We're talking millions of pounds to survey a roof in a corridor in order to make sure they know where the problems are... Every time another problem arises, they have to go back and do another survey," she said.
Millions for ...a survey o_O ?
Isn't the problem with RAAC that it is impossible to predict structural failure by external survey?
Yes, it needs to be replaced, I read on Friday the national bill for this could end up being £30-40bn just for publicly owned buildings.
Its all just so short-sighted. Build cheap and build often. We have these grand old buildings - often built at public expense - left to crumble, then we replace them with something built at the lowest cost by a contractor whose contract allows them to skim off the top. So we get shoddily built crap which manages to both cost a lot and be cheap at the same time. This then needs replacing in a few decades whilst the grand old ediface looks on.
So - radical idea - lets save money by spending money. We do not "save" money by cutting the schools budget or similar - we spend the unspent money on maintenance costs. How do we get past this mindset where any investment is seen as "cost" with "who will pay?" as the reflex question? Who pays if we *don't* spend. Its a lie that we can just cut budgets.
Corruption in building contracts has long been an issue.
I had a deceased client who was a local authority surveyor. I discovered that in the 60’s and 70’s he was taking bribes to pass inferior concrete in tower blocks. People could have died, had a block collapsed.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
why is it fine for people to inherit wealth but blithely ignore the circumstances in which that wealth was accumulated?
Interesting to think about this: kind of gives a moral (and very useful) justification for inheritance tax and death duties. Money goes back into the Monopoly box after death and your decendants don't have to be embroiled when skeletons fall out of the closet further down the line society gets more enlightened (or social mores simply change).
The benefits of past wealth aren't just economic, they tend to impact health and wellbeing. Read 'The Body Keep The Score' for a really eye-opening explanation of how that works but also google 'Dutch Hunger Winter study' for the science behind health impacts of generational trauma.
But I've never thought about this in relation to IHT before - once again PB the place to come for some deep thinking and dot-joining :-)
We're talking millions of pounds to survey a roof in a corridor in order to make sure they know where the problems are... Every time another problem arises, they have to go back and do another survey," she said.
Millions for ...a survey o_O ?
Isn't the problem with RAAC that it is impossible to predict structural failure by external survey?
Yes, it needs to be replaced, I read on Friday the national bill for this could end up being £30-40bn just for publicly owned buildings.
Its all just so short-sighted. Build cheap and build often. We have these grand old buildings - often built at public expense - left to crumble, then we replace them with something built at the lowest cost by a contractor whose contract allows them to skim off the top. So we get shoddily built crap which manages to both cost a lot and be cheap at the same time. This then needs replacing in a few decades whilst the grand old ediface looks on.
So - radical idea - lets save money by spending money. We do not "save" money by cutting the schools budget or similar - we spend the unspent money on maintenance costs. How do we get past this mindset where any investment is seen as "cost" with "who will pay?" as the reflex question? Who pays if we *don't* spend. Its a lie that we can just cut budgets.
See we agree on this, if we are going to do it then do it properly. However that still does have to be paid for which is why I say we need to address the question of what we do spend on.
Infrastructure isn't current spending, it is investment. The problem with successive UK governments is that they see all spending as subsidy, hence cutting to "save" money.
Borrow. Invest. Generate a return on the investment. It used to be called capitalism. And the exciting thing is that not only can fiscally sovereign states borrow at much cheaper rates than companies, there are other sovereign states desperate to find things to invest their riches is.
So we may have pissed North Sea revenues away paying for a decade of unemployment, but other sovereign states are well loaded. So set out our own sovereign fund. Borrow money and add their investor money, build things properly, the economy grows as we have a public infrastructure and society fit for the future, and we all get richer.
Or, we can say "what do we cut to pay for this" and get poorer as the fabric of our society crumbles further around us.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in most Western countries, compared to the rates of 1950-2000.
We're talking millions of pounds to survey a roof in a corridor in order to make sure they know where the problems are... Every time another problem arises, they have to go back and do another survey," she said.
Millions for ...a survey o_O ?
Isn't the problem with RAAC that it is impossible to predict structural failure by external survey?
Yes, it needs to be replaced, I read on Friday the national bill for this could end up being £30-40bn just for publicly owned buildings.
Its all just so short-sighted. Build cheap and build often. We have these grand old buildings - often built at public expense - left to crumble, then we replace them with something built at the lowest cost by a contractor whose contract allows them to skim off the top. So we get shoddily built crap which manages to both cost a lot and be cheap at the same time. This then needs replacing in a few decades whilst the grand old ediface looks on.
So - radical idea - lets save money by spending money. We do not "save" money by cutting the schools budget or similar - we spend the unspent money on maintenance costs. How do we get past this mindset where any investment is seen as "cost" with "who will pay?" as the reflex question? Who pays if we *don't* spend. Its a lie that we can just cut budgets.
See we agree on this, if we are going to do it then do it properly. However that still does have to be paid for which is why I say we need to address the question of what we do spend on.
The investment required are well beyond those of a single Parliament. Any realistic solution requires a new political consensus - and it's hard to see how that might be easily achieved, given how hopeless the record of government has been in recent years.
Then we simply go down the list and draw a line where tax revenue runs out on that list and stop doing everything below the line. Will it hurt yes of course, however it is the only way we get out of the mess
It would be impossible to get elected on such a program so, as a solution to anything, it's bollocks.
We will have no choice but to do it sooner or later
Why? I am sure some three monitor wanker will know more but countries run massive debt-fuelled deficits for decades. They just periodically have periods of high inflation and occasionally default.
Without the discipline of being in the Euro there is no reason to suppose that the UK can't go down that crooked path.
It would help a lot if our utilities were not owned by foreigners. We just wind up exporting money abroad.
I noticed last week that the company which manages the electricity infrastructure in Yorkshire seems to be owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
There should be a ban on any foreign government owning our infrastructure too. I am sure the Hong Kong Metro love being subsidised for running the Elizabeth Line because apparently the country that built the line and the tunnels is incapable of running it itself.
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
why is it fine for people to inherit wealth but blithely ignore the circumstances in which that wealth was accumulated?
Interesting to think about this: kind of gives a moral (and very useful) justification for inheritance tax and death duties. Money goes back into the Monopoly box after death and your decendants don't have to be embroiled when skeletons fall out of the closet further down the line society gets more enlightened (or social mores simply change).
The benefits of past wealth aren't just economic, they tend to impact health and wellbeing. Read 'The Body Keep The Score' for a really eye-opening explanation of how that works but also google 'Dutch Hunger Winter study' for the science behind health impacts of generational trauma.
But I've never thought about this in relation to IHT before - once again PB the place to come for some deep thinking and dot-joining :-)
What matters is how one uses one’s wealth. Not what someone else did with it centuries ago.
We're talking millions of pounds to survey a roof in a corridor in order to make sure they know where the problems are... Every time another problem arises, they have to go back and do another survey," she said.
Millions for ...a survey o_O ?
Isn't the problem with RAAC that it is impossible to predict structural failure by external survey?
Yes, it needs to be replaced, I read on Friday the national bill for this could end up being £30-40bn just for publicly owned buildings.
Its all just so short-sighted. Build cheap and build often. We have these grand old buildings - often built at public expense - left to crumble, then we replace them with something built at the lowest cost by a contractor whose contract allows them to skim off the top. So we get shoddily built crap which manages to both cost a lot and be cheap at the same time. This then needs replacing in a few decades whilst the grand old ediface looks on.
So - radical idea - lets save money by spending money. We do not "save" money by cutting the schools budget or similar - we spend the unspent money on maintenance costs. How do we get past this mindset where any investment is seen as "cost" with "who will pay?" as the reflex question? Who pays if we *don't* spend. Its a lie that we can just cut budgets.
Corruption in building contracts has long been an issue.
I had a deceased client who was a local authority surveyor. I discovered that in the 60’s and 70’s he was taking bribes to pass inferior concrete in tower blocks. People could have died, had a block collapsed.
On a more positive note, a great night out last night to see Wishbone Ash at the Flowerpot in Derby.
I have long been a fan, and saw them 4 decades ago at Southampton Gaumont, they still are great live and played the entire 1973 Live Dates set. Great for old rockers, though both band and audience noticeably less hirsute than when they first appeared with their classic twin guitar rock.
Good real ales at £4 a pint too!
I've only been to the Flowerpot once, years ago. We were sat in the bar having a pint while Midge Ure was playing in the other room.
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
How has nationalising rail helped? Now that operations have been wholly brought back in house, we aren't seeing any changes to the chaos, because the driver of the chaos are the Department for Transport mandarins who were screwing the so-called "privatised" operators as well by dictating micro-details.
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
The Conservatives were well rid of her.
I’ve discovered that some of my ancestors fought in 17th century Ireland, and I’m quite sure they acted as 17th century soldiers did. I see no reason to apologise.
Mrs RP has ancestors who fought in the OG IRA. Is she supposed to apologise for what great-great-grandad did a century ago? What does it have to do with her?
But there’s quite a bit of ancestor worship about (see folk on Antiques Roadshow getting applauded for having skilfully acquired a great great gran who bought something that’s now worth thousands), perhaps this is needed as a counterbalance?
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
How has nationalising rail helped? Now that operations have been wholly brought back in house, we aren't seeing any changes to the chaos, because the driver of the chaos are the Department for Transport mandarins who were screwing the so-called "privatised" operators as well by dictating micro-details.
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
I am talking about it as a way to sell the idea to the public.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in most Western countries, compared to the rates of 1950-2000.
No, I think it's part of the same discussion. The selfishness is that they know the growth rate had gone down but are unwilling to share the pain of that reduction so have been taking a greater and greater proportion of economic gains for themselves. Spending on investment for future generations, economic resilience and everything outside of old age related areas has been sacrificed as they funnel national growth and productivity gains to themselves. When growth was 4% per year them taking 2% of it wasn't an issue, now that it's 2% per year them taking 2% for themselves is a huge proplblem.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
The 'uniquely selfish' trope doesn't really stand up, sorry. Twas ever the same. Society tends to react to whatever is facing them, and Boomers lived through the post-war reality of a world coming to terms with global power upheaval and nuclear stand-offs at the same time as new technologies and social safety networks delivered real stability and life improvements. Why wouldn't you take advantage? What lessons would you learn apart from kick awkward cans down the road?
Life tends to move in 80 year cycles cos that's when first-person experience (the most effective kind) evaporates and we get to discover what we failed to learn from history, and need to learn again.
The RAAC 'crisis' (not sure the kids see it like this, some excitement in the drudgery of most kids experience of school!) is the perfect metaphor for lots about this country, but it's also sobering to think that if we can't tackle something as 'simple' as school building infrastructure, then there is zero chance of pro-actively avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Ain't gonna happen. We will have to go through it, and get that very valuable, but oh-so traumatic first-hand experience the hard way. Grim, cynical (perhaps), an abdication of courage and tackling difficult stuff (certainly). As always, the successor generations will have to roll their sleeves up and sort out the mess, but if anyone else has other suggestions on how to make fundamental changes in human behaviour without going through disaster, I've love to hear them. Just a bit down about things tbh.
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
How has nationalising rail helped? Now that operations have been wholly brought back in house, we aren't seeing any changes to the chaos, because the driver of the chaos are the Department for Transport mandarins who were screwing the so-called "privatised" operators as well by dictating micro-details.
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
I am talking about it as a way to sell the idea to the public.
But sell them what? Some of the Labour team don't know what they are talking about. Andy MacDonald was Shadow Transport Secretary. Spoke only ideology without a clue what was going on. Andy Burnham talks a good game but its crap as well. They're as clueless as their Tory counterparts.
As an aside, a theory I've heard about the plague of Justinian's reign is that the rats/fleas that transmitted the bubonic pestilence were normally isolated near the mouth of the Nile. A volcanic eruption or meteor strike caused the climate to cool globally for years, enabling said vermin to travel north to Egypt, and then the rest of the Empire.
Interesting to consider the unexpected ways that climate/weather can affect things.
Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis is all about the effects of climate change on politics in the Seventeenth Century, and is excellent.
If I had to choose the worst time to be alive, it would be the 17th century.
The growth of the centralised State placed far more power into the hands of governments to raise vast armies and deliver lethal violence. The restraints that the Catholic Church had imposed upon warfare in medieval times had disappeared. And all sides now believed God was on their side.
I suggest the 540s and the Plague of Justinian was worse!
As an aside, a theory I've heard about the plague of Justinian's reign is that the rats/fleas that transmitted the bubonic pestilence were normally isolated near the mouth of the Nile. A volcanic eruption or meteor strike caused the climate to cool globally for years, enabling said vermin to travel north to Egypt, and then the rest of the Empire.
Interesting to consider the unexpected ways that climate/weather can affect things.
Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis is all about the effects of climate change on politics in the Seventeenth Century, and is excellent.
If I had to choose the worst time to be alive, it would be the 17th century.
The growth of the centralised State placed far more power into the hands of governments to raise vast armies and deliver lethal violence. The restraints that the Catholic Church had imposed upon warfare in medieval times had disappeared. And all sides now believed God was on their side.
I suggest the 540s and the Plague of Justinian was worse!
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
How has nationalising rail helped? Now that operations have been wholly brought back in house, we aren't seeing any changes to the chaos, because the driver of the chaos are the Department for Transport mandarins who were screwing the so-called "privatised" operators as well by dictating micro-details.
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
I am talking about it as a way to sell the idea to the public.
But sell them what? Some of the Labour team don't know what they are talking about. Andy MacDonald was Shadow Transport Secretary. Spoke only ideology without a clue what was going on. Andy Burnham talks a good game but its crap as well. They're as clueless as their Tory counterparts.
As an aside, a theory I've heard about the plague of Justinian's reign is that the rats/fleas that transmitted the bubonic pestilence were normally isolated near the mouth of the Nile. A volcanic eruption or meteor strike caused the climate to cool globally for years, enabling said vermin to travel north to Egypt, and then the rest of the Empire.
Interesting to consider the unexpected ways that climate/weather can affect things.
Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis is all about the effects of climate change on politics in the Seventeenth Century, and is excellent.
If I had to choose the worst time to be alive, it would be the 17th century.
The growth of the centralised State placed far more power into the hands of governments to raise vast armies and deliver lethal violence. The restraints that the Catholic Church had imposed upon warfare in medieval times had disappeared. And all sides now believed God was on their side.
Worse than the plague-ridden 14th? And what restraints on warfare did the Catholic Church impose?
On balance, I'd say yes. In the aftermath of the Black Death, living standards shot up across Western Europe, as lords had to bid for scarce labour, and in turn, had to devise more efficient ways of managing their estates, such as sheep farming. In all likelihood, living standards doubled in England between 1340-1400.
As to warfare, yes, it was more murderous in 17th century Europe than 14th Europe, if for no other reason, because army sizes were much bigger. Pillaging by an army of 5,000 is more bearable than pillaging by an army of 35,000. Millions died during the Thirty Years War, the Deluge, the English, Scottish, and Irish wars.
The Church had Truces of God, distinguished between combatants and non-combatants, ruled religious property out of bounds for attack (which was obviously self-serving, but did provide places of refuge for civilians).
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in
As an aside, a theory I've heard about the plague of Justinian's reign is that the rats/fleas that transmitted the bubonic pestilence were normally isolated near the mouth of the Nile. A volcanic eruption or meteor strike caused the climate to cool globally for years, enabling said vermin to travel north to Egypt, and then the rest of the Empire.
Interesting to consider the unexpected ways that climate/weather can affect things.
Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis is all about the effects of climate change on politics in the Seventeenth Century, and is excellent.
If I had to choose the worst time to be alive, it would be the 17th century.
The growth of the centralised State placed far more power into the hands of governments to raise vast armies and deliver lethal violence. The restraints that the Catholic Church had imposed upon warfare in medieval times had disappeared. And all sides now believed God was on their side.
I suggest the 540s and the Plague of Justinian was worse!
If I were to combine time and place, it would either be Northern China, between 1210-35, or Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, between 1930-50.
Mr. F, the 'aftermath' of the Black Death was a long time coming, though. The plague recurred repeatedly. The last English instance was in the 17th century. Also, edited extra bit: the death rate was 30-50%. Not sure there is an economic growth rate worth that level of human misery. Plus, some of the economic trends were already occurring before the plague started.
On topic, if the Tory Party wants to become extinct it will choose Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman, or Kemi Badenoch to succeed Rishi Sunak.
Looping back to the other but of the conversation, that would be an extreme example of choosing pleasure now even if it means more pain for Conservatives in the future. So pretty much nailed on.
"It'll see me out" is poignant when said by an aged relative, but it's no way to run a country.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
I'm a boomer and I agree with your last paragraph. Decades ago, one commentator said it was as though a whole generation was waiting for the adults to turn up and get a grip.
Knowing what I know now, I reckon my parents' generation were either just too exhausted or in many cases too mentally fragile from WWII to cope with teenagers letting rip. So most of us just went on letting rip; and in different ways still are.
As ever the greedy youngish losers who cannot make it vent their spleen on the generation who worked hard and made something of themselves. Boomers did not expect it on a plate , they worked for it and what do we see now , lazy losers berating them because they cannot achieve the same. Pathetic cretins.
So I wake up to news that Mason Greenwood has been signed by Getafe on a loan deal where Manchester United continue to pay his wages.
So the carefully-worded statement saying that all sides agree that he should rebuild his career away from Old Trafford was just more smoke-blowing. We haven't dispensed with his services at all. Its just pathetic management.
While I understand your comments I suspect employment law is playing (excuse the pun) a part in this as his contract is to 2025
Although they could have just left him on the sidelines until he asked to be released from his contract.
Yes but I assume they would still be paying him until the end of it so not sure why he would want to be released from it
I’m sure Greenwood will be quite at home under the Spanish FA.
Anyway, breaking news, Manchester Utd signed TWO STRIKERS seconds before the 11 o’clock deadline.
A junior doctor from Chelsea. And a train driver from York. 😄
I suspect Long season ahead for Man Utd, and predict Liverpool to finish above them. The only certainty is Man Utd will finish above Everton. Truth is, the Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window - the money pot emptied far too early didn’t it, and it was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal brought in. At the last minute Man Utd couldn’t even afford £8M loan fee for Cucurella and still have enough of the Glaziers money to complete the deal for The Bat? The Bat just hanging there patiently as 4th choice partner for Casamero if everything else fail through. That midfield so far this season has been targeted and passed through. Last season Man Utd’s defence was questioned, now the midfield has joined it as an issue.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are people the manager has previously worked with. He has come from a minor club, should the club of Man Utd give him the comfort blanket of players he had previously worked with? this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players? After the managers expensive Anthony fiasco, should he have been allowed to add such question marks of the expensive line leader at one end and exorbitantly pricey keeper?
4th place could quickly become aspirational for Man U.
Anyway, we are off to a picnic, you will have to pick the bones out of it yourself today. 🙋♀️
Man U are the footballing equivalent of the Tory party.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Over privileged middle class twat , punted up by rich Dad complains that some older people made some money, what a laugh.
If Labour had any fecking sense they'd make the argument of nationalisation of rail and stronger regulation about post-Brexit freedoms, patriotism and running things ourselves rather than from countries abroad.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
How has nationalising rail helped? Now that operations have been wholly brought back in house, we aren't seeing any changes to the chaos, because the driver of the chaos are the Department for Transport mandarins who were screwing the so-called "privatised" operators as well by dictating micro-details.
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
Unless you’re one of the Tories’ spiv pals, in which case you get paid £lots to do little.
I keep saying this. The British Government has effectively declared war on the British people and the boomers on here are too obsessed with their Cold-War neoliberalism priorities to realize it or even care.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Over privileged middle class twat , punted up by rich Dad complains that some older people made some money, what a laugh.
I don't know anything about Max's background but I would agree that attacking an entire generation of people is very silly. Every generation that has had the ability to vote has voted for improvements in its own situation. I don't see anything uniquely selfish about the boomers. The problem we have is Government, collabarating with large corporates, becoming ever more dominant and sucking up more and more resources for less and less output. Ending that situation completely should be the goal, not complaining that they're not taking more from older people. They should be taking less from everyone.
It's not terrible in itself, but whatever policy or statement led to it being attempted it just won't work because people are not going to find it plausible that Starmer is in favour of kids starving. It's like when Goldsmith tried saying Khan was an extremist, people didn't buy it.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
why is it fine for people to inherit wealth but blithely ignore the circumstances in which that wealth was accumulated?
She has inherited wealth? She didn't even know this guy was a relative. There is too much hand-wringing going on about sins of the past. Slavery is Bad. So the way to atone isn't to hand-wring, it is to go after modern slavers.
We have people still used as captive labour today, and we do almost nothing about it because the people doing so are rich. Do we really try to stop women being trafficked for sex work? Do we make Qatar a pariah state for enslaving foreign labourers and working some to death? No - we don't care about actual slavery. But virtue-signalling and blaming someone for something they haven't done is much easier.
I only know a single fact about one of my great grandparents, and nothing at all about any of the others. Even if they had been wealthy (which apparently they were not), after 3 generations of ups and downs there's barely any connection there anyway.
What's going on here is barely even virtue signalling, since everyone already agrees slavery is bad, it's just...signalling. Signally what, I'm not quite sure, other than either moral superiority for apologising for some very distant relation, or in this case solving a PR issue.
Perhaps the most corrosive dictum in British public life is Keynes's witty repost, 'in the long run we're all dead'. It belongs in a dictionary of dud epigrams, along with the complete works of Oscar Wilde, but instead it has cast a defining shadow over government policy since the 1930s. On the other hand most of the fine old pre-20th century buildings designed to last centuries were raised with money derived from slavery, colonialism and plunder. We've never really paid our own way - we've just been very inventive finding ways to make others do it for us. And now we've run out of ideas.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
The Conservatives were well rid of her.
I’ve discovered that some of my ancestors fought in 17th century Ireland, and I’m quite sure they acted as 17th century soldiers did. I see no reason to apologise.
Mrs RP has ancestors who fought in the OG IRA. Is she supposed to apologise for what great-great-grandad did a century ago? What does it have to do with her?
But there’s quite a bit of ancestor worship about (see folk on Antiques Roadshow getting applauded for having skilfully acquired a great great gran who bought something that’s now worth thousands), perhaps this is needed as a counterbalance?
I don't think it is at the same level to be honest. Unless you're Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington, we don't get or rely on social cachet for being related to someone centuries old. Within 1-2 generations, maybe, but not that distant. At best you might have an interestory story to tell or trinket you hold.
Whereas the flagellation movement is all about demonstrating in as overwrought a fashion as possible that you are so much better than some 17th century person, one amongst dozens of ancestors possibly, who may or may not have had an impact on you today.
Perhaps the most corrosive dictum in British public life is Keynes's witty repost, 'in the long run we're all dead'. It belongs in a dictionary of dud epigrams, along with the complete works of Oscar Wilde, but instead it has cast a defining shadow over government policy since the 1930s. On the other hand most of the fine old pre-20th century buildings designed to last centuries were raised with money derived from slavery, colonialism and plunder. We've never really paid our own way - we've just been very inventive finding ways to make others do it for us. And now we've run out of ideas.
Well, we did come up with the Industrial Revolution, which is probably the single greatest blessing that the world has enjoyed.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
The Conservatives were well rid of her.
I’ve discovered that some of my ancestors fought in 17th century Ireland, and I’m quite sure they acted as 17th century soldiers did. I see no reason to apologise.
Mrs RP has ancestors who fought in the OG IRA. Is she supposed to apologise for what great-great-grandad did a century ago? What does it have to do with her?
But there’s quite a bit of ancestor worship about (see folk on Antiques Roadshow getting applauded for having skilfully acquired a great great gran who bought something that’s now worth thousands), perhaps this is needed as a counterbalance?
I don't think it is at the same level to be honest. Unless you're Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington, we don't get or rely on social cachet for being related to someone centuries old. Within 1-2 generations, maybe, but not that distant. At best you might have an interestory story to tell or trinket you hold.
Whereas the flagellation movement is all about demonstrating in as overwrought a fashion as possible that you are so much better than some 17th century person, one amongst dozens of ancestors possibly, who may or may not have had an impact on you today.
Being better than a slave taker or pirate is honestly, not much to congratulate oneself about.
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
why is it fine for people to inherit wealth but blithely ignore the circumstances in which that wealth was accumulated?
She has inherited wealth? She didn't even know this guy was a relative. There is too much hand-wringing going on about sins of the past. Slavery is Bad. So the way to atone isn't to hand-wring, it is to go after modern slavers.
We have people still used as captive labour today, and we do almost nothing about it because the people doing so are rich. Do we really try to stop women being trafficked for sex work? Do we make Qatar a pariah state for enslaving foreign labourers and working some to death? No - we don't care about actual slavery. But virtue-signalling and blaming someone for something they haven't done is much easier.
I only know a single fact about one of my great grandparents, and nothing at all about any of the others. Even if they had been wealthy (which apparently they were not), after 3 generations of ups and downs there's barely any connection there anyway.
What's going on here is barely even virtue signalling, since everyone already agrees slavery is bad, it's just...signalling. Signally what, I'm not quite sure, other than either moral superiority for apologising for some very distant relation, or in this case solving a PR issue.
My children are partially descended from slaves five generations back. You don't need to apologise to them. Though one has been badly affected by the lockdown and all you who supported closing schools and playgrounds can certainly do so. Though you'll be paying for it out of your taxes as he/she has to start at a special school next week due to those actions.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in
Why does she need to apologise for the actions of her ancestors? Ones that she only just found out existed? Is she responsible for them?
why is it fine for people to inherit wealth but blithely ignore the circumstances in which that wealth was accumulated?
Interesting to think about this: kind of gives a moral (and very useful) justification for inheritance tax and death duties. Money goes back into the Monopoly box after death and your decendants don't have to be embroiled when skeletons fall out of the closet further down the line society gets more enlightened (or social mores simply change).
The benefits of past wealth aren't just economic, they tend to impact health and wellbeing. Read 'The Body Keep The Score' for a really eye-opening explanation of how that works but also google 'Dutch Hunger Winter study' for the science behind health impacts of generational trauma.
But I've never thought about this in relation to IHT before - once again PB the place to come for some deep thinking and dot-joining :-)
What matters is how one uses one’s wealth. Not what someone else did with it centuries ago.
Not sure I *quite* see what you are getting at here, but I *think* you're saying: trust the wealthy to do the right thing with their money, and let's not get too hung up about where it came from".
Forgive me, but that doesn't seem to be a great system for delivering an improving society and progress over time, and that - surely - is what actually matters.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in most Western countries, compared to the rates of 1950-2000.
No, I think it's part of the same discussion. The selfishness is that they know the growth rate had gone down but are unwilling to share the pain of that reduction so have been taking a greater and greater proportion of economic gains for themselves. Spending on investment for future generations, economic resilience and everything outside of old age related areas has been sacrificed as they funnel national growth and productivity gains to themselves. When growth was 4% per year them taking 2% of it wasn't an issue, now that it's 2% per year them taking 2% for themselves is a huge proplblem.
The sanctity of contract undermines our entire economic system. If the government rips them up unilaterally we are behaving no better than Putin did over Yukos.
A brave politician would make the argument - say for retired civil servants - that they should take a 10% cut and the money go into the pot for future civil servants.
My wife and I were saying at breakfast that this RAAC scandal typifies the UK's approach to economic development and that it was the same in the 60s and 70s so nothing has changed. Everything is built or made to solve today's problems and fuck the future. Those buildings were made with substandard concrete because the governments of the day didn't want to spend the money on proper concrete and now it's going to cost us 10x as much as today to solve this and replace all of the RAAC in buildings.
We do this in all walks of life too, the UK has got no economic resilience because we never want to spend the 10% extra at the right moments or we cut costs to point where everything behind the curtain is a shit fest.
Today everything is being cut to the bone and our economic resilience is basically zero because the government has decided to prioritise old age spending to buy votes. Back then the same generation who is benefiting from today's largesse decided to cut investment knowing that long term consequences for future generations would be dire.
The baby boomer generation is quite possibly the single most selfish to ever have existed, I hope the next Labour government has got the cojones to tax the fuck out of them, tax the fuck out of inheritance and properly tax high fixed incomes and rent seeking at a significantly higher rate than income. I have very little faith.
Interesting question.
Is the problem with the boomer generation that they're uniquely selfish, or just that they're uniquely numerous which allows them to enact the selfishness that most people would do, given the chance?
Especially now that their parents, the ones who actually experienced wartime deprivation, have passed on and aren't there as a living reality check.
The practical effect is the same, natch, but the political problem and solution is slightly different.
As for government policy after the next election, it doesn't matter what the manifestoes say. Overall, we're going to be paying more for less.
Uniquely selfish in my experience. My uncles are basically all clueless but because they existed in an era when property was cheap they got to retire between 55 and 60 with defined benefit pensions that they closed off for future generations as "unaffordable" but ask them whether their pension is affordable and they both get genuinely offended and defensive that they signed in good faith blah, blah yet it's not affordable for anyone else to have them.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
I think that is simplistic.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in most Western countries, compared to the rates of 1950-2000.
No, I think it's part of the same discussion. The selfishness is that they know the growth rate had gone down but are unwilling to share the pain of that reduction so have been taking a greater and greater proportion of economic gains for themselves. Spending on investment for future generations, economic resilience and everything outside of old age related areas has been sacrificed as they funnel national growth and productivity gains to themselves. When growth was 4% per year them taking 2% of it wasn't an issue, now that it's 2% per year them taking 2% for themselves is a huge proplblem.
The sanctity of contract undermines our entire economic system. If the government rips them up unilaterally we are behaving no better than Putin did over Yukos.
A brave politician would make the argument - say for retired civil servants - that they should take a 10% cut and the money go into the pot for future civil servants.
Comments
Covid rate in Scotland double that of England
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-rate-in-scotland-double-that-of-england-qq8d2dh78
I had a deceased client who was a local authority surveyor. I discovered that in the 60’s and 70’s he was taking bribes to pass inferior concrete in tower blocks. People could have died, had a block collapsed.
If the Tories want to win in the future they will need to become the party of revolution against the old selfish ****s just as so many other right wing parties are finding in Europe. The next big political divide is already forming, the selfish old vs the working age young.
The benefits of past wealth aren't just economic, they tend to impact health and wellbeing. Read 'The Body Keep The Score' for a really eye-opening explanation of how that works but also google 'Dutch Hunger Winter study' for the science behind health impacts of generational trauma.
But I've never thought about this in relation to IHT before - once again PB the place to come for some deep thinking and dot-joining :-)
Borrow. Invest. Generate a return on the investment. It used to be called capitalism. And the exciting thing is that not only can fiscally sovereign states borrow at much cheaper rates than companies, there are other sovereign states desperate to find things to invest their riches is.
So we may have pissed North Sea revenues away paying for a decade of unemployment, but other sovereign states are well loaded. So set out our own sovereign fund. Borrow money and add their investor money, build things properly, the economy grows as we have a public infrastructure and society fit for the future, and we all get richer.
Or, we can say "what do we cut to pay for this" and get poorer as the fabric of our society crumbles further around us.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in most Western countries, compared to the rates of 1950-2000.
Any realistic solution requires a new political consensus - and it's hard to see how that might be easily achieved, given how hopeless the record of government has been in recent years.
But they don't. Because they're dumb.
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in What matters is how one uses one’s wealth. Not what someone else did with it centuries ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point
(for younger readers)
[also, obligatory Joe Dolce reference]
Ownership is not the issue. The objective is the issue. Do we want great public services or do we want the lowest cost to the public and screw the impacts on society and the economy? Because our uniquely stupid model combines the "fuck you" approach of America with the high taxes approach of Europe. We pay £lots to get £little.
Life tends to move in 80 year cycles cos that's when first-person experience (the most effective kind) evaporates and we get to discover what we failed to learn from history, and need to learn again.
The RAAC 'crisis' (not sure the kids see it like this, some excitement in the drudgery of most kids experience of school!) is the perfect metaphor for lots about this country, but it's also sobering to think that if we can't tackle something as 'simple' as school building infrastructure, then there is zero chance of pro-actively avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Ain't gonna happen. We will have to go through it, and get that very valuable, but oh-so traumatic first-hand experience the hard way. Grim, cynical (perhaps), an abdication of courage and tackling difficult stuff (certainly). As always, the successor generations will have to roll their sleeves up and sort out the mess, but if anyone else has other suggestions on how to make fundamental changes in human behaviour without going through disaster, I've love to hear them. Just a bit down about things tbh.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/31/population-collapse-almost-wiped-out-human-ancestors-say-scientists
As to warfare, yes, it was more murderous in 17th century Europe than 14th Europe, if for no other reason, because army sizes were much bigger. Pillaging by an army of 5,000 is more bearable than pillaging by an army of 35,000. Millions died during the Thirty Years War, the Deluge, the English, Scottish, and Irish wars.
The Church had Truces of God, distinguished between combatants and non-combatants, ruled religious property out of bounds for attack (which was obviously self-serving, but did provide places of refuge for civilians).
For a variety of reasons, growth roughly halved in If I were to combine time and place, it would either be Northern China, between 1210-35, or Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, between 1930-50.
"It'll see me out" is poignant when said by an aged relative, but it's no way to run a country.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/uk-government-very-close-eroding-encryption-worldwide
Signal and whatsapp have already said they will withdraw from the uk market rather than comply
What's going on here is barely even virtue signalling, since everyone already agrees slavery is bad, it's just...signalling. Signally what, I'm not quite sure, other than either moral superiority for apologising for some very distant relation, or in this case solving a PR issue.
But you see now why I put a drink in a picture?
Livens it up. Gives it character and intrigue. What’s the drink? Why? Is it local? Why is he drinking at 8am?
That’s free advice. From a pro. You’re welcome
Whereas the flagellation movement is all about demonstrating in as overwrought a fashion as possible that you are so much better than some 17th century person, one amongst dozens of ancestors possibly, who may or may not have had an impact on you today.
NEW THREAD
Forgive me, but that doesn't seem to be a great system for delivering an improving society and progress over time, and that - surely - is what actually matters.
A brave politician would make the argument - say for retired civil servants - that they should take a 10% cut and the money go into the pot for future civil servants.
But they need to do the legwork
So there’s that.