would have given it a temporary economic advantage. Before the population began to age, cutting back the number of children would, for a time, increase the proportion of workers in a nation. Of course that would only work for a while.

    I could be wrong, but I'd guess that one or more of the following four things produce high birth rates:
    1. A large, manual agricultural workforce
    2. Restricted access to birth control products
    3. Restricted female access to education
    4. Widespread and very strong religious beliefs
    I am not sure that any of those apply in any of Singapore, China, South Korea or Japan these days.
    The fundamental problem, which all advanced societies seem to share, is with the cost of living - and that did not, of course, spontaneously flash into existence with the invasion of Ukraine. Having children is ruinously expensive and people therefore decide that they either can't afford them full-stop, or aren't prepared to make the kinds of sacrifices - a much less comfortable lifestyle, one parent (typically the mother) throwing their career on the bonfire, probably both - that are required to afford any, and certainly more than one.

    Everything costs tons of money and the finances of young people are typically very stretched and very precarious. It's small wonder that most of them daren't lumber themselves with babies when they are just a P45, an eviction or yet another rent hike away from being unable to afford to eat, now is it?
    If you look at the total fertility rate for the UK - it has been stuck at around 1.6 since 1977.
    I'm not sure I agree that it is all about the cost of living. Lots of people with decent jobs and the means to do so put off having children. On the basis of observation the people that seem to have more children are from lower socio-economic groups, also immigrants.
    People who are earning well and have family backing don't do it, delay getting married, then go in to some sort of crisis in their late 30's, 40's etc culminating in IVF attempts.
    Also, countries with good welfare still have the same problem. IE: Iceland and Finland, both have pro child policies, but similar fertility rates to the UK.
    I see it as being more a problem with western culture. IE No idea what we are doing here, no mission, self obsession, decline of community, no religion, no purpose. So children are just entertainment and a distraction for mid to later life.
    I think the amount of time in education means that it takes quite a long time for careers to develop enough for people to feel comfortable having kids. I'd definitely want a least one more promotion, and my GF is at the very least 4 years away based on professional training. That's us into our 30s.

    I like @MaxPB idea about linking the personal allowance to having children (though I'd apply it to anyone under 25 too, to reward moving into work v education). Poverty stats, using equivalised income, show just how better off couples without children are (single people without kids not so much, another reason for my age qualification).
    France has a sort-of family personal allowance that is smeared out between income tax payers, aiui. Even in Britain, every child has its own personal allowance but it is not used in almost all families.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,603

    ydoethur said:

    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    What does Northampton have to do to become a city? Eight new cities announced, and Northampton isn't amongst them. What will particularly hurt is that the *smaller* Milton Keynes has just been granted city status...

    Are there any reasons why Northampton should be a city?
    Why shouldn't it, given the size of some of the smaller settlements granted city status in this tranche?

    It's one of England's largest towns. It has applied twice before, and been rejected. It is a county town, and has a wide catchment area.

    I'm not from Northampton, and my only connection was friends from the area (and hence many boozy nights out). But it does seem odd that MK gets the nod before Northampton - especially as there is a rivalry between the two.
    Interesting Northampton fact: it was England's second university town, after Oxford.
    And I think I'm right in saying that it remains the only university in this country ever to be actually stripped of its charter and cease operating, rather than merge?
    Lampeter? Although I suppose that was really a merger.
    There is still a campus in Lampeter although most of Trinity St David's has migrated to Fabian Way, Swansea via Carmarthen.
  • Farooq said:

    Pelosi is tweeting on the NIP

    Respectful of the will of the British people and of Brexit...
    Heh. Yes, Brexit was indeed a British choice.
    The problem with disavowing the Northern Ireland Protocol is that while it might play well in the Express, it basically pisses off everyone else and makes the UK look ever more like a dodgy dealer.

    Many will say so what, but the practical impact is the EU cannot trust the UK to maintain the integrity of the single market.

    A solution to Northern Ireland is not possible with Boris Johnson in power, he simply cannot be trusted.
    The problem with that is all the opponents of Boris Johnson have bet the house on the sanctity of "peace in Northern Ireland" and "the Good Friday Agreement".

    All Boris has to do is turn it around now and say that he is putting the Good Friday Agreement first, and with one bound he is free.

    So long as he doesn't build a land border, what's the problem? There were three things that had to be achieved - get out of the EU, no sea border, no land border. Two are done already, we're out of the EU and there's no land border - if he unilaterally drops t he sea border while neither rejoining the EU nor building a land border then the so-called 🦄 is suddenly in existance.

    Once the unicorn is real, then what do the people betting the house on the Good Friday Agreement do next? You can't say that Britain needs to build a sea border as not doing so is a unicorn, when not doing so is already the status quo. You can't say we need to be in the EU, when we're already not. You can't say we aren't allowed to build a land border, when we're saying we're not doing so anyway.

    So once the unicorn is alive and visible to all, then what do you do next? How do you slay the unicorn?
    You lift sanctions on Russia and put them on the UK?

    Because… reasons…
    What sanctions? Sanctions wasn't in my comment whatsoever. 😕

    There's no serious threat to sanctions to the UK at all. For one thing the EU isn't willing to build a hard border in Ireland, so can't implement sanctions, and for another the mercantilists in Germany won't put up with any actually happening anyway.

    Volkswagen is already saying trade needs to be normalised with Russia despite the war and Germany is busy trying to find ways to circumvent the sanctions. German car manufactures aren't willing to put up for long with sanctions on Russia, they're not going to put up with sanctions on Britain at all and never would have been. Its always been a hollow threat from day one and serious people realised that.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,944
    Scott_xP said:

    🔺 NEW: Rishi Sunak today makes his debut in the Sunday Times Rich List, less than 36 hours after warning millions of people battling spiralling prices that they face a “tough” few months ahead https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-becomes-first-frontline-politician-to-join-sunday-times-rich-list-2022-zksx9bprq?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1653025494

    Today? Not Sunday?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,175

    IshmaelZ said:

    Unbelievable. With one bound Phatboi was free.

    Lying to the House issue still to be resolved, tho

    What lie? If the only fine he's got is for cake in the office, he probably didn't think that was a party any more than Starmer thought korma and a beer was a party.

    The lie line was always the weakest of the lot. Lying requires proving the other party knew it wasn't true when they said it.

    Boris deserves to go for the economy and raising taxes.
    He said to the House that "All guidance was followed completely" at No. 10. There have been 126 FPNs issued. Clearly, guidance was frequently not followed by all sorts of people over 8 dates. (And, indeed, given guidance was broader than legislation, he didn't just claim that the law was being followed but that "All guidance was followed".)
    So he was wrong according to the Met, but wrong is not a lie.

    To be a lie you need to prove he knew that having a slice of cake at lunchtime would get an FPN issued, any more than whether Starmer would (not even should) have known that Korma after a day's work might get an FPN issued.
    He needs to explain how he didn't know that multiple events he attended contravened guidance (in that they attracted multiple FPNs), at least one of which his senior advisers told him broke the rules. He needs to explain how he was ignorant of multiple further events involving his staff in his absence, but which left after-effects like breaking his son's stuff. He needs to explain how he didn't know about a culture at No. 10 that ignored all the rules.

    I say he needs to explain... he clearly can't.
    He can. He simply needs to say that at the time he didn't think it was a breach of the rules, but he accepts now that it was, and that lessons have been learnt.

    That's the problem with accusing people of lying. It isn't enough to prove that they're wrong, you need to prove that they knew at the time that they were. Being wrong != lying, to err is human.
    I suspect all those who believed it was a genuine error on Johnson's part are relieved at his exoneration. The rest of us who didn't believe a word of his cock and bull story still don't.

    I don't suppose many minds have been changed.
    Precisely my point.

    If people get fined for Starmer's Korma and Beer night then is he a lying liar for saying all rules were followed? Or was he mistaken?

    And that's just one night, if Sue Gray had spent six months trawling through his and others diary and events how many other questionable events might have been found? Would that make him a liar, or mistaken?

    Unless you can see inside someone else's mind, how do you prove a lie instead of a mistake?
    https://www.cleggssolicitors.com/2015/09/03/judge-decide-liar/

    Courts decide whether someone has lied all the time, using principles in the link above.
This discussion has been closed.