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Trump derangement syndrome is real – politicalbetting.com

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,495
    edited July 5
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Apart from the bollocks about other planets, I agree with Leon!
    So do I. Worrying isn't it when you read the bollocks he posted at the end of the last thread.
    My esteemed editor at the Gazette sent me some fascinating data the other day. Might become an article

    It’s from a scientist who studied the effects of overpopulation on rats. He made rats live at varying levels of overpopulation - from moderate to severe. Each scenario was termed a “universe”

    In “universe 25” - extreme overpopulation - the rats suddenly reacted very strangely. Female rats refused to have sex and became more aggressive and masculinised. Male rats became more feminised and sperm counts plummeted. Anxiety and self harm proliferated and the rats got more and more atomised - interacting less, isolating more

    Eventually all the rats in Universe 25 died out. The rodent baby bust could not be fixed

    Are we in the human equivalent of Universe 25?
    I am aware of the Calhoun studies and they have many flaws. Having said that I think we are quite capable of wiping ourselves out by other means anyway.
    Ah. Are these studies well known? They are totally new to me - and fascinating

    Are they questioned by scientists? Serious query - I might write about them
    They are well known and controversial.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,611
    Chris said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    And God so loved the Earth that He overpopulated it.
    The religious have more children, on current figures the groups having most children globally are Muslims followed by evangelical Christians.

    Both groups are LGBT sceptic and believe in traditional gender roles and that women should focus on raising families above all.

    [snip]
    Are anti-semites going to be "Hebrew-sceptic" next, I wonder?

    But seriously, the sheer idiocy of the things you say is getting so extreme it's almost inspiring.

    No it isn't, if you want to boost fertility rates the quickest way to do that is make it illegal for women in their 20s and 30s to have careers when they are at peak fertility level. Plus push traditional family roles over LGBT.

    Muslims and evangelicals would be closest to that and by 2100 not impossible you could get more Muslim and evangelical led nations pushing that
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    HYUFD has a peculiar blindness when it comes to anticipating and predicting change.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 15,672
    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,562
    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,495

    There's a second assumption in the threader; that the man actually *likes* his wife, and wants to remain with her.

    I would be unsurprised if some people were alerting ICE to their spouse's immigration status, because it might be easier (monetarily and/or socially) than either divorce or murder...

    We did this last night….

    As the great Austrian philosopher said -“Consider this a divorce.”
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,611
    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,570

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's certainly put the shits up the right in the USA and wider world. Their latest wizard wheeze to take him out is that he put down African American as one of his identities on a college application. Perhaps it's just me but it seems a fairly accurate description for someone born in Uganda but brought up and living in the US.
    American politics is bonkers.

    How dare you call yourself African-American! Where are you from?
    Uganda
    Exactly! What does Uganda have to do with being African?
    etc
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,037
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,562

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Apart from the bollocks about other planets, I agree with Leon!
    So do I. Worrying isn't it when you read the bollocks he posted at the end of the last thread.
    My esteemed editor at the Gazette sent me some fascinating data the other day. Might become an article

    It’s from a scientist who studied the effects of overpopulation on rats. He made rats live at varying levels of overpopulation - from moderate to severe. Each scenario was termed a “universe”

    In “universe 25” - extreme overpopulation - the rats suddenly reacted very strangely. Female rats refused to have sex and became more aggressive and masculinised. Male rats became more feminised and sperm counts plummeted. Anxiety and self harm proliferated and the rats got more and more atomised - interacting less, isolating more

    Eventually all the rats in Universe 25 died out. The rodent baby bust could not be fixed

    Are we in the human equivalent of Universe 25?
    I am aware of the Calhoun studies and they have many flaws. Having said that I think we are quite capable of wiping ourselves out by other means anyway.
    Ah. Are these studies well known? They are totally new to me - and fascinating

    Are they questioned by scientists? Serious query - I might write about them
    They are well known and controversial.
    Indeed, I’ve done a deep dive

    However, it seems to me they look increasingly prescient - indeed uncannily so. Despite their contentious nature
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    Iran, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are all below replacement level, as is the UAE. Kuwait is at replacement level.

    Syria, I grant you, is above replacement. As are Gaza and Israel.
    Egypt is above replacement level as is Iraq as is Jordan as is Saudi Arabia (2.29 is above 2.1 last time I checked) as is Yemen too
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
    Feck all else to do in those places other than risk being locked up so not surprising, every one a shithole.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,562
    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Out of my three closest friends and me, none of us have children. One has a step son. We haven’t become friends by default as not being part of the whole parenting world, we’ve been friends since a mix prep school and early twenties.

    Out of my wider circle of friends (rather than acquaintances) of six chaps there are another two who have no children.

    None of us didn’t have children for financial reasons as everyone has great careers and/or family wealth.

    Two of us just never settle in relationships and other reasons are that their partners don’t want children or met current partners when partners are past wanting more children.

    I think we are a relatively unusual group in the lack of children for men in their forties but not sure.
    Personal question (you are not obliged to answer!) - do you ever regret this? You don’t strike me as full of wistful remorse so probably not

    Many of my childless friends (and like you I have a lot) seem to cycle. At certain points they are struck with sadness - something missing. At other points they relish the freedom and the lack of financial pressure
    I wouldn’t say I regret it, more I wonder what life would have been like as I see how people get a load of joy and love from their children but the one time I was in a relationship where it might have worked for me my partner didn’t want children.

    I regret allowing my parents stopping me from joining the army - they threatened to defund me if I took up my place at Sandhurst before university and so I put the idea off until after uni then after four years in London I was too booze and drug addled! That to me is my regret that haunts me but not the children issue.

    I’m fine with it, I have nephews and nieces who fulfil certain elements of younger family for me and I don’t have to worry about my child’s safety, health, happiness.
    I'd say you are unusual - but not THAT unusual in a way you would have been 50 years ago.
    I'm 50, so at a stage where in any group of contemporaries breeding is almost certainly finished. And in almost any group of contemporaries I select, we are well beow replacement levels. The number of people for whom - for reasons similar to those you describe - it just didn't happen is sadly large.
    There are all sorts of reasons for not breeding: medical, financial, just-not-wanting-that-life - but the not-meeting-the-right-woman-at-the-right-time is the most tragic. Because in theory, with all the women in the world available at the touch of a button, that reason should have gone. In practice, the availability of *everyone* seems to have made finding the right partner much, much harder than when it was simply a matter of selecting one from the 40 or so realistically available.

    Millions of women may be willing to meet you, but many of them are doing so while looking over your shoulder to see if anyone better might be available.
    We would have had kids if we’d met earlier.

    There would have been positives but also negatives. For one I’d still be working.

    I like our lifestyle. We’re not massively wealthy but we have enough and enjoy ourselves.
    I think that's the thing - if we hadn't had the twins we would be retired (or as close to as makes no difference). Instead I'm probably working another 10-12 years but hey I mostly enjoying doing so.
    I was 30 when our youngest (of 3) was born, so by the time I was 50 he and the older two were off doing their own thing. He, on the other hand, didn't get married and start a family until he was in his late 30's and then he and his wife had a third child when he was in his late 40's. He's going to be supporting her, probably, into his late 60's.
    OKC do you ever stop supporting them
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Taz said:
    Deputy heads must roll? Ask Sue Gray what happens when the choice of scapegoat comes down to politician or civil servant. Or Nick and Fiona for Theresa May's and Lynton Crosby's disastrous 2017 election.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,037

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,495

    Sean_F said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    To continue the theme and bring it back to the thread


    Strikes me there are TWO existential processes at work in the world, right now. As in: unprecedented challenges for humankind

    One I cannot mention, so I won’t

    The other is the collapse in fertility. This is having enormous second order effects all around the world, often going unnoticed

    eg it can be argued that Trump is a consequence of the baby bust. American demographics are bad. Not as bad as east Asia, but bad. Below replacement and ageing fast

    The answer then is immigration - but that means white people very quickly becoming a minority in the USA, and of all the white populations in the world it is Americans who are most likely to fight back against this (violently, if needs be). So we have Trump - a more-or-less openly white supremacist
    president

    Different versions of this dynamic are playing out around the planet

    I would say we would be getting 'bad' immigration whether we were in a baby bust or not. Some immigration is a result of us needing more workers - but if that was all it was, we could choose our immigrants and integrate them. This is what is happening in my home suburb - it is a lot less white than it was 20 years ago, but the new faces are HK and Indian and integrate well (especially at the cricket club) and are largely middle-ish class. For the other face of immigration however look at Piccadilly Gardens, or at Cheetham Hill. These aren't immigrants we asked for, they are immigrants who came because their home countries are medeival shitholes and because getting to the UK is now just about possible in a way it wasn't 40 years ago. They'd be coming regardless of our demographics.
    I don’t understand why, if Islam is so popular, even in “medieval shitholes” why so many Muslims choose to move to Christian countries? After all there are Islamic countries that aren’t shitholes.
    There are fewer consequences for bad behaviour in our societies than in the Islamic world, because we are “civilised” (or decadent and weak, depending on one’s POV).
    Morning, PB.

    There's also. primarily, more job opportunities.
    From immigrants in my family, married into an immigrant family, worked in workplaces with lots of immigrants.. it’s -

    1) jobs
    2) random shit doesn’t happen - much. In many countries being stopped by the police needs a bribe and the chance of it really going sideways are high. If your are the wrong faith, every now and again the mob comes round to burn you out.

    You may think the U.K. is corrupt and crime ridden. But until you’ve seen the non-tourist life in many countries…
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,037
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472
    edited July 5
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    Assuming you still have an intact house or car, the occupied territories do not look very appealing to say the least and feck all chance Russia will rebuild for peasants, the crooks will be making the cash.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,142
    HYUFD said:

    Trump is largely doing what he said he would so his supporters are mostly unsurprisingly still supportive.

    However his overall approval rating of 40% is not enough for the GOP to hold Congress next year or the Presidency in 2028
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/04/trump-rating-tracker-majority-dont-want-us-involved-in-israel-iran-conflict/

    True.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,740
    TimS said:

    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46

    Based on current trends the next GE will clearly be

    RFM - 95% votes, 20% seats

    LDM - 5% votes, 79.8% seats

    Others - Corbyn holds on in the peoples republic of Arise Jezzbollah in Islington (N)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,562
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
    Labour now expect to lose the next election. This is a one term parliament. So they are blaming and infighting even as individual groups try to push through favoured causes (because they won’t get a
    second chance). Meanwhile backbenchers rebel because why not? - they will probably lose their seats and they will never be promoted before 2028
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Trump is largely doing what he said he would so his supporters are mostly unsurprisingly still supportive.

    However his overall approval rating of 40% is not enough for the GOP to hold Congress next year or the Presidency in 2028
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/04/trump-rating-tracker-majority-dont-want-us-involved-in-israel-iran-conflict/

    True.
    Amazing thing is the 40% of absolute dumbasses that approve of the clown. Seems USA and UK have something in common, more than a fair share of dumb asses
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,740
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Trump is largely doing what he said he would so his supporters are mostly unsurprisingly still supportive.

    However his overall approval rating of 40% is not enough for the GOP to hold Congress next year or the Presidency in 2028
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/04/trump-rating-tracker-majority-dont-want-us-involved-in-israel-iran-conflict/

    True.
    Amazing thing is the 40% of absolute dumbasses that approve of the clown. Seems USA and UK have something in common, more than a fair share of dumb asses
    What I find quite remarkable is that his idiocy seems to have so little effect. It's like finding a madenned bull has been in your china shop all weekend, and yet there's no damage.

    (Obviously there are bad effects from Trump, but not on the scale you'd think)
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,037
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Trump is largely doing what he said he would so his supporters are mostly unsurprisingly still supportive.

    However his overall approval rating of 40% is not enough for the GOP to hold Congress next year or the Presidency in 2028
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/04/trump-rating-tracker-majority-dont-want-us-involved-in-israel-iran-conflict/

    True.
    Amazing thing is the 40% of absolute dumbasses that approve of the clown. Seems USA and UK have something in common, more than a fair share of dumb asses
    While that is true, the "mainstream" politicians have hardly covered themselves in glory, either. Most of the scandals that @Cyclefree has detailed can be laid at the feet of the mainstream.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,641

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's certainly put the shits up the right in the USA and wider world. Their latest wizard wheeze to take him out is that he put down African American as one of his identities on a college application. Perhaps it's just me but it seems a fairly accurate description for someone born in Uganda but brought up and living in the US.
    American politics is bonkers.

    How dare you call yourself African-American! Where are you from?
    Uganda
    Exactly! What does Uganda have to do with being African?
    etc
    Maybe a distinction could be drawn between the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery and the descendants of Africans who sold them?
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 5,019

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Apart from the bollocks about other planets, I agree with Leon!
    So do I. Worrying isn't it when you read the bollocks he posted at the end of the last thread.
    My esteemed editor at the Gazette sent me some fascinating data the other day. Might become an article

    It’s from a scientist who studied the effects of overpopulation on rats. He made rats live at varying levels of overpopulation - from moderate to severe. Each scenario was termed a “universe”

    In “universe 25” - extreme overpopulation - the rats suddenly reacted very strangely. Female rats refused to have sex and became more aggressive and masculinised. Male rats became more feminised and sperm counts plummeted. Anxiety and self harm proliferated and the rats got more and more atomised - interacting less, isolating more

    Eventually all the rats in Universe 25 died out. The rodent baby bust could not be fixed

    Are we in the human equivalent of Universe 25?
    I am aware of the Calhoun studies and they have many flaws. Having said that I think we are quite capable of wiping ourselves out by other means anyway.
    Ah. Are these studies well known? They are totally new to me - and fascinating

    Are they questioned by scientists? Serious query - I might write about them
    They are well known and controversial.
    And even ended up as a novel and then on the big screen :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xHs01SUA4

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
    As Francis Pym tried to warn Mrs Thatcher, landslide election victories are double-edged swords. Labour's backbenches are filled by paper candidates, some of whom resent being there, and up to 200 who think they can do a better job than half the Cabinet but are slowly realising the PM (any PM) only promotes his chums so it is four more years as lobby fodder before losing in 2029, so at least vote for Labour priorities not Tory-lite austerity.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 35,163
    edited July 5
    malcolmg said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Out of my three closest friends and me, none of us have children. One has a step son. We haven’t become friends by default as not being part of the whole parenting world, we’ve been friends since a mix prep school and early twenties.

    Out of my wider circle of friends (rather than acquaintances) of six chaps there are another two who have no children.

    None of us didn’t have children for financial reasons as everyone has great careers and/or family wealth.

    Two of us just never settle in relationships and other reasons are that their partners don’t want children or met current partners when partners are past wanting more children.

    I think we are a relatively unusual group in the lack of children for men in their forties but not sure.
    Personal question (you are not obliged to answer!) - do you ever regret this? You don’t strike me as full of wistful remorse so probably not

    Many of my childless friends (and like you I have a lot) seem to cycle. At certain points they are struck with sadness - something missing. At other points they relish the freedom and the lack of financial pressure
    I wouldn’t say I regret it, more I wonder what life would have been like as I see how people get a load of joy and love from their children but the one time I was in a relationship where it might have worked for me my partner didn’t want children.

    I regret allowing my parents stopping me from joining the army - they threatened to defund me if I took up my place at Sandhurst before university and so I put the idea off until after uni then after four years in London I was too booze and drug addled! That to me is my regret that haunts me but not the children issue.

    I’m fine with it, I have nephews and nieces who fulfil certain elements of younger family for me and I don’t have to worry about my child’s safety, health, happiness.
    I'd say you are unusual - but not THAT unusual in a way you would have been 50 years ago.
    I'm 50, so at a stage where in any group of contemporaries breeding is almost certainly finished. And in almost any group of contemporaries I select, we are well beow replacement levels. The number of people for whom - for reasons similar to those you describe - it just didn't happen is sadly large.
    There are all sorts of reasons for not breeding: medical, financial, just-not-wanting-that-life - but the not-meeting-the-right-woman-at-the-right-time is the most tragic. Because in theory, with all the women in the world available at the touch of a button, that reason should have gone. In practice, the availability of *everyone* seems to have made finding the right partner much, much harder than when it was simply a matter of selecting one from the 40 or so realistically available.

    Millions of women may be willing to meet you, but many of them are doing so while looking over your shoulder to see if anyone better might be available.
    We would have had kids if we’d met earlier.

    There would have been positives but also negatives. For one I’d still be working.

    I like our lifestyle. We’re not massively wealthy but we have enough and enjoy ourselves.
    I think that's the thing - if we hadn't had the twins we would be retired (or as close to as makes no difference). Instead I'm probably working another 10-12 years but hey I mostly enjoying doing so.
    I was 30 when our youngest (of 3) was born, so by the time I was 50 he and the older two were off doing their own thing. He, on the other hand, didn't get married and start a family until he was in his late 30's and then he and his wife had a third child when he was in his late 40's. He's going to be supporting her, probably, into his late 60's.
    OKC do you ever stop supporting them
    Now in late 80's and partially crippled we're 'looked after' by children and grandchildren reasonably often. I can't do much about the house, so son/son-in-law/grandson are called in for 'masculine-type' jobs. And eldest granddaughter keeps an eye on her Granny.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,495

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's certainly put the shits up the right in the USA and wider world. Their latest wizard wheeze to take him out is that he put down African American as one of his identities on a college application. Perhaps it's just me but it seems a fairly accurate description for someone born in Uganda but brought up and living in the US.
    American politics is bonkers.

    How dare you call yourself African-American! Where are you from?
    Uganda
    Exactly! What does Uganda have to do with being African?
    etc
    Maybe a distinction could be drawn between the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery and the descendants of Africans who sold them?
    Put a statute of Efunroye Tinubu on Bristol Dock.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,023
    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    On current polls Nigel Farage will be next UK PM and undergo a purge of the political class and a war on immigrants and the migrant boats.

    Immigration fell on the latest figures thanks to the tighter immigration restrictions Sunak brought in
    4 years to go, and some important negative polling on Farage here, so let's see. In a forced choice and despite Starmer's uselessness:



    https://bsky.app/profile/jwsidders.bsky.social/post/3lt676ebrts2i
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,053
    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    There's often a gaping disconnect between the interests of a country's leader and its population. That democracy makes this less likely is one of its strengths. But then again, Trump and Netanyahu.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,023

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's certainly put the shits up the right in the USA and wider world. Their latest wizard wheeze to take him out is that he put down African American as one of his identities on a college application. Perhaps it's just me but it seems a fairly accurate description for someone born in Uganda but brought up and living in the US.
    American politics is bonkers.

    How dare you call yourself African-American! Where are you from?
    Uganda
    Exactly! What does Uganda have to do with being African?
    etc
    Maybe a distinction could be drawn between the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery and the descendants of Africans who sold them?
    Mamdani is of Gujerati Muslim descent so almost certainly neither.

    Incidentally he also ticked "Asian" on the same form apparently.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Bands start boycotting Radar festival after Bob Vylan removed from line-up
    https://www.nme.com/news/music/bands-start-boycotting-radar-festival-after-bob-vylan-removed-from-line-up-3876018

    The backlash against the backlash.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,562
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    On current polls Nigel Farage will be next UK PM and undergo a purge of the political class and a war on immigrants and the migrant boats.

    Immigration fell on the latest figures thanks to the tighter immigration restrictions Sunak brought in
    4 years to go, and some important negative polling on Farage here, so let's see. In a forced choice and despite Starmer's uselessness:



    https://bsky.app/profile/jwsidders.bsky.social/post/3lt676ebrts2i
    But plenty of people are voting Reform DESPITE Farage, as I've pointed out on here a few times

    I know this because I've met them
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 79,005
    .
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Out of my three closest friends and me, none of us have children. One has a step son. We haven’t become friends by default as not being part of the whole parenting world, we’ve been friends since a mix prep school and early twenties.

    Out of my wider circle of friends (rather than acquaintances) of six chaps there are another two who have no children.

    None of us didn’t have children for financial reasons as everyone has great careers and/or family wealth.

    Two of us just never settle in relationships and other reasons are that their partners don’t want children or met current partners when partners are past wanting more children.

    I think we are a relatively unusual group in the lack of children for men in their forties but not sure.
    Personal question (you are not obliged to answer!) - do you ever regret this? You don’t strike me as full of wistful remorse so probably not

    Many of my childless friends (and like you I have a lot) seem to cycle. At certain points they are struck with sadness - something missing. At other points they relish the freedom and the lack of financial pressure
    I wouldn’t say I regret it, more I wonder what life would have been like as I see how people get a load of joy and love from their children but the one time I was in a relationship where it might have worked for me my partner didn’t want children.

    I regret allowing my parents stopping me from joining the army - they threatened to defund me if I took up my place at Sandhurst before university and so I put the idea off until after uni then after four years in London I was too booze and drug addled! That to me is my regret that haunts me but not the children issue.

    I’m fine with it, I have nephews and nieces who fulfil certain elements of younger family for me and I don’t have to worry about my child’s safety, health, happiness.
    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's entirely unrepresentative of the wider party; way out on its left. He got the nominations because he's a great campaigner and was running against an asshole sex pest.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,833
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Apart from the bollocks about other planets, I agree with Leon!
    So do I. Worrying isn't it when you read the bollocks he posted at the end of the last thread.
    My esteemed editor at the Gazette sent me some fascinating data the other day. Might become an article

    It’s from a scientist who studied the effects of overpopulation on rats. He made rats live at varying levels of overpopulation - from moderate to severe. Each scenario was termed a “universe”

    In “universe 25” - extreme overpopulation - the rats suddenly reacted very strangely. Female rats refused to have sex and became more aggressive and masculinised. Male rats became more feminised and sperm counts plummeted. Anxiety and self harm proliferated and the rats got more and more atomised - interacting less, isolating more

    Eventually all the rats in Universe 25 died out. The rodent baby bust could not be fixed

    Are we in the human equivalent of Universe 25?
    I am aware of the Calhoun studies and they have many flaws. Having said that I think we are quite capable of wiping ourselves out by other means anyway.
    Ah. Are these studies well known? They are totally new to me - and fascinating

    Are they questioned by scientists? Serious query - I might write about them
    I don't know how well known they are and I only have a brief passing knowledge of them, so dodgy for me to comment too much. He isn't considered a quack if that is what you are asking. It is proper science I believe, but the conclusions drawn are open to debate.

    And yes it is fascinating stuff.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,147
    Do we have any mapping nerds here?

    As far as I can see Ordnance Survey maps (especially Landranger 1:50,000) have vanished from Bing.com, which is a key source for me.

    Does anyone know what is happening?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,053
    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    Surprised to see that sort of language in the Times.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    and (c) the Soviet Union was far more agrarian, with a large proportion of its population involved in agriculture, and much larger than in most of Europe at the time. Many of these workers could be sent to fight, allowing near-starvation , changed crops and western food supplies to fill the gap. I've seen it posited that whilst Russia may have won the war without allied arms shipments (at a much greater cost...), they would have lost without the food shipments. Though as with arms, there is great debate about that.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472
    Omnium said:

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Trump is largely doing what he said he would so his supporters are mostly unsurprisingly still supportive.

    However his overall approval rating of 40% is not enough for the GOP to hold Congress next year or the Presidency in 2028
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/04/trump-rating-tracker-majority-dont-want-us-involved-in-israel-iran-conflict/

    True.
    Amazing thing is the 40% of absolute dumbasses that approve of the clown. Seems USA and UK have something in common, more than a fair share of dumb asses
    What I find quite remarkable is that his idiocy seems to have so little effect. It's like finding a madenned bull has been in your china shop all weekend, and yet there's no damage.

    (Obviously there are bad effects from Trump, but not on the scale you'd think)
    It will catch up with us though, must increase inflation in USA and stunt growth so we will feel it by next year for sure and given by then Labour will already have beggared us it will not be pretty.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,147
    edited July 5
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472

    Bands start boycotting Radar festival after Bob Vylan removed from line-up
    https://www.nme.com/news/music/bands-start-boycotting-radar-festival-after-bob-vylan-removed-from-line-up-3876018

    The backlash against the backlash.

    Twats for sure
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,472

    malcolmg said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Out of my three closest friends and me, none of us have children. One has a step son. We haven’t become friends by default as not being part of the whole parenting world, we’ve been friends since a mix prep school and early twenties.

    Out of my wider circle of friends (rather than acquaintances) of six chaps there are another two who have no children.

    None of us didn’t have children for financial reasons as everyone has great careers and/or family wealth.

    Two of us just never settle in relationships and other reasons are that their partners don’t want children or met current partners when partners are past wanting more children.

    I think we are a relatively unusual group in the lack of children for men in their forties but not sure.
    Personal question (you are not obliged to answer!) - do you ever regret this? You don’t strike me as full of wistful remorse so probably not

    Many of my childless friends (and like you I have a lot) seem to cycle. At certain points they are struck with sadness - something missing. At other points they relish the freedom and the lack of financial pressure
    I wouldn’t say I regret it, more I wonder what life would have been like as I see how people get a load of joy and love from their children but the one time I was in a relationship where it might have worked for me my partner didn’t want children.

    I regret allowing my parents stopping me from joining the army - they threatened to defund me if I took up my place at Sandhurst before university and so I put the idea off until after uni then after four years in London I was too booze and drug addled! That to me is my regret that haunts me but not the children issue.

    I’m fine with it, I have nephews and nieces who fulfil certain elements of younger family for me and I don’t have to worry about my child’s safety, health, happiness.
    I'd say you are unusual - but not THAT unusual in a way you would have been 50 years ago.
    I'm 50, so at a stage where in any group of contemporaries breeding is almost certainly finished. And in almost any group of contemporaries I select, we are well beow replacement levels. The number of people for whom - for reasons similar to those you describe - it just didn't happen is sadly large.
    There are all sorts of reasons for not breeding: medical, financial, just-not-wanting-that-life - but the not-meeting-the-right-woman-at-the-right-time is the most tragic. Because in theory, with all the women in the world available at the touch of a button, that reason should have gone. In practice, the availability of *everyone* seems to have made finding the right partner much, much harder than when it was simply a matter of selecting one from the 40 or so realistically available.

    Millions of women may be willing to meet you, but many of them are doing so while looking over your shoulder to see if anyone better might be available.
    We would have had kids if we’d met earlier.

    There would have been positives but also negatives. For one I’d still be working.

    I like our lifestyle. We’re not massively wealthy but we have enough and enjoy ourselves.
    I think that's the thing - if we hadn't had the twins we would be retired (or as close to as makes no difference). Instead I'm probably working another 10-12 years but hey I mostly enjoying doing so.
    I was 30 when our youngest (of 3) was born, so by the time I was 50 he and the older two were off doing their own thing. He, on the other hand, didn't get married and start a family until he was in his late 30's and then he and his wife had a third child when he was in his late 40's. He's going to be supporting her, probably, into his late 60's.
    OKC do you ever stop supporting them
    Now in late 80's and partially crippled we're 'looked after' by children and grandchildren reasonably often. I can't do much about the house, so son/son-in-law/grandson are called in for 'masculine-type' jobs. And eldest granddaughter keeps an eye on her Granny.
    getting your reward then as it should be
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,053
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
    Labour now expect to lose the next election. This is a one term parliament. So they are blaming and infighting even as individual groups try to push through favoured causes (because they won’t get a
    second chance). Meanwhile backbenchers rebel because why not? - they will probably lose their seats and they will never be promoted before 2028
    Expect to lose a lot of seats? Yes. Expect to lose the election? No.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133
    MattW said:

    Do we have any mapping nerds here?

    As far as I can see Ordnance Survey maps (especially Landranger 1:50,000) have vanished from Bing.com, which is a key source for me.

    Does anyone know what is happening?

    No, and I hadn't noticed. But ISTR that the way Bing Maps works was due to change at the end of June, so perhaps it disappeared as part of those changes?
  • lockhimuplockhimup Posts: 63
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
    Big difference between 5 billion with an average age of 35
    and 5 billion with an average age of 45
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133
    Incidentally, six ships of the Russian shadow oil fleet have suffered fires or explosions so far this year. After the first couple, I assumed that it was just old, clapped-out tankers facing issues. But six makes it seem like someone's taken a disliking to the fleet...

    Though as there might be over 1,000 ships in the shadow fleet, it still could just be the fact they are clapped-out ships.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629
    malcolmg said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    Bit like Gaza, Putin dare not stop now unless handed something he can call a win. These despots will always do what is best for themselves regardless of the human cost.
    It's the old President for Life issue. Russia does not have enough to declare victory. And so Putin pushes on. But every day means more Russian casualties, and means that the scale of the victory needs to be even bigger to justify the losses.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Why do so many conmen gat away with it?

    Most of their victims never want to admit (to themselves, let alone anyone else) that they did something stupid/greedy/dishonest.

    The thing that's a bit different here is that the conman isn't doing a runner, because he doesn't need to.

    Could it simply be that Trump voters continue to fear the alternative more? The Dems aren't exactly going out of their way to court the middle ground of American opinion.
    I genuinely don't understand your interpretation of reality. Have you been watching Fox and Friends?.

    Mainstream Dems are generally rather conservative. They are not Jeremy Corbyn clones. Even AOC and Bernie, by our standards would be relatively New Labour.
    Economically, perhaps. Culturally they would be Sultanas. Have you seen the front runner for the mayor of New York?
    He's certainly put the shits up the right in the USA and wider world. Their latest wizard wheeze to take him out is that he put down African American as one of his identities on a college application. Perhaps it's just me but it seems a fairly accurate description for someone born in Uganda but brought up and living in the US.
    American politics is bonkers.

    How dare you call yourself African-American! Where are you from?
    Uganda
    Exactly! What does Uganda have to do with being African?
    etc
    Maybe a distinction could be drawn between the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery and the descendants of Africans who sold them?
    Put a statute of Efunroye Tinubu on Bristol Dock.
    Will the statue-topplers be charged with terrorism? Group, tick; damage, tick; seeking political change, tick.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
    I didn't say it was a bad thing: I'm just taking issue with @HYUFD's assumption that things will continue exactly as they are.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133
    rcs1000 said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    Bit like Gaza, Putin dare not stop now unless handed something he can call a win. These despots will always do what is best for themselves regardless of the human cost.
    It's the old President for Life issue. Russia does not have enough to declare victory. And so Putin pushes on. But every day means more Russian casualties, and means that the scale of the victory needs to be even bigger to justify the losses.
    But not just Russian casualties: troops from NK are prominent, and 'volunteers' from other countries. As more of these are lost, Putin will become more indebted to, and reliant on, those countries. That's going to be important geopolitically if Putin remains in power.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,011
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    On current polls Nigel Farage will be next UK PM and undergo a purge of the political class and a war on immigrants and the migrant boats.

    Immigration fell on the latest figures thanks to the tighter immigration restrictions Sunak brought in
    4 years to go, and some important negative polling on Farage here, so let's see. In a forced choice and despite Starmer's uselessness:



    https://bsky.app/profile/jwsidders.bsky.social/post/3lt676ebrts2i
    Good morning

    How can anyone think Farage would be a better PM than Starmer, but there lies the deep problem as Starmer joins a long list of poor PMs

    I expect Reform to glide down in the polls but who benefits I have no idea
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,641

    MattW said:

    Do we have any mapping nerds here?

    As far as I can see Ordnance Survey maps (especially Landranger 1:50,000) have vanished from Bing.com, which is a key source for me.

    Does anyone know what is happening?

    No, and I hadn't noticed. But ISTR that the way Bing Maps works was due to change at the end of June, so perhaps it disappeared as part of those changes?
    Mapping Nerd here.

    The OS Maps subscription is brilliant value at £25 a year. Not only access to the full 1:25k and 1:50k database (including Northern Ireland) but handy features in the phone app like route recording. Best of all it actually tells you where you are - rather useful when descending Tryfan in a thick mist, wondering where the top of the staircase might be that seemed so prominent on the way up.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,194

    MattW said:

    Do we have any mapping nerds here?

    As far as I can see Ordnance Survey maps (especially Landranger 1:50,000) have vanished from Bing.com, which is a key source for me.

    Does anyone know what is happening?

    No, and I hadn't noticed. But ISTR that the way Bing Maps works was due to change at the end of June, so perhaps it disappeared as part of those changes?
    Mapping Nerd here.

    The OS Maps subscription is brilliant value at £25 a year. Not only access to the full 1:25k and 1:50k database (including Northern Ireland) but handy features in the phone app like route recording. Best of all it actually tells you where you are - rather useful when descending Tryfan in a thick mist, wondering where the top of the staircase might be that seemed so prominent on the way up.
    PSA - the OS Locate app is free and very handy in an emergency. None of that ///i.am.lost nonsense.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
    Exactly so. And yet, we see it now. The decay of this government is considerably ahead of schedule.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    We don't know how many of them are Russian. The Russians have been quite successful at getting other people to fight and die for them, from the Central Asian Republics and further afield.

    This is the sort of thing that our diplomacy should have been working hard to shut down, but we haven't done well at it.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133

    MattW said:

    Do we have any mapping nerds here?

    As far as I can see Ordnance Survey maps (especially Landranger 1:50,000) have vanished from Bing.com, which is a key source for me.

    Does anyone know what is happening?

    No, and I hadn't noticed. But ISTR that the way Bing Maps works was due to change at the end of June, so perhaps it disappeared as part of those changes?
    Mapping Nerd here.

    The OS Maps subscription is brilliant value at £25 a year. Not only access to the full 1:25k and 1:50k database (including Northern Ireland) but handy features in the phone app like route recording. Best of all it actually tells you where you are - rather useful when descending Tryfan in a thick mist, wondering where the top of the staircase might be that seemed so prominent on the way up.
    I got MemoryMap in 2020, so I've access to maps from then. 1:25,000 only. I'll probably update the maps when I get back into long-distance walking; for the moment the 2020 maps do me well enough. Before that I used Anquet with 1:50,000 maps. I much prefer MM to either Anquet or OS.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 25,120
    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
    I am generally pro-people, so I don't share the desire for a shrinking population, and fewer people enjoying the world, creating things, etc.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,228

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    ...

    "Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    One of the reasons that governments tend to fall apart and collapse over time is that its members see fighting the internal party battle as more important than the wider political contest with the opposition.

    You can see that in spades here with the emphasis on laying the blame for tax rises on Labour rebels, rather than working out how to sell them to the public.
    The weird thing is, you'd expect to see this after several years in office, not several months.
    Exactly so. And yet, we see it now. The decay of this government is considerably ahead of schedule.
    My theory is the hope was that the 'social progressivism' could be championed whilst 'tough decisions' were made fiscally.

    A certain SC ruling combined with Trump election put the kibosh on that...
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
    I am generally pro-people, so I don't share the desire for a shrinking population, and fewer people enjoying the world, creating things, etc.
    You mustn't get out much then.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
    For clarity's sake: my annual cohorts are men and women. So there's only about 600,000 Russian men per annual cohort.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,611
    edited July 5
    TimS said:

    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46

    That Survation poll would give a hung parliament with both Reform and the DUP/TUV and Labour and the LDs, Greens and SNP short of a majority.

    Kemi would be kingmaker as to whether Starmer or Farage would become PM.

    Survation of course the most accurate pollster in terms of forecasting general elections over the last decade
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    ‘The vehicle suddenly accelerated with our baby in it’: the terrifying truth about why Tesla’s cars keep crashing
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/05/the-vehicle-suddenly-accelerated-with-our-baby-in-it-the-terrifying-truth-about-why-teslas-cars-keep-crashing

    The Tesla Files, as advertised on the Guardian's front page.

    TL;DR Teslas self-drive like Richard Hammond reviewing a supercar.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
    I'm explaining apparently irrational Kremlin decisions.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,918
    HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46

    That Survation poll would give a hung parliament with both Reform and the DUP/TUV and Labour and the LDs, Greens and SNP short of a majority.

    Kemi would be kingmaker as to whether Starmer or Farage would become PM

    Kemi or her successor. Do you think she will be leader in 4 years time?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537

    HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46

    That Survation poll would give a hung parliament with both Reform and the DUP/TUV and Labour and the LDs, Greens and SNP short of a majority.

    Kemi would be kingmaker as to whether Starmer or Farage would become PM

    Kemi or her successor. Do you think she will be leader in 4 years time?
    Imo by 2029, Starmer will have retired, Kemi will have been ousted, and I'm not sure about Farage.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 6,541
    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 55,345
    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
    Pensions will be plundered in a way Gordon Brown could only dream about...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,495

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
    I'm explaining apparently irrational Kremlin decisions.
    Putin was promised a 3 day war - easy conquest followed by rich pickings.

    Ironically, a lot of this was based on the apparent recruitment of large chunks of the Ukrainian elite. The trouble was that they reported the attempts to recruit them to Ukrainian intelligence (for the most part).

    So the Russians thought it would a cake walk, completely with tons of help from inside. And the Ukrainians knew the whole plan of attack.

    Putin can’t stop. If he stops, he dies. There no genius level plan, now. Just making it past the windows, each day.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,554
    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
    As I've said multiple times - last autumn it should have been 3% on income tax keeping the WFA and replacing the 4p in NI cuts. Alongside Council tax reform based on current prices now that the data is public knowledge.

    Then this year would have allowed the employer NI changes but they would be coming from a position of relative strength.

    99% of Labours problems come from them not reversing the Tory's cynical NI cuts..

  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,012

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    To continue the theme and bring it back to the thread


    Strikes me there are TWO existential processes at work in the world, right now. As in: unprecedented challenges for humankind

    One I cannot mention, so I won’t

    The other is the collapse in fertility. This is having enormous second order effects all around the world, often going unnoticed

    eg it can be argued that Trump is a consequence of the baby bust. American demographics are bad. Not as bad as east Asia, but bad. Below replacement and ageing fast

    The answer then is immigration - but that means white people very quickly becoming a minority in the USA, and of all the white populations in the world it is Americans who are most likely to fight back against this (violently, if needs be). So we have Trump - a more-or-less openly white supremacist
    president

    Different versions of this dynamic are playing out around the planet

    I would say we would be getting 'bad' immigration whether we were in a baby bust or not. Some immigration is a result of us needing more workers - but if that was all it was, we could choose our immigrants and integrate them. This is what is happening in my home suburb - it is a lot less white than it was 20 years ago, but the new faces are HK and Indian and integrate well (especially at the cricket club) and are largely middle-ish class. For the other face of immigration however look at Piccadilly Gardens, or at Cheetham Hill. These aren't immigrants we asked for, they are immigrants who came because their home countries are medeival shitholes and because getting to the UK is now just about possible in a way it wasn't 40 years ago. They'd be coming regardless of our demographics.
    I don’t understand why, if Islam is so popular, even in “medieval shitholes” why so many Muslims choose to move to Christian countries? After all there are Islamic countries that aren’t shitholes.
    They do often move to Muslim countries. You just don't hear about it because you're not in one of those countries.

    If we focus on just refugees, if we look at the top 5 countries by refugees taken in per head of population, 4 of them are mostly Muslim. If we look at the top 5 countries by total number of refugees, 4 of them are mostly Muslim.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,554

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
    Pensions will be plundered in a way Gordon Brown could only dream about...
    And that will mean people will save less in pensions - so creating an even bigger problem down the line.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    Medical advice (well, not really).

    A YouTube video (that I won't link to in order to hide this month's ailment) while discussing complications included the reassuring words that “this is usually uncommon”.

    I may well add usually uncommon to my PB lexicon.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,023
    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,611
    edited July 5

    HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Not sure if already done, but a couple of polls / election results that go somewhat against received wisdom:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    RFM: 27%(=)
    LAB: 26% (+2)
    CON: 19% (-1)
    LDM: 12% (-1)
    GRN: 8% (=)

    Via @Survation, 25-27 Jun.
    Changes w/ 30 May - 2 Jun.

    (Note this was pre- this week’s rebellion and tears though)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941192719524823161?s=46

    Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

    LDM: 17 (+6)
    RFM: 16 (+14)
    LAB: 5 (-12)
    CON: 4 (-5)
    GRN: 3 (+2)
    Ind: 3 (=)
    SNP: 1 (=)
    Local: 0 (-5)

    https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1941060193649061991?s=46

    That Survation poll would give a hung parliament with both Reform and the DUP/TUV and Labour and the LDs, Greens and SNP short of a majority.

    Kemi would be kingmaker as to whether Starmer or Farage would become PM

    Kemi or her successor. Do you think she will be leader in 4 years time?
    We will see, if Kemi or Jenrick are both would back
    Farage over the Labour leader as PM.

    If Cleverly or Stride were Conservative leader not impossible they could back Starmer or Streeting as PM over Farage in return for some concessions on tax. Neither would back a Rayner premiership though


  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
    Pensions will be plundered in a way Gordon Brown could only dream about...
    Maybe but it is the boy who cried wolf. The papers have spent the last year (or more) confidently predicting pension raids and tax rises that so far have not happened. Short of slaughtering the first born to save on child benefits, there's not much left.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,554
    edited July 5
    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,582
    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    You seem to blithely assume that birth rates in Africa will not continue to decline.

    Why won't they follow the same path beat by the West, the East, and even countries like Bangladesh?
    Why is it a bad thing if they do continue to decline for the next century, say?

    We have no idea how the trend will behave over the longer term, or if global population returns to eg its 1990 level, which is around 5 billion.
    I am generally pro-people, so I don't share the desire for a shrinking population, and fewer people enjoying the world, creating things, etc.
    You mustn't get out much then.
    It's just my innate optimism. I assume the best of people, and I've only met a modest fraction of the global population, from which I'm not willing to over-generalise...
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
    I'm explaining apparently irrational Kremlin decisions.
    And I'm pointing out that "they lost 25 million in the Great Patriotic War so this is barely a scratch" isn't entirely accurate.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629
    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
    Don't worry: we can legislate against such heresies.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,611
    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
    Yes but the later you leave it the harder it is to have children, peak fertility for women is in their twenties and early thirties.

    Plus as the population ages the working age population will have to pay more and more tax to pay for the healthcare etc to support them
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,629
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
    Yes but the later you leave it the harder it is to have children, peak fertility for women is in their twenties and early thirties.

    Plus as the population ages the working age population will have to pay more and more tax to pay for the healthcare etc to support them
    Peak fertility is a bit earlier than that!
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 1,083
    edited July 5
    “He truly does have, to steal a phrase from Steve Jobs, a reality distortion field,” one top Republican aide said. “People come into that field, they go beyond the limits of what they think are possible for themselves.”

    How Trump pushed Republicans to yes.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5385546-trump-republicans-megabill/

    You have to go back to Project 2025 and the authors. It's the Playbook and Trump is the salesman for it. His experience of Reality shows suggest he's picked up quite a few tips on 'how' people believe.

    If you have ever run a sales team, you'll know that salesmen not only lie, they lie to themselves too.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,023
    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
    Sure, but these have been around for decades, but with Smartphones that information is much more widely available, including on the life opportunities as alternatives to serial maternity.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,554
    Foxy said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    viewcode said:

    Um, @Leon, @Malmesbury et al, the "Universe 25"/"Mouse Utopia"/"Calhoun Experiments", whilst not that well known, were known enough for me to discuss it in one of the works Xmas dinners last Christmas, where I fascinated/repelled various luminaries with the story[1], especially when I threw in the phrase "mouse incel" . The alt-right and frankly insane commentator "WhatIfAltHist" - you'd like him - did a YouTube on them

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTDTVbourzU

    [1] I spend a lot of time in trains and taxis, and two of my jobs mean I have a fund of grotesque stories to entertain them. They can be repurposed for a more genteel audience.

    I am not sure that I buy it though. Population Fertility rates for humans are dropping everywhere (albeit from a higher base in Africa etc) whether the country is densely or thinly populated.

    Zambia has 20 million people in a country twice the size of France for example, yet the fertility rate is dropping there too. (Incidentally there is some belief amongst demographers that many estimates of current populations are overestimated in Africa).

    The drop in fertility rates is pretty universal, in both rich and poor countries, the densely and thinly populated, in ones with welfare states and without, in countries with expensive and those with cheap housing, religious and irreligious alike, from different starting points

    I think we have to look at other societal changes, and these would have to be worldwide, and particularly taken up by young women. Smartphones and Internet access spring to mind.
    Education, opportunities, birth control and reduced child mortality rates have all played a part in reduced fertility rates.

    Hardly surprising as most women don't want to be a baby factory and want to do other things with their lives..
    Sure, but these have been around for decades, but with Smartphones that information is much more widely available, including on the life opportunities as alternatives to serial maternity.
    If you were born in an African village - I suspect opportunities beyond the village only arrived in the past 10-15 years as mobiles arrived..
  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 1,083
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Apart from the bollocks about other planets, I agree with Leon!
    So do I. Worrying isn't it when you read the bollocks he posted at the end of the last thread.
    My esteemed editor at the Gazette sent me some fascinating data the other day. Might become an article

    It’s from a scientist who studied the effects of overpopulation on rats. He made rats live at varying levels of overpopulation - from moderate to severe. Each scenario was termed a “universe”

    In “universe 25” - extreme overpopulation - the rats suddenly reacted very strangely. Female rats refused to have sex and became more aggressive and masculinised. Male rats became more feminised and sperm counts plummeted. Anxiety and self harm proliferated and the rats got more and more atomised - interacting less, isolating more

    Eventually all the rats in Universe 25 died out. The rodent baby bust could not be fixed

    Are we in the human equivalent of Universe 25?
    Debunking Popular Interpretations of Universe 25

    https://www.the-scientist.com/universe-25-experiment-69941
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,053
    Pant's being dropped on a regular basis in Birmingham for some reason.
  • fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,431
    edited July 5

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Times (££)

    Exclusive:

    Rachel Reeves has warned cabinet ­ministers that tax rises in the autumn budget are likely to prove even more challenging than the £40 billion ­package she imposed in November

    The chancellor told cabinet on Tuesday that the decision to abandon welfare reforms meant taxes would have to rise to cover the cost

    She said the rises in her first budget, which included a £24 billion increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, were ‘painful’ but were the ‘low-hanging fruit’

    Tax rises in the autumn are likely to be smaller than last year’s but she is still expected to have to raise tens of billions of pound. Reeves told ministers that would be a ‘big challenge’ given that she has limited options

    Ministers have been told that the spending review will not be reopened, meaning the bulk of any shortfall will have to come from tax rises

    Economists have warned that the scale of the hole in the public finances means that she may have to break ­Labour’s manifesto pledge not to ­increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. There are also suggestions that she could raid pension savings, which was rejected before the last budget

    Allies of Reeves say Labour rebels will have to ‘own’ the tax rises after they killed off welfare reforms”

    Labour are so monumentally fucked. There is no coming back from this. Unfortunately, Britain is somewhat fucked, as well

    For comparison, 1p on income tax (all bands) is about £10bn.

    Total council tax take is £40bn.

    1p on VAT is about £5bn.
    Pensions will be plundered in a way Gordon Brown could only dream about...
    I did predict to fitaloon that this Labour Government will end up finishing what Gordon Brown started when it came to taxing as much of the disposable income of the working and retired middle and working classes as they can before getting desperate and going after their pensions...
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,133
    So the weather forecast for the next ten days here is hot and sunny.

    Except for tomorrow, when from 08.00 a day of rain and thunderstorms are forecast.

    Can you, oh wise people, guess when my next race is? :(
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,537
    edited July 5
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Taz said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    FPT on the baby bust (and it’s not so irrelevant - Trump is in some ways a reaction to it)

    The irony is that the world needs far fewer people. Unless and until we can go to other planets we need to put less pressure on Planet Earth, we need to get our present 9 billion down to 1-2 billion

    The problem is how do you get there without societal collapse. Gaia may, in her own way, be doing it for us

    Africa needs fewer people, the western world needs a few more babies
    African birth rates are declining from a very high base and will continue to do so based on forecast.

    Fertility rate has fallen from 6.1 to 4.8 in just over a decade

    So Africa is sorting itself out, especially as it is exporting plenty of young men to Europe.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/to_the_surprise_of_demographers_african_fertility_is_falling
    So Africa more than double replacement fertility rate still, thanks for the confirmation.

    Meanwhile most western nations well below replacement fertility rate meaning ever higher taxes on the working population to fund an ever ageing population.

    While most western voters want their navies to send back the migrant boats where they came from
    Africa, with its declining birth rate and exporting its young men, is going the same way as the west, just more slowly. The more it exports fertile young men to the west the more their birth rates will fall. Now forecast to peak in 2060.

    ‘The UN now projects that Nigeria will have 342 million people by 2060, 200 million less than they forecasted ten years ago. Will even these estimates hold up?’

    What voters want is irrelevant. It’s what the political class wants and they want more. Hell, your party happily hoovered up tens of thousands, with their economically inactive fiscal liability relatives, to wipe old peoples arses.
    Africa’s birth rate will likely be down to replacement level, within a generation.
    I highly doubt it, Africa has fewer women graduates in the workplace than most of the world and is much more religious
    Twenty years ago, that was true of the Middle East.
    Most of the Middle East still has above replacement level fertility.

    West Bank and Gaza being two of the highest.
    They're both trying to outbreed each other.

    Russia: despite traditional values and massive incentives has a birth rate comfortably below UK levels.
    On top of a high death rate, made worse by the Ukraine war.

    Until recently, a lot of people thought of Putin as a 3-D chess player (and the MAGA's and tankies still admire him), but what could be more stupid than launching a war of choice that leaves you weaker than when you started?

    Russia's vast oil revenues could have been used to transform the lives of its population, *and* to build up its armed forces.
    Demographic pressures were one of the reasons for the SMO. About a million Ukrainian (mostly younger people who are more mobile) moved to Russia as soon as it kicked off. There's about 3 million people living in the fascistly occupied/heroically denazified territory who will be eventually added to the population of the Russian Federation. A big motivation for staying put under Russian occupation is that you can just stop paying your mortgage/car payment to Ukrainian banks with no adverse consequences.
    OTOH, plenty of young Russians have got out of Dodge.
    And up to a million young Russian men have been killed or injured, if we are to believe the more alarming statistics

    This was all cleverly analysed in the Spectator

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-global-populations-need-to-fall/
    This year, Russia has conquered about 150 square miles of territory, at a cost of about 200,000 casualties. That's an insane ratio of reward to cost.
    The Soviets lost more than 25 million people in The Great Patriotic War. The odd 200,000 in the SMO is a rounding error.
    The differences are that:

    (a) back in 1941, the typical Soviet woman had 6 children in her lifetime, rather than 1.4. Their leaders are still acting as if they can lose millions in war, and the population will rapidly bounce back.

    (b) the Nazis wished to exterminate or enslave the population. They had no choice but to take whatever casualties were necessary in order to win. This war is a war of choice.
    So what? My thesis explains the continuation of the SMO. Yours suggests any rational Kremlin would not have launched it. Mine more closely matches the facts on the ground.
    There are quite a few provisos you need to add. Like, a very significant proportion of those 25 million weren't Russians but ummm... people like Ukrainians.

    You did see that I used the word Soviets rather than Russians?
    I did: but it means that the "pool" of available 18 to 25 year old men is much, much smaller than it was.

    Let me put this in context for a second. The Soviet Union had about 6 million in each annual cohort in 1939. By contrast, it's 1.25 million now.
    I'm explaining apparently irrational Kremlin decisions.
    And I'm pointing out that "they lost 25 million in the Great Patriotic War so this is barely a scratch" isn't entirely accurate.
    Then point it out to Putin and his Kremlin hawks who are, and this is my point, trapped in the Soviet mindset.
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