# Any (post 2008) Economists in the house? - Inflation.



## Flynnwood (22 Sep 2021)

Good day,
I want to understand what is driving inflation in the private sector (world-wide, not just UK).

If it was Governments debt (public sector), I would "get it".

Journalists in the Financial Times can't present a logical explanation without mentioning the FED.


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## Blackswanwood (22 Sep 2021)

It‘s worth Googling demand pull, cost push and built in inflation. Investopedia is normally a good source of a plain English (American!) explanation.

Edit - I should add I’m not an economist but I work with some and they quite often do not agree on what causes things!


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## Jameshow (22 Sep 2021)

Cost of raw materials, food costs, fuel costs, labour costs all push up inflation in a catch 22 way each feeding each other... 

Cheers James

I'm not an economist btw!


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## Spectric (22 Sep 2021)

Inflation, it seems the biggest goal for a country like the uk is it's economy where making money is the key objective, supply and demand is something that is good for this objective, think of making hay whilst the sun shines. So with a high demand you raise the prices, ripple effect impacts everything and people want a pay rise so less profit and this cycle continues until you price yourself out of the market and getting things done abroad becomes cheaper. Now pay falls and people struggle until work returns and it is just cycles of good and bad, high pay and low pay but no long term stability.


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## Terry - Somerset (22 Sep 2021)

Years ago economics was "sold" as a "science" - defined by supply and demand curves, price elasticity equations etc etc. I have since come to the conclusion that "science" is at least equalled by the need to understand behaviours. 

The economy is a confidence trick. Remove confidence - the economy will slow or decline. Positive outlooks - job secure, pay increasing etc - promotes different behaviours.

Inflation needs to separate global impacts from the local or national. 

The price of raw materials, shipping costs, commodities (eg: oil, gas) are determined by global demand and supply as they are mostly traded in global markets. This can be impacted by limited sources of materials, monopolistic behaviour, local conflicts etc.

Inflation in global goods in a national market place will be impacted by changes in exchange rates. This may be due to events like Brexit, political changes, or simply that individual national economies will grow and/or decline at different rates.

Inflation at a national level depends far more on local circumstances - tax policy, economic growth, confidence, employment levels, public spending etc. 

The references to the Fed I think relate to their role in setting interest rates which due to the size of the US economy have impacts globally. What smaller central banks do has far less impact - in fact many small countries link their currency to the $ anyway.

Changing interest rates will tend to have an economic impact - eg: an increase in interest rates will likely reduce investment by making borrowing more expense, reduce spending by making saving more attractive, reduce economic growth which in turn may reduce inflationary pressures. 

As a very simplistic example. Too many people spend money on meals out. Restaurants may increase their prices to reduce demand as their capacity is limited. Full employment means that trained chefs want more pay etc. 

Inflation is not homogenous. In the UK the services sector is ~80% of the economy, the balance is manufacturing, construction, agriculture. Recent events demonstrate it is possible for global energy prices to increase by 50% or more, yet UK inflation to be only ~3% overall.

A long response which really only demonstrates there is no simple answer to "why inflation" - it is just a balance of some very complex judgements that (in this country) Rishi Sunak tries to get right!


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## DrDarren (23 Sep 2021)

It’s worth reading Nouriel Roubini on this. He often calls right on when the global economy is about to tank as he understands the history and deep causal mechanisms. The global supply chain crisis could fuel a severe dose of stagflation


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## Trainee neophyte (23 Sep 2021)

Some thoughts from a depressed pessimist: ymmv

Economics is the "dismal science", and really is the study of people and their behaviour. For some reason economists got a bad attack of clever maths, and decided they could predict the future and therefore rule the universe. It's really not working out for them, but until everyone notices, they are building their castles in the air and wearing their new clothes with aplomb, to mix some metaphors.

I would say there are two types of inflation: real world cost increases, and financial manipulation/printing/economists running amok.

The first of these are things like food inflation, which we are seeing because of worldwide crop failures. No economists were harmed in the raising of these prices. Supply and demand, time preference etc all go to making prices between two or more real people, buying real goods. The "free market", if you will. Fewer real things means each thing gets more expensive, as people bid up prices based on ability to pay and need/want/desire. Obviously government tries to get between people wherever possible to make monopoly or cartel conditions and skew the free market, but that's just what government does. 

The second type is based on unreal conditions caused by our current insane monetary system (money as debt) and this inflation is caused by the creation of more debt - as - money out of thin air. The people closest to the money spigot get to spend first, before prices rise, and then the shiny new money radiates out, causing too much money to chase the same amount of things in the real world, giving rise to a reduction in the value of money, rather than an increase in the cost if goods. It looks like a rise in prices, but is actually a fall in the value of each unit of currency.

You can see easily who gets to put their snouts in the trough by where the inflation is prevalent. Property, mega yachts, classic cars, invisible works of art etc. Not too much will trickle down to the real world where us serfs live, other than the UK with its ludicrous property market designed to crate false wealth out of thin air. 

Pretty much everything since 2008 has been deflationary, but deflation is garlic to the banking vampires, so they print and print to keep the system afloat, but keep the free money mostly to themselves. The more deflation there is, the more they will print to save the banks. When they start giving free money to the serfs rather than the elite, you know the wheels are truly coming off.

During times of inflation asset prices rise faster than wages, benefiting asset owners at the expense of wage earners. During deflation the reverse happens.

In other words, deflation will be fought tooth and nail, because the owners of assets stand to lose more in deflation that the earners of wages, and asset owners make the rules.


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## Jacob (23 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> ......
> 
> In other words, deflation will be fought tooth and nail, because the owners of assets stand to lose more in deflation that the earners of wages, and asset owners make the rules.


But on the other hand those who are cash rich lose - it's worth less and buys less - and vice versa, those in debt gain - the real cost of the debt falls


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## Terry - Somerset (23 Sep 2021)

I bought my first flat in the mid 1970s. Property price inflation meant that on purchase I owned 10% of the equity. Two years later, thanks to inflation, I owned 50% of the equity.

Inflation was unambiguously good!

45 years on, retired with some cash in the bank I now worry that inflation may erode personal savings and spending capacity and make retirement financially challenging.

Conclusion - Treasury policy to target predictable modest levels of inflation is correct as it encourages rational behaviours and decision making against a stable financial background.


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## Spectric (23 Sep 2021)

If you want it really simple then an economist is just a croupier, the finance sector is based on gambling with other peoples money and in the UK it is a very large part of our economy, we no longer have the manufacturing like most European countries that can help dampen sudden spikes. Then add in good old Borris who thinks he can take on the world and rattle swords with Russia and China and come out on top and you have problems, the economy does not like uncertainty and in reality the UK is no longer a major player on the worlds stage although no one wants to admit it.


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## Jacob (23 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> If you want it really simple then an economist is just a croupier, the finance sector is based on gambling with other peoples money and in the UK it is a very large part of our economy, we no longer have the manufacturing like most European countries that can help dampen sudden spikes. Then add in good old Borris who thinks he can take on the world and rattle swords with Russia and China and come out on top and you have problems, the economy does not like uncertainty and in reality the UK is no longer a major player on the worlds stage although no one wants to admit it.


Money and the economy is unstable in the hands of the gamblers. 
There are strong arguments for debt cancellation at various levels. An old idea:
Jubilee 2000 - Wikipedia

David Graeber is the man and his book is very readable.

 

It's like Monopoly the board game - it usually ends up with too much money/wealth in too few hands and the game stops. Starts again when they pull in all the money, cancel debts and credits and share it out again.


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## jcassidy (23 Sep 2021)

As a novice central banker, still struggling to understand how it all works, here goes...

Inflation is a function of supply and demand, specifically the demand for money.

Worldwide inflation is increasing because there is a lot of money in the system which is outstripping the supply of goods. As prices go up the demand for money increases, which the central bank will supply until inflation reaches the target level. 

At that point the Central Bank will restrict the supply of money, causing higher interest rates and suppressing the demand for money. 

The intent - rarely achieved - is to yo-yo around the target inflation rate like a Goldilocks zone, never too got and never too cold.
Unfortunately people are complicated and rarely cooperate with the Cental Bankers...lol


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## jcassidy (23 Sep 2021)

As regards the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, its far worse than any of you realise. But that is a political question. Unelected central bankers must neither create or destroy wealth; only elected representatives have tax powers and that's what allows the accrual of wealth to the rich and the destruction of wealth of the poor.


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## Spectric (23 Sep 2021)

Another aspect is wasting money on projects that only benefit the minority, leaders saying one thing and doing something else, your policies and decisions influenced by the people funding your party and you end up with a political system that is no longer fit for purpose, outdated and that no one respects, they become a circus. To get a strong economy you need everyone pulling together and then sharing the rewards equally, not just making the rich richer and alienating sections of the population.


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## jcassidy (23 Sep 2021)

FYI.

The top 10% own about $90trillion, of which the top 1% own almost half.

The next 40% own just a little more than the top 1%.

The bottom 50% own f**k all.

Other graphs show that after the Great Recession of 2008, the top 50% have largely recovered financially whereas the bottom 50% still haven't. This is largely because the wealth of the bottom half is largely in residential property (the family home and maybe some rental properties) and if you've defaulted on your mortgage, you're not getting another one easily...


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## jcassidy (23 Sep 2021)

(Double post)


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## Jacob (23 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> As regards the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, its far worse than any of you realise. But that is a political question.


Everything is a political question. Notice how the establishment don't want you to talk about politics at all and have somehow made it unacceptable in "polite" society. Even on this forum!


> Unelected central bankers must neither create or destroy wealth; only elected representatives have tax powers and that's what allows the accrual of wealth to the rich and the destruction of wealth of the poor.


And economics is largely written by the gamblers and others on the side of wealth and property ownership. Very one sided! 
It's amazing how the gamblers have persuaded so many that just letting them get on with it ("free market") will somehow benefit us all! Biggest con trick ever.


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## RobinBHM (23 Sep 2021)

There is a sad fact…..it Is easier to make money out of wealth destruction than out of wealth creation.

George Soros is an example.

as are all hedge fund managers.

chaos creates opportunities for the greedy to make money out of the misery of others.

the pandemic is a perfect example of opportunistic wealth creation. Something beginning with B is another.


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## D_W (23 Sep 2021)

Availability of goods vs. availability of funds (liquid funds) pumped up by cheap monetary policy and income give-aways during covid. 

if there wasn't a shortage of goods, the price changes probably wouldn't be that significant.


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## D_W (23 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> There is a sad fact…..it Is easier to make money out of wealth destruction than out of wealth creation.
> 
> George Soros is an example.
> 
> ...



Hedge managers generally get less of a return than equity managers. Where they've succeeded is high wealth clients who need lower volatility due to tax rules than they do outright nominal returns. 

I've got a lot of exposure to investments (not as an investment person but as a reporting person and for determining forward looking assumptions). It's not that uncommon for collective strategy (funds) that list their composition to stuff in an equity index if they want higher returns. I'm not aware of hedge funds that create long-term returns like an equity index does, but I'm also not aware of many equity index funds that a fund manager extracts 200 basis points from, and then plus some. 

I'm a big fan of the reddit investors who blow up short strategies from hedge funds, though - they're doing what the hedge funds are doing and only boobs like Jim Cramer seem to really have a problem with it. 

That said, what makes hedge fund managers rich is less performance and more relationship and advertising based (convincing high wealth clients that net returns smaller than in the open market will be good for them and they should pay a lot to get them). The actual long term return profile of hedge funds isn't that great, and when it's unusually high, they tend to be just illiquid funds that are only partial hedging and have a bunch of higher return bits in them (that you could just get more cheaply elsewhere).


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## Flynnwood (23 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Worldwide inflation is increasing because there is a lot of money in the system which is outstripping the supply of goods. As prices go up the demand for money increases, which the central bank will supply until inflation reaches the target level.
> 
> At that point the Central Bank will restrict the supply of money, causing higher interest rates and suppressing the demand for money.



Thank you - much appreciated.


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## Jameshow (23 Sep 2021)

I don't think capitalism is wrong nor that communism is wrong. What is wrong is when the moral spine behind the economics collapses and men do right thier own eyes ... 
We need wealth creation as much a socialist support and care. The two go hand in hand. 

When one is very much in the accendancy there is often greed or corruption. 

Cheers James


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## Jacob (23 Sep 2021)

Jameshow said:


> I don't think capitalism is wrong nor that communism is wrong. What is wrong is when the moral spine behind the economics collapses and men do right thier own eyes ...
> We need wealth creation as much a socialist support and care. The two go hand in hand.
> 
> When one is very in the accendancy there is often greed or corruption.
> ...


What goes wrong with capitalism is when right wing ideologues insist that free markets are better for everybody and that we would be better just letting them get on with it. It's just not true.
Luckily we have socialism in various forms, which is much less ideological than the right and more concerned with the realistic practicalities of getting things done sensibly.


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## Terry - Somerset (23 Sep 2021)

Greed and ambition are part of the human condition. They are traits affecting sufficient numbers (not everyone) to dominate economic and social progress.

Bankers, hedge fund managers, business owners see money as the key measure of personal success. They enjoy that which money buys and do that which is necessary to achieve their goals. They are largely (not wholly) unconcerned by societal impacts of their behaviour.

They can only operate in a framework created by politicians through legislation. Politicians are also subject to ambition and greed - dominated by a need for control, social position and recognition rather than mainly money. 

To make large amounts of money it is much better to sit outside government influencing policy and legislation, rather than inside subject to all sorts of intrusive scrutiny.

Politicians have to be elected. Those who fail are simply neutered - incapable of that to which they aspire. At a very simplistic level they do so by pressing one of two buttons:

we will create the freedoms which enable you also to become more wealthy. Normally a party of lower taxation, less legislation, greater freedoms - Tory promises!
we will control the abuse you suffer at the hands of the unelected wealthy elite and ensure fair shares for all - Socialist promises!
The wealthy control media and business. Without their cooperation, politicians can only use insurrection as the means to promote the change they seek. Irrespctive of which button they may prefer to press, both have precisely the same tools and levers at their disposal.

This is probably why the nutters (no names, no pack drill) on the extreme right or left of political debate in this country stand little chance of power. So politically the UK sways slightly right or left of centre - certainly the case for the last 30 years post Thatcher. 

Boris seems to have worked out a way to claim both left and right street cred (for the moment) - the party of fiscal prudence spending more on education, the NHS and levelling up.


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## Jacob (23 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> ...
> 
> Boris seems to have worked out a way to claim both left and right street cred (for the moment) - the party of fiscal prudence spending more on education, the NHS and levelling up.


He talks the talk but doesn't do the walk. An endless trail of lies. He promised lower gas prices after brexit to mention just one. He's blagging on about climate change now in spite of being a sceptic (zero science education) knowing that he won't follow up and most likely won't have to as he will be out of office soon anyway. UK haven't met earlier targets yet.
China is doing as expected - backing off from coal and going sustainable, more quickly than any other state.


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## Terry - Somerset (23 Sep 2021)

UK carbon based energy production is currently (past year) ~2% coal and ~40% gas.


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## Spectric (23 Sep 2021)

Jameshow said:


> I don't think capitalism is wrong nor that communism is wrong


To save the planet less emphasis must be placed on "the economy" and capitalism needs to be watered down with a hint of communism because many people will not change unless faced with having to change. Choice is aimed at making money, just look at the world of fashion and ask yourself what fashion really is. It is a fictitious creation aimed at making some people rich by convincing people to behave like sheep, ie you should wear what we tell you to be like other fashionable people at the expense of the planet whilst helping the economy. The good point about a hint of communism is that choice becomes limited, do we really need a choice of fifty cars and a dozen brands, hundreds of choices when it comes to footware and many other products. If choice is reduced then quality and product life cycle will increase but at the expense of making money. Modern way is to sell products with shorter life cycles to increase future purchases, cars, white goods and new houses all have shorter lifespans to keep sales up.


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## Trainee neophyte (24 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> To save the planet less emphasis must be placed on "the economy" and capitalism needs to be watered down with a hint of communism because many people will not change unless faced with having to change


Many people might say that the free market is exactly what is needed when change is required, not more heavy - handed government dictats. It looks like there isn't going to be enough gas to power the UK through the winter - at least not enough affordable gas, which is almost the same thing. Free market innovation should be the most efficient way of dealing with this, but government intervention means there is no such thing as a free market - a bit of a conundrum. Are we enjoying our central planning yet?

The fun thing is that there is plenty of gas, but the insane green policies mean that you aren't allowed to use it, and the blame is laid squarely at the feet of "the market". Picking a fight with Russia may also not be the brightest thing to do if you live on an island with no food or fuel security, but you do you, as it were. As I understand it, this price crisis is entirely manufactured for climate catastrophe purposes. Enjoy your new normal of owning nothing, having nothing (not even warmth)_, and being happy about it. _

In the world according to Jacob, central planning hasn't worked, so we obviously need even more central planning. This despite proof over generations that central planning fails even more spectacularly than the free market ever does. Serious question: everyone needs to become poorer, for the good of all - will that apply to the billionaires, too?

I am constantly astonished that the sheep are enthusiastically clamouring to be shorn repeatedly, and even slaughtered ("we need to reduce the population"). The UK is the most bizarre society: a nation of violent, agressive, and yet utterly compliant and forelock - tugging serfs, ruled by a multi - generational hidden elite with politicians as the buffer between the two. I'm not sure if it is 1984 and believing two mutually exclusive ideas at the same time, or just the Red Queen and believing 6 impossible things before breakfast. 

Sorry - I'm obviously feeling a bit peevish this morning.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> spending more on education, the NHS and levelling up



that’s spin not truth.

social care plan being a perfect example: it’s sold as social care, but for the next 3 years (ie this govt term), it can all be spent on the NHS.
And that money going into the NHS can be funnelled into private healthcare contracts……to companies which have Tory MPs paid as advisors. 
To put it bluntly the social care plan makes the poor pay more tax to end in the pockets of the wealthy.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Many people might say that the free market is exactly what is needed when change is required, not more heavy - handed government dictats. It looks like there isn't going to be enough gas to power the UK through the winter - at least not enough affordable gas, which is almost the same thing. Free market innovation should be the most efficient way of dealing with this, but government intervention means there is no such thing as a free market - a bit of a conundrum. Are we enjoying our central planning yet?
> 
> The fun thing is that there is plenty of gas, but the insane green policies mean that you aren't allowed to use it, and the blame is laid squarely at the feet of "the market". Picking a fight with Russia may also not be the brightest thing to do if you live on an island with no food or fuel security, but you do you, as it were. As I understand it, this price crisis is entirely manufactured for climate catastrophe purposes. Enjoy your new normal of owning nothing, having nothing (not even warmth)_, and being happy about it._
> 
> ...



Free markets are not an efficient way to deal with this.

Free markets create businesses whose purpose is to maximise profits for the shareholders not the customers.


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## Keith Cocker (24 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> What goes wrong with capitalism is when right wing ideologues insist that free markets are better for everybody and that we would be better just letting them get on with it. It's just not true.
> Luckily we have socialism in various forms, which is much less ideological than the right and more concerned with the realistic practicalities of getting things done sensibly.



Alpha ++ for your first paragraph 

Please rewrite your second and resubmit for remarking.


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> Alpha ++ for your first paragraph
> 
> Please rewrite your second and resubmit for remarking.


Thanks for the marks! 
I believe the second proposition however - the bottom line of socialist thought from way back before Marx has been about how to run society in a fair and practical way. That's the basic ideology. In fact all modern governments are socialistic to some extent - it's the only way. Many failures along the way of course.


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> UK carbon based energy production is currently (past year) ~2% coal and ~40% gas.
> 
> View attachment 118470


They've made a great leap for growth and now are backing off China pledge to stop funding coal projects ‘buys time for emissions target’ much as expected, and widely accepted as good news.
One dubious advantage of a totalitarian state is that they can enforce necessary measures without having to negotiate with vested interests, the fossil fuel industry in particular, and popular opinion of course.
They are probably leading the world in sustainable energy technologies too. Green leap forward: China boosts renewable energy capacity | Upstream Online


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## Felipe (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> I bought my first flat in the mid 1970s. Property price inflation meant that on purchase I owned 10% of the equity. Two years later, thanks to inflation, I owned 50% of the equity.
> 
> Inflation was unambiguously good!
> 
> ...



stocks market is rich’s protection to money erosion - even more then that - there are forces that pushes money print just to keep stocks growing - what kind of insane society shows stock prices on tv news as a proxy for growth?


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> stocks market is rich’s protection to money erosion - even more then that - there are forces that pushes money print just to keep stocks growing - what kind of insane society shows stock prices on tv news as a proxy for growth?


The idea is to normalise and weave crude capitalism into the fabric of everybody's lives - with savings in "investments" at it's crudest in the form of buy-to-let landlordism. 
Even those who can't cash in are deluded into thinking they might at some point in the future and that this is how normal life works.


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## Terry - Somerset (24 Sep 2021)

Capitalism and socialism are BOTH ideologies. The differences have been well rehearsed on this forum and much more widely and there is no point in repeating old arguments.

Simple observation shows that extreme ends of the spectrum are thoroughly unpalatable, and neither has been proven to work consistently. The argument (IMHO) then becomes a debate as to which side of a middle range is preferred.

This is very shallow unless there is real consensus on what the goals are - a utiitarian greatest good, most rapid progress, societal fairness, moral and ethical considerations etc.

Further complexity is that even fundamentally common issues may need different approaches - eg: rapid progress in green energy (generation and efficient use) may best be achieved through capitalist enterprise, but the "greatest good" comes through sharing progress with everybody.

It seems very polarised views on ideology are very flawed - politicians are left trying to find an acceptable AND electable balance. I have little sympathy for them!!


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## evildrome (24 Sep 2021)

Its pretty simple.

The world economy shut down.

The world economy started up.

Supply trails demand.

I can want a Mars Bar now, I can have the money to buy a Mars Bar now, but someone has to make the Mars Bar and that takes time if you've mothballed your Mars Bar factory.

So the price of available (now slightly moldy, one imagines) Mars Bars is bid up by me & all my chums trying to buy Mars Bars.

And this is true for timber, steel, fuel, things that are made using fuel (i.e. everything), etc.

This inflation will pass once everyone has all their ducks in a row again.

While we're here lets dispel some economic myths.

1) Central Banks do not control the money supply. 97% of money is created by banks. Banks control the money supply.

2) Government 'debt' isn't debt. Its private sector savings at the central bank. Do the math. If you can print money, why would you borrow it? And before anyone says "InFLaShun!!!" how does borrowing money change that equation? If you're prepared to accept 0.5% return on a Gilt, there was exactly 0% chance of you running out & buying a Ferrari rather than saving that money somewhere.

3) Monopolies are more efficient than 'the market'. They have no marketing costs, no duplication of effort & enormous buying power. If we'd had a government energy monopoly, we could have bought up billions in forward gas contracts a year ago when the price was buttons & we'd be sitting pretty right now.

4) There's no such thing as 'tax payers money'. All taxes are destroyed on receipt. If you can print an unlimited amount of money, why would you need someone else's money? To control inflation. So, what can you not do with money you remove from the economy in order to control inflation? Spend it. You can't spend it.

Technically, all money is created as an IOU. So when one pound is created it is created as a one pound 'liability' of the state and a one pound private 'asset'.

When that pound is returned to the state, the liability is extinguished. Poof! Gone. No money.


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## Spectric (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> It looks like there isn't going to be enough gas to power the UK through the winter


Shame all the hot air our government produces cannot be used, maybe we could use the ball shiet instead!


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## Trainee neophyte (24 Sep 2021)

evildrome said:


> There's no such thing as 'tax payers money'. All taxes are destroyed on receipt. If you can print an unlimited amount of money, why would you need someone else's money? To control inflation. So, what can you not do with money you remove from the economy in order to control inflation? Spend it. You can't spend it.


I'm very happy with the idea that money is destroyed on repayment of debt to the bank, given that the bank created it in the first place. (Being an honest borrower and repaying your debt is deflationary, so you should, in an ideal world, default on your loan for the benefit and enrichment of all). I hadn't considered that tax receipts are a similar mechanism. Which is interesting because the USA spends, roughly speaking, all its tax receipts on running the government, and then an equal amount it doesn't have running it's military. The USA having the reserve currency means it must send dollars in vast amounts all around the world so they can be used in trade, and the UK hanging on its coat tails does the same to a lesser degree. The fun part is if/when the eurodollar/petrodollar system stops, whereupon all those trillions of unwanted dollars and pounds run back home to mummy in eyewatering numbers. I only mention this because the USA seems hell bent on making sure the current system stops as soon as possible. I wonder why?

Also interesting to note that the forever wars only exist to control inflation and aid international trade: they really should explain this to exploded Afghan wedding parties, who apparently died for the benefit of the international financial system. But then we already knew that, didn't we.


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## D_W (24 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> stocks market is rich’s protection to money erosion - even more then that - there are forces that pushes money print just to keep stocks growing - what kind of insane society shows stock prices on tv news as a proxy for growth?



Societies that use stock as a storage of value and a means of distributing earnings both to individuals, and widely here (and there, I'm sure) to regional and national benefit welfare and pension funds. 

In short, if individuals in the states had to fund the pensions without market earnings, the pensions wouldn't be there for state employees. 

If you fall into the party of folks who say "all profits are bad and all stock market and corporate earnings should be minimized or gone", you have no idea how much of what you do day to day is subsidized by market earnings. They are an indication of a society's efficiency (to be able to do something and have excess left over after it's paid out) to hand to others. The incentive to make stock values bigger benefits more than just folks with stock options. It benefits everyone. Sometimes it's pretty hard on publicly listed company employees and customers, but it's idealistic to believe that replacing those jobs with private employment away from listed jobs is better - it's sometimes less work, but generally less pay.


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## Terrytpot (24 Sep 2021)

Sheesh,you guys are all “a bit deep” in here…my only thought to add is had a chat with my “Independent financial (pension bloke) advisor “ a few weeks ago and slipped into the conversation that only certain things in life are inevitable…like interest rate rises (they could hardly drop when they’re about as low as they can possibly drop) to which he was most adamant that it not only wasn’t but also that they couldn’t rise..guess what my eyebrows did earlier today when I saw this:
UK interest rates 

Add to myFT
*Market expectations for Bank of England rate rise shift to early 2022*
Policymakers’ rising inflation concerns lift sterling and pressure UK bonds


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> ......
> 
> Also interesting to note that the forever wars only exist to control inflation and aid international trade: they really should explain this to exploded Afghan wedding parties, who apparently died for the benefit of the international financial system. But then we already knew that, didn't we.


Wars are hugely profitable - to the arms trade primarily.
_Following the final withdrawal of US troops, President Joe Biden quoted two figures for the total cost of the war.
He said: "After more than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan... [or] you could take the number of $1tn, as many say."_
A trillion is a million million - or $2,617 per head of USA population or $26,315 per head of Afghan population.
For a mere $half trillion they could have given every single Afghani $13,150 and told them to stop messing about.
But there'd be no profit in this for arms industry and the American tax payer wouldn't be happy to hand out cash to Afghanis even though it would have saved 2000 odd USA military deaths and 20000 odd casualties, not to mention collateral damage to the Afghan population of 41000 innocent civilian deaths.
But it kept the wheels of industry turning and many thousands of Americans earning a good wage and getting a return on their investments.
If they'd mobilised a similar size $1trillion op to do something like digging an enormous hole in the ground the size of texas and then filling it in again, the financial benefit would be the same, but you could have a problem persuading people that it was a good idea.


----------



## Trainee neophyte (24 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Free markets are not an efficient way to deal with this.
> 
> Free markets create businesses whose purpose is to maximise profits for the shareholders not the customers.


Oops - should have replied to this earlier - sorry.

Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation, and creative destruction. Monopolies of whatever flavour stifle innovation on purpose in order to continue as they are. Rather the point of a monopoly, in fact - fear of competition. A government monopoly will never admit to being wrong, and will wrongheadedly grind on for no reason, while the hangers on fleece the system and profit mightily. Jacob's comment on the Afghanistan war is a fine example of monopoly behaviour - hardly cutting edge and innovative to blow up goatherders for the umpty third time, just because.


----------



## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Oops - should have replied to this earlier - sorry.
> 
> Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation, and creative destruction.


Some are efficient, some not, some incredibly wasteful, some go bankrupt leaving debt and destruction behind them (recent gas companies going bust), non of them provide goods or services where there is no profit to be made, e.g. public health and education.


> Monopolies of whatever flavour stifle innovation on purpose in order to continue as they are.


Not if they choose to innovate. Major innovations on many fronts originate with state aid or from state research institutions such as Universities


> Rather the point of a monopoly, in fact - fear of competition.


Monopolies don't have competition, by definition


> A government monopoly will never admit to being wrong, and will wrongheadedly grind on for no reason, while the hangers on fleece the system and profit mightily.


Complete nonsense - some of the biggest state monopolies are incredibly cost effective and efficient, NHS being prime example.


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## Terry - Somerset (24 Sep 2021)

Money is simply a means of exchange, a store of future fulfillment and a means of allocating scarce resources to different activities. 

AFAIK, no complex society has operated without it. Possible exception are small remote communities who have at most very limited contact with others.

A few digital blips only have value if the holder believes they can be exchanged for goods and services. Its accumulation is called wealth (in a purely economic sense). It is not a measure of decency, integrity, love, fairness etc etc.

In regimes which embrace socialist agendas, those with power are able to be materially fulfilled where most of their compatriots are bereft. It is not money that corrupts, but power!

Creation of money by central banks (or other banks in an unregulated economy) does not of itsself create additional wealth, just more digital blips. 

Additional wealth is created by more efficient and effective use of resources (labour, materials, land etc) and can be influenced by tax policies, legislative frameworks, investment, etc. 

Simply printing more money only creates inflation, but may change some behaviours. It will however redistribute wealth - debt becomes easier to repay in times of higher inflation, and the purchasing power of financial assets is eroded. 

This may be why the government is moderately relaxed about some modest inflationary pressure - the borrowing forced by covid will be repaid in devalued ££. This alone is a reason to invest in assets rather than holding liquid funds - property may be a major draw!


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> ..
> 
> AFAIK, no complex society has operated without it. Possible exception are small remote communities who have at most very limited contact with others.
> 
> ......


David Graeber goes to into detail about this being quite untrue, verging on myth. It's readable, very interesting but long. A book to dip into after you've read intro and conclusions.
Debt: The First 5000 Years - Wikipedia


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Oops - should have replied to this earlier - sorry.
> 
> Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation, and creative destruction. Monopolies of whatever flavour stifle innovation on purpose in order to continue as they are. Rather the point of a monopoly, in fact - fear of competition. A government monopoly will never admit to being wrong, and will wrongheadedly grind on for no reason, while the hangers on fleece the system and profit mightily. Jacob's comment on the Afghanistan war is a fine example of monopoly behaviour - hardly cutting edge and innovative to blow up goatherders for the umpty third time, just because.



Afghanistan war is a good example of how capitalism and politics interact.

NATO provides a great opportunity for the powerful American Defense industry.

people pay taxes to American govt, American govt gets lobbied by defence industry, American govt don’t mind encouraging wars because the govt gets loads of lobby money.

Isnt capitalism great


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Oops - should have replied to this earlier - sorry.
> 
> Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation, and creative destruction. Monopolies of whatever flavour stifle innovation on purpose in order to continue as they are. Rather the point of a monopoly, in fact - fear of competition. A government monopoly will never admit to being wrong, and will wrongheadedly grind on for no reason, while the hangers on fleece the system and profit mightily. Jacob's comment on the Afghanistan war is a fine example of monopoly behaviour - hardly cutting edge and innovative to blow up goatherders for the umpty third time, just because.



In theory free markets are more efficient….but they aren’t because capitalism is driven by greed. 

oh and have a think about moral hazard 

1) UK train operators: massively inefficient, massively expensive….almost none of them run by British companies.

2) how’s carillion doing…..oh it went bust

3) local councils are bringing contracted out services back in house - because customer care goes up and costs go down.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Some are efficient, some not, some incredibly wasteful, some go bankrupt leaving debt and destruction behind them (recent gas companies going bust), non of them provide goods or services where there is no profit to be made, e.g. public health and education.Not if they choose to innovate. Major innovations on many fronts originate with state aid or from state research institutions such as UniversitiesMonopolies don't have competition, by definitionComplete nonsense - some of the biggest state monopolies are incredibly cost effective and efficient, NHS being prime example.



I think there is much support for re nationalising the railway - I don’t know how or if, but the current model doesn’t work.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation



The current energy crisisin the U.K. rather disproves that


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## Terry - Somerset (24 Sep 2021)

Interesting - but I am not sure that going back 5000 years is meaningful.

Trade between communities was very limited and mainly supported high value goods used (I assume) by those with power
A large part of the population were slaves (ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome) who would anyway have had limited or no rights.
Even those not formally classified as slaves may have effectively been tied - as many were in the UK until only a few centuries ago.
I can believe the status quo in times past was maintained through force wielded where necessary by those in power, and that a form of personal indebtedness was the norm. In the absence of money, debt would have been repaid through service (building pyramids, providing food, serving in the army etc).

We now live in a global society where knowledge, goods, people, ideas can move with rapidity. The origins of money and debt are interesting but of limited relevance in thinking about what works today and for the next few decades.


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> ...
> 
> We now live in a global society where knowledge, goods, people, ideas can move with rapidity. The origins of money and debt are interesting but of limited relevance in thinking about what works today and for the next few decades.


Highly relevant not least because many "third world" countries have been paying back historic debts in exchange for being free of colonialism. The "Jubilee" idea is alive and well Jubilee - Wikipedia


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## Flynnwood (24 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Simply printing more money only creates inflation {snip....}


Hello Terry, sorry to snip the above. 
The reason I (OP) asked the question, was that I didn't recall much inflation post 2008 after *UK QE Part 1*.

I've just checked Bank of England figures and the average per year:
2007 2.7%
2008 2.6%
2009 2.9%
2010 2.7%
2011 2.5%
2012 2.4%
2013 2.3%
2014 2.3%
2015 2.5%
2016 2.7%
2017 2.5%
2018 2.0%
2019 1.5%
Which confirms my recollection.

Though in the last year or so, I have seen some raw materials go up 240%. 

i.e Builders having to add £8,000 to previous quotes that were under 3 months old. Metal workers sheet alloy going from £100 a sheet to £240 a sheet. MRMDF, Hardwoods etc.

This thread has caused some interesting debate/comments. Thanks to all.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> The current energy crisisin the U.K. rather disproves that


Yes, if our energy companies were state owned, Russia wouldn't have put the price of gas up, would it?


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Yes, if our energy companies were state owned, Russia wouldn't have put the price of gas up, would it?


I don't suppose it would have made any difference. 
The whole privatisation thing about public utilities is a sham and everybody knows they are state controlled when push comes to shove. Otherwise there'd be a few million people without gas supplies now. 
What a nationalised monopoly might have done is to plan ahead and have storage facilities, which apparently were closed down by the private companies. They'd also have more bargaining power by virtue of sheer size. False "privatising" never made any sense at all - just playing silly politics and lining a few pockets.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Sep 2021)

What a nationalised monopoly might have done is to plan ahead ........

Might.

Incidentally - if any of our governments were prone to forward thinking they'd have built nuclear power plants decades ago.


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## Jacob (24 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> What a nationalised monopoly might have done is to plan ahead ........
> 
> Might.


It was foretold Closure of UK’s largest gas storage site ‘could mean volatile prices’
Private companies are responsible to their shareholders and not to their clients.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Yes, if our energy companies were state owned, Russia wouldn't have put the price of gas up, would it?



Your smug comment ignores key factors.

1 moral hazard - privatised companies don’t care about national security. Privatise the profits socialise the risk

2 the so called market competition model has clearly failed - look at how many energy suppliers are going bust.


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> What a nationalised monopoly might have done is to plan ahead ........
> 
> Might.
> 
> Incidentally - if any of our governments were prone to forward thinking they'd have built nuclear power plants decades ago.



moral hazard…..remember carillion? Oh and train operators.



“Various UK governments have trusted market mechanisms to deliver UK gas security, assuming that sufficient and affordable gas would always be there by default. Now UK consumers are having to pay the cost of such an approach, and this winter promises to be particularly challenging”


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## RobinBHM (24 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> They'd also have more bargaining power by virtue of sheer size



NHS gets amongst the cheapest medicine prices in the world


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

It is of course fair comment to criticise private industries, however it is a leap of faith to assume nationalised industries would have done differently or better. Many of us remember what disasters nationalised industries were.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> NHS gets amongst the cheapest medicine prices in the world


The NHS is being “ripped off” by drug manufacturers and pharmaceutical firms who are charging as *much as £1,000 a bottle for pain-relieving mouthwash* while the government demands efficiency savings on staff and hospitals, ministers have been warned ...


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## Trainee neophyte (25 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> In theory free markets are more efficient….but they aren’t because capitalism is driven by greed.
> 
> oh and have a think about moral hazard
> 
> ...


I think that your idea of a free market and my idea of a free market are not the same thing. A free market is a market free from government interference. Your examples are all of government regulated monopoly/cartel systems, which I would say prove my point, not yours. Bankruptcy is a good, healthy and natural part of capitalism - the fact that governments try to stop it happening just means that capitalism ceases to work properly. You have to have both gains _and_ losses, otherwise creative destruction doesn't happen, and failing, inefficient systems keep on going.

This energy "crisis" is being blamed squarely on the alleged free market when it is entirely the fault of European energy planning, and I include the UK in Europe for this. The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global | OilPrice.com



> The EU dilemma is, however, a special European one. The EU has politicized energy and has been approving legislations, preaching to the world the importance of accelerating energy transition and even taking court measures to force the global oil industry to divest of its fossil fuels. In so doing, it has neglected to fill its own gas storage in anticipation of winter and forced European supermajors to reduce investments and cut production in their core business. Any wonder then why the EU is in such a mess.
> 
> The environmental policies of the EU can only adversely affect the production of fossil fuels without affecting the global demand for them thus creating deficits in the market and skyrocketing prices. These policies will weaken the global economy because it will have to spend a huge chunk of funds earmarked for investments on paying for soaring prices these fuels.





Jacob said:


> Complete nonsense - some of the biggest state monopolies are incredibly cost effective and efficient, NHS being prime example.



Well, I wouldnt dream of getting in between a man and his Guardian article. The NHS is the best healthcare provider..._in the world. _All the comparative charts put it pretty low in the pecking order, but it is the NHS so it must be good. Greece scores higher in some of these comparisons, and it is not unusual here to have to bribe your doctor to actually get treatment. Still, the NHS must be fabulous, just because. However, do consider a brown envelope of cash next time you use the NHS - it works wonders in most third world countries.


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## clogs (25 Sep 2021)

I read recently somewhere if u wanna see a UK thief, sorry I mean GP doctor
u need a £100 squids...bet thats only cash and no receipt....
not sure but isn't the average pay around £100,000 per GP....?
I like the NHS.....but not the quack GP's who use google to find out whats wrong....
PS, if u have a life threatening problem service is free....and virtually instant....

Mind, if u bribe ur NHS consultant with cash u can get ur hip replacement within a week.....very fair.....

I needed an injection of 2 drugs into my shoulder joint.....discussed over the phone...needed an X ray....
private x ray supplied for €25 euro...instant ....I walked into a shop like place....out in 10mins.....
the doc said if I pay for the drugs he'll do it straight away....
his surgery is open til 9pm....
so at 8pm walked out a painfree happy man.....
Greece is the place to be....


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## clogs (25 Sep 2021)

PS, I'm 72 and still paying taxes n social charges on what I earn here.....no problem with that....


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## planesleuth (25 Sep 2021)

omg! I get these daily emails cluttering up my inbox every day. Most of the posts are about c*** that is completely off topic. Full of old buffers rattling on about stuff seen only through their old pedantic eyes. Off topic facts drawn from wikipedia, social media and newspapers. Competing against each other to have the last say and prove their own virtue. Its the same old philosophy, absolute creator of your 'inflation' and all things aspirational from the white western world. Constant retorts on the same central themes from extreme over poster Jacob. Folks building workshops in private residential gardens with no thought for the neighbours that have to live with the noise, others bemoaning ever rising prices whilst inanely consuming much more than they need. Claiming their rights to travel, producing c*** in their sheds that the world doesn't need, addicted to the demonic internet. Why don't you all go and do something useful for the world? Then there wont any be inflation !!!!!!


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## Blackswanwood (25 Sep 2021)

planesleuth said:


> omg! I get these daily emails cluttering up my inbox every day. Most of the posts are about c*** that is completely off topic. Full of old buffers rattling on about stuff seen only through their old pedantic eyes. Off topic facts drawn from wikipedia, social media and newspapers. Competing against each other to have the last say and prove their own virtue. Its the same old philosophy, absolute creator of your 'inflation' and all things aspirational from the white western world. Constant retorts on the same central themes from extreme over poster Jacob. Folks building workshops in private residential gardens with no thought for the neighbours that have to live with the noise, others bemoaning ever rising prices whilst inanely consuming much more than they need. Claiming their rights to travel, producing c*** in their sheds that the world doesn't need, addicted to the demonic internet. Why don't you all go and do something useful for the world? Then there wont any be inflation !!!!!!


Apart from that it’s pretty good though


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

clogs said:


> I read recently somewhere if u wanna see a UK thief, sorry I mean GP doctor
> u need a £100 squids...bet thats only cash and no receipt....



You should be more careful what you read.


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## Jameshow (25 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> I think that your idea of a free market and my idea of a free market are not the same thing. A free market is a market free from government interference. Your examples are all of government regulated monopoly/cartel systems, which I would say prove my point, not yours. Bankruptcy is a good, healthy and natural part of capitalism - the fact that governments try to stop it happening just means that capitalism ceases to work properly. You have to have both gains _and_ losses, otherwise creative destruction doesn't happen, and failing, inefficient systems keep on going.
> 
> This energy "crisis" is being blamed squarely on the alleged free market when it is entirely the fault of European energy planning, and I include the UK in Europe for this. The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global | OilPrice.com
> 
> ...


Depends on how you judge it? 

If you say for the majority it is a pretty good system. If you compare it to a US system where you paid then the care is of lesser standard but you stuffed if your poor. 
Compared to Germany and France we run a very tight ship in terms if Dr + nurses + beds. Management needs to be culled imho. 

Cheers James


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## Jameshow (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> You should be more careful what you read.


Hasn't been in UK since 1947!!! 

Cheers James


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## Spectric (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Yes, if our energy companies were state owned, Russia wouldn't have put the price of gas up, would it?


I think Russia will do what Russia wants to do, they do not respond well to threats or provacation and diplomacy is really the way forward not bumbling Borris's idea of restarting the cold war because that is just going to hurt our economy big time and now he is having a go at the Chinese and their response is

"China state media warns Australia could become ‘potential target for nuclear strike’ due to new AUKUS pact" so well done Borris. I believe a strong economy is one where there is little conflict and everyone gets on together not the american way where war sells munitions and is a good boost for the economy.


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## Spectric (25 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> I think that your idea of a free market and my idea of a free market are not the same thing. A free market is a market free from government interference. Your examples are all of government regulated monopoly/cartel systems, which I would say prove my point, not yours. Bankruptcy is a good, healthy and natural part of capitalism -


Agree, if a company is viable it will survive without needing to be proped up by government or anyone else and if it sinks then let it, that is survival of the viable and gets rid of the lame. Problem with the UK governnent is they help companies that fund them, buddies, golf freinds and others who are willing to keep their bums clean, lame or otherwise so yes they should step right back and let it be a free market.


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## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Free markets are not an efficient way to deal with this.
> 
> Free markets create businesses whose purpose is to maximise profits for the shareholders not the customers.



I always thought the 'free market' was supposed to be a way of regulating the economy without taxpayer intervention.

The UK has somehow found its way into believing in the free market but ensuring it is propped up with taxpayer money. Banks? Okay for them to rake in cash and distribute it to shareholders right up until there is a crisis when, suddenly, the taxpayer has to bail them out. Why? Where have the shareholders gone? What happened to the 'free market'? Small energy supplies companies? The same! Railways?

The 'free market' is a myth. Time to renationalise.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

Yes, we all remember how hugely successful nationalised industies were.


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## Spectric (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Many of us remember what disasters nationalised industries were


Yes they had problems but it was bad management, to much of the blue or white collars, the them and us syndrome and not working as a single unit and creating lots of internal friction, probably a throwback to the so called class system. With railways it is always going to be a problem, one company owns the tracks and then others run their trains on them wheras it would be better if everything was under the control of one company then when things go wrong they cannot blame anyone else. With power you have the national grid producing, the DNO's distributing and then many companies selling what is in effect someone elses product through someone elses network, so no control over anything. In conclusion we are in a right mess in all departments with people pulling in all directions and no one at the helm, just drifting from one mess to another.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

With railways it is always going to be a problem, one company owns the tracks and then others run their trains on them wheras it would be better if everything was under the control of one company then when things go wrong they cannot blame anyone else. 

From everything I've read that was done to suit the EU. It defys common sense.


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## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Yes, we all remember how hugely successful nationalised industies were.


Well, as one who worked for a nationalised utility from 1975 to when it was privatised, I have to tell you that, in my humble opinion, they were successful. I have always believed that energy and water are essential commodities and should never have been placed in private hands. What do we have now? Essential industries that are foreign-owned cash cows, up to their eyes in debt and which can no longer be relied upon to supply affordable products to the British public. Yes, the water, gas and electricity industries should be re-nationalised.


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Your examples are all of government regulated monopoly/cartel systems, which I would say prove my point, not yours


No, it really does not.



Trainee neophyte said:


> . Bankruptcy is a good, healthy and natural part of capitalism


No

Bankruptcy is absolutely not good or healthy for privatised public services.



Trainee neophyte said:


> ou have to have both gains _and_ losses, otherwise creative destruction doesn't happen, and failing, inefficient systems keep on going



that doesn’t work with public services.

privatised public services are driven by shareholder profits not customer service.

carillion public construction contracts
train operators
care homes
energy companies
privatised prisons
privatised probation service
test and trace

All abject failures….because they are all driven by shareholder projects and for mates of Tories…..capitalist greed does not benefit the users only the shareholders.


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> All the comparative charts put it pretty low in the pecking order


That’s complete tosh.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

> ... you have to have both gains _and_ losses, otherwise creative destruction doesn't happen, and failing, inefficient systems keep on going ...


...............................................................................................................
that doesn’t work with public services. 
......................................................................................................................
Of course it doesn't. Nationalised industries aren't allowed to go bust, they just take bigger and bigger subsidies.


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Well, as one who worked for a nationalised utility from 1975 to when it was privatised, I have to tell you that, in my humble opinion, they were successful. I have always believed that energy and water are essential commodities and should never have been placed in private hands. What do we have now? Essential industries that are foreign-owned cash cows, up to their eyes in debt and which can no longer be relied upon to supply affordable products to the British public. Yes, the water, gas and electricity industries should be re-nationalised.



it’s an easy trope to argue that competition make for efficiency.

but private companies don’t care about critical infrastructure or national security.

I believe there is a big benefit on keeping the ownership of utility assets in govt hands.

Hinkley point C is madness - a French built nuclear power station with Chinese finance.….not much “taking back control”


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> ...............................................................................................................
> that doesn’t work with public services.
> ......................................................................................................................
> Of course it doesn't. Nationalised industries aren't allowed to go bust, they just take bigger and bigger subsidies.



Its good the UK govt don’t have to subsidise private businesses….like banks for example.


----------



## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> ...............................................................................................................
> that doesn’t work with public services.
> ......................................................................................................................
> Of course it doesn't. Nationalised industries aren't allowed to go bust, they just take bigger and bigger subsidies.


There is absolutely nothing that suggests nationalised industries cannot be managed effectively and efficiently. They do not have to end up as badly managed, politicised money pits such as the NHS is.


----------



## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> it’s an easy trope to argue that competition make for efficiency.
> 
> but private companies don’t care about critical infrastructure or national security.
> 
> ...


I could not agree more. The UK government is responsible for ensuring energy and water supply, not France or China. It is clear that the EDF/China contract is intended to be paid for by energy customers, whereas any such infrastructure should be delivered as part of a comprehensive energy strategy financed by the Treasury (i.e. it should be owned by the UK, not a foreign government). The current clown government is pushing the UK towards a 'green' future (IMHO a waste of time and money) where it should be investing heavily in nuclear generation to meet the UKs energy needs. Solar and wind generation are commendable, but unreliable (I don't need contrary arguments on this, please. Sometimes the sun does not shine and sometimes the wind does not blow. End of argument). The gas shortage in September shows how far wrong the current energy strategy is by insisting on reliance on foreign energy supplies. How stupid. People could die if this happens in winter.


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## Jacob (25 Sep 2021)

Phil Pascoe said:


> ...............................................................................................................
> that doesn’t work with public services.
> ......................................................................................................................
> Of course it doesn't. Nationalised industries aren't allowed to go bust, they just take bigger and bigger subsidies.


Would you be happy to have the NHS or the Fire Service go bust?


----------



## Jacob (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> ..... They do not have to end up as badly managed, politicised money pits such as the NHS is.


Where do you pick up this tosh from? It's not difficult to check facts nowadays.



is the nhs cost effective - Google Search



This is 10 years old but nothing has changed, other than tory mismanagement and slow sabotage as a prelude to privatisation:








NHS among developed world's most efficient health systems, says study


Report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine finds health service second only to Ireland for cost-effectiveness




www.theguardian.com




_Not only was the UK cheaper, says the paper, it saved more lives. The NHS reduced the number of adult deaths a million of the population by 3,951 a year – far better than the nearest comparable European countries. France managed 2,779 lives a year and Germany 2,395._


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## Jacob (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> ..... Solar and wind generation are commendable, but unreliable (I don't need contrary arguments on this, please. Sometimes the sun does not shine and sometimes the wind does not blow. End of argument). .....


Nuclear power stations fail sometimes disastrously. "I don't need contrary arguments on this, please."  








Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org




World reliance on nuclear power would mean the world ending with a bigger bang or whimper, but perhaps a few years later.


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## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Where do you pick up this tosh from? It's not difficult to check facts nowadays.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Tosh? Jacob, outside of the world of woodwork I could not care less for anything you might think or say. It says it all that you provide a paper from The Guardian as serious evidence of how good the NHS is. For the record, I believe the NHS to be world class at critical care. Beyond that, I believe it to be very much overdue for reform.


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> There is absolutely nothing that suggests nationalised industries cannot be managed effectively and efficiently. They do not have to end up as badly managed, politicised money pits such as the NHS is.



Only history.


----------



## Jacob (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Tosh? Jacob, outside of the world of woodwork I could not care less for anything you might think or say. It says it all that you provide a paper from The Guardian as serious evidence of how good the NHS is. For the record, I believe the NHS to be world class at critical care. Beyond that, I believe it to be very much overdue for reform.


Not so much "overdue for reform" more or case of resisting the wind-down and under-investment of recent years. Reform is a continuous process anyway but the last thing we would want is "badly managed, politicised money pit" such as they have in the USA.


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## selectortone (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Well, as one who worked for a nationalised utility from 1975 to when it was privatised, I have to tell you that, in my humble opinion, they were successful. I have always believed that energy and water are essential commodities and should never have been placed in private hands. What do we have now? Essential industries that are foreign-owned cash cows, up to their eyes in debt and which can no longer be relied upon to supply affordable products to the British public. Yes, the water, gas and electricity industries should be re-nationalised.


Back in the 80s and 90s I worked for companies supplying process control equipment to heavy industries in the UK, including back then several that were state owned - electricity generation (CEGB), water and sewage treatment (the Water Authorities), British Gas at al. The people I met - process engineers, instrument engineers, control room operators, maintenance staff - were, by and large, conscientious and proud to be involved in the common good of providing essential services. When these industries started to be sold off the light went out of their eyes as the common good became secondary to the bottom line. Savage cuts, redundancies, questionable safety practices.

I have a good friend who was a supervisor at British Telecomm. I saw the light go out of his eyes after that was privatised. Someone please convince me that what we have now from BT is better than the old days.

Now, I'm no communist. I uderstand the benefits of the stock market and the implications that has on my pensions. But those essential industries are now top heavy with bean counters and admin people whose prime goal is to make a profit for their shareholders. Profit is the end product, not essential services. Fine, in a regulated stock market. But when you read about what went on before the 2008 crash - selling sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, packageing up those mortgages into arcane instruments and selling them into the market, then betting on them to fail. Our essential services are now at the mercy of these people.

I thank heaven the government knows that selling off what's left of the NHS would be death at the ballot box or that would be gone too. And then where would we be?


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Tosh? Jacob, outside of the world of woodwork I could not care less for anything you might think or say. It says it all that you provide a paper from The Guardian as serious evidence of how good the NHS is. For the record, I believe the NHS to be world class at critical care. Beyond that, I believe it to be very much overdue for reform.




the NHS isn’t due for reform, what needs to happen is govts need to stop robbing the NHS for personal gain….it’s a clever decoy “oh look it’s a public service”….well not so much, sure taxpayers money goes in…..but then gets diverted into PFIs, private healthcare businesses…..which have govt connections. (I’m not being political, more than one party have done this)




here is a quote from a detailed joint report by Ifs:

• Overall, our analysis shows that the NHS performs neither as well as its supporters sometimes claim nor as badly as its critics often allege. Compared with health systems in similar countries, it has some significant strengths but also some notable weaknesses.
• Its main weakness is health care outcomes. The UK appears to perform less well than similar countries on the overall rate at which people die when successful medical care could have saved their lives.
• Although the gap has closed over the last decade for stroke and several forms
of cancer, the mortality rate in the UK among people treated for some of the biggest causes of death, including cancer, heart attacks and stroke, is higher than average among comparable countries. The UK also has high rates of child mortality around birth.
• Among its strengths, the NHS does better than health systems in comparable countries
at protecting people from heavy financial costs when they are ill. People in the UK are also less likely than in other countries to be put off from seeking medical help due to costs.
• Waiting times for treatment in the UK appear to be roughly in line with those of similar countries and patient experience generally compares well.
• While data is limited, the NHS seems to be relatively efficient, with low administrative costs and high use of cheaper generic medicines.
• The NHS appears to perform well in managing certain long-term illnesses, including diabetes.
• Health care spending in the UK is slightly lower than the average in comparable countries, both in terms of the proportion of national income spent on health care and in terms of spending per person.
• The UK has markedly fewer doctors and nurses than similar countries, relative to the size of its population, and fewer CT scanners and MRI machines


https://ifs.org.uk/uploads/HEAJ6319-How-good-is-the-NHS-180625-WEB.pdf


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## evildrome (25 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> The fun part is if/when the eurodollar/petrodollar system stops, whereupon all those trillions of unwanted dollars and pounds run back home to mummy in eyewatering numbers.



Its not as bad as you think.

Well... its not as bad as you think if you're not part of the ruling elite, whose message you are constantly fed by the MSM.

What happens if you lose the WRC? Well, your currency takes a massive hit. 

While bankers are throwing themselves out of windows, people who actually *make* stuff are inundated with new orders.

When the UK lost WRC status, GBP dropped 20% and it kicked off the longest export led growth streak in UK history.

Being WRC means your currency is always artificially hard because people need your currency to settle international transactions (in much the same way they needed Gold during the Gold standard.)

This means that your finance sector does very well at the expense of your manufacturing sector.

Being WRC is, in many ways, a curse. Which is why JMK suggested the "Bancor" which would be a non-tradeable international settlement currency. 

Harry Dexter White decided that he knew better, but Keynes had the last laugh. 

Everything he said would come true about the USD being WRC, has come true.

(BTW he predicted the use of QE in 1936 !)


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## evildrome (25 Sep 2021)

selectortone said:


> Back in the 80s and 90s I worked for companies supplying process control equipment to heavy industries in the UK, including back then several that were state owned - electricity generation (CEGB), water and sewage treatment (the Water Authorities), British Gas at al. The people I met - process engineers, instrument engineers, control room operators, maintenance staff - were, by and large, conscientious and proud to be involved in the common good of providing essential services. When these industries started to be sold off the light went out of their eyes as the common good became secondary to the bottom line. Savage cuts, redundancies, questionable safety practices.




*Public ownership saves money*


Public ownership of water would save* £2.5 billion* a year - investing this could reduce leakage levels by a third.

Public ownership of energy networks would save *£3.7 billion* a year - enough to buy 222 new offshore wind turbines.

Public ownership of rail would save* £1 billion* a year - enough to buy 100 miles of new railway track.

Public ownership of buses would save *£506 million* a year - enough to buy 1,356 new electric buses.

Public ownership of Royal Mail would save *£171 million* a year - enough to open 342 new Crown Post Offices with postbanks.

Ending the internal market in the NHS would save at least *£4.5 billion* a year - enough to pay for extra staff - 72,000 nurses and 20,000 doctors.

We're wasting £250 million every single week on privatisation.


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## Jameshow (25 Sep 2021)

Wrc??? 

Cheers James


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## Richard_C (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Well, as one who worked for a nationalised utility from 1975 to when it was privatised, I have to tell you that, in my humble opinion, they were successful. I have always believed that energy and water are essential commoditie



Most of our water infrastructure, including the stunningly well designed pipeline from Thirlmere in the Lake District to Manchester which requires only a couple of uplift pumps in all those miles, was built by water boards run by local authorities, built for the public good. Thatcher's Government starved the utilities of investment capital and wouldn't let them borrow on the bond market. so of course they looked better after privatisation when they could borrow money to maintain and improve to meet increased demand. The latecomer private owners got all those assets for nothing. It's easy to appear successful when you get given stuff. If it had been left to the private sector, people in our cities would have been emptying their chamber pots into the middle of the street and getting typhoid from the water pump.


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## Jacob (25 Sep 2021)

Richard_C said:


> ..... It's easy to appear successful when you get given stuff. .....


And it's easy to walk away when it becomes unprofitable - which is the principle reason for utilities needing to stay in public ownership


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> And it's easy to walk away when it becomes unprofitable


Yes, moral hazard.

carillion is a classic example - it constantly under quoted for govt tenders then didn’t care when it couldn’t deliver


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## AlanY (25 Sep 2021)

selectortone said:


> Back in the 80s and 90s I worked for companies supplying process control equipment to heavy industries in the UK, including back then several that were state owned - electricity generation (CEGB), water and sewage treatment (the Water Authorities), British Gas at al. The people I met - process engineers, instrument engineers, control room operators, maintenance staff - were, by and large, conscientious and proud to be involved in the common good of providing essential services. When these industries started to be sold off the light went out of their eyes as the common good became secondary to the bottom line. Savage cuts, redundancies, questionable safety practices.
> 
> I have a good friend who was a supervisor at British Telecomm. I saw the light go out of his eyes after that was privatised. Someone please convince me that what we have now from BT is better than the old days.
> 
> ...


None of the utilities is better than before privatisation. The public pay more than ever before in energy charges, with so-called 'competition' being little more than a scam. Same as smart metering is little more than a scam. Same as the renewables levy is little more than a scam. And now, because the gas distributors (Transco?) were allowed to reduce the amount of gas stored (to reduce costs), UK customers will be facing the choice of switching off gas central heating or paying extortionate prices to stay warm. 

The vertical market used to work to the industry's benefit, now it just introduces additional steps at which profit must be made and distributed to shareholders. It used to be:

Generation costs + Transmission costs + Distribution costs + 'profit' margin = supply cost to customers.

Now it is:

Generation costs (+ profit margin) + Transmission costs (+ profit margin) + Distribution costs (+ profit margin) + Suppliers profit margin = supply cost to customer

Too simplified, I know, but I am feeling grumpy and have to walk the dogs.


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## Terry - Somerset (25 Sep 2021)

Making generic statements about the merits or otherwise of privatisation based on circumstances today is a nonsense. The bulk of privatisatons took place 30-40 years ago, since when governments of both shades have had the opportunity to make changes.

The culture of the nationalised industries embodied a very professional concern - partly rooted in the dominance of a colonial Britain in which the world was largely coloured red.

This culture failed to recognise that Britain had become by the mid 1970s a largely failing nation. Nationalised industries failed to understand they existed to provide a service to the public, and saw their only priority as protecting national and professional interests.. 

Circumstances have changed radically - but the idea of having to wait possibly months to get a phone connected, or only being able to buy gas appliances through a monopolistic Gas Board would today rightly be regarded as utterly absurd.

Research generally shows that privatisation was very successful in initially delivering financial and operating efficoences. It is less clear how the "national interest" critical infrastructure fared as few success criteria were set.

Weaknesses have become clear over the intervening decades:

basic industry structures being flawed from the outset - eg: rail
some poor regulation which has allowed the profit motive to overly dominate the national interest - eg: energy resilience?
changes in technology - eg: telecoms, media, communications
I do not believe the option to renationalise generally makes any sense - although there may be some case for the rail network (probably the biggest failure). It would be complex and expensive with even less justification for the chaos so caused than the original privatisation.

More effective regulation would be far better, achieve critical national interest goal, be far, far less disruptive, and preserve the impetus the profit motive delivers to progress and efficiency.


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## Flynnwood (25 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> Too simplified, I know, but I am feeling grumpy and have to walk the dogs.


The dogs are happy that you look after them. And give betterment to you. (OP)


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## doctor Bob (25 Sep 2021)

Has anyone been called a nazi yet?
Haven’t posted for a while been filling the bath with petrol.


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## jcassidy (25 Sep 2021)

evildrome said:


> While we're here lets dispel some economic myths.
> 
> 1) Central Banks do not control the money supply. 97% of money is created by banks. Banks control the money supply.



You were doing so well up to this point.
This is a common misunderstanding of how fractional banking works, which is like this;

All banks are required to keep a certain amount of money on reserve, so there's cash in the till when people come looking for it. A portion of this must be held on reserve with the country's central bank.
When the central bank wants to create money, it simply adjusts this reserve - it invents money out of nothing.

Say Johns Very Honest Bank (or JVHB, as Wall Street calls it!) has £1,000 on reserve with the Bank of England. Now say the BoE wants to encourage spending. They adjust JVHB's reserve so suddenly, we have £1,100 on reserve. Free money! Fantastic! Let's spend it!

Let's say JVHB has to keep a round 10% of it's cash on reserve. That means, of this £100 the BoH has kindly given me, I can spend £90.

So I loan £90 to Jacobs Socialist Combine (JSC). I have an IOU from Jacob saying he owes me £90, and I give him £90 in cash.
Now, this is where it get's complicated.
I have £10 cash, and £90 IOU from Jacob. So my books show £100.
Jacob has £90 in cash. So now there's £190 in cash in circulation - but we only created £100!!!

Say Jacob, having betrayed his socialist principles in pursuit of profit, is also a bank - he loans money out. He has to keep 10%, so he loans £81 to Davids Chiselmakers Cooperative, who actually makes things.

Now there is £100 + £90 + £81 of money in the economy, but the BoE only created £100.
[/quote]



evildrome said:


> 2) Government 'debt' isn't debt. Its private sector savings at the central bank. Do the math. If you can print money, why would you borrow it?



Governments printing money is universally held to be a very bad idea. Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela. Etc. Etc. Etc. Show me an example where that worked. The ECB is not legally allowed to give money to governments and it's programmes of buying govt debt off secondary markets is on very shakey legal ground, the longer these programmes go on, the likelier that the militantly pro-austerity Germans will win their case.



evildrome said:


> 4) There's no such thing as 'tax payers money'. All taxes are destroyed on receipt. If you can print an unlimited amount of money, why would you need someone else's money?



What? As above, Governments (modern ones anyway) can't just print money.



evildrome said:


> To control inflation. So, what can you not do with money you remove from the economy in order to control inflation?



This is where money is destroyed. 
Let's say the ECB buys €100 of bond from JVHB for a week. It creates the money to buy the bond from thin air by adjusting the reserve of JVHB by €100.

When JVHB buy the bond back, plus a bit of interest, the interest is paid to the government as profit, and the capital is simply deleted by reducing the reserve of JVHB by€100.



evildrome said:


> Spend it. You can't spend it.
> 
> Technically, all money is created as an IOU. So when one pound is created it is created as a one pound 'liability' of the state and a one pound private 'asset'.
> 
> When that pound is returned to the state, the liability is extinguished. Poof! Gone. No money.



Not quite correct, the IOU is with the Central Bank, not the national government. 

Hope this helps.


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## Spectric (25 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Hinkley point C is madness - a French built nuclear power station with Chinese finance.….not much “taking back control”


and don't forget we are contracted in to pay a very high price per unit, £92 per megawatt hour plus inflation that was set before renewables drove the price right down to around £42 per megawatt hour as well as providing site security at our cost and as far as I am aware we are also liable for decomisioning and storing the waste for the next several hundred years. French economy should do ok, it is costing £23 billion plus it's carbon footprint to date is going to take many years before they get anywhere near neutral, they have been moving thousands of workers onto site for years in fleets of buses not to mention all that concrete which although bad for the climate must be good for the economy.


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## RobinBHM (25 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> and don't forget we are contracted in to pay a very high price per unit, £92 per megawatt hour plus inflation that was set before renewables drove the price right down to around £42 per megawatt hour as well as providing site security at our cost and as far as I am aware we are also liable for decomisioning and storing the waste for the next several hundred years. French economy should do ok, it is costing £23 billion plus it's carbon footprint to date is going to take many years before they get anywhere near neutral, they have been moving thousands of workers onto site for years in fleets of buses not to mention all that concrete which although bad for the climate must be good for the economy.



I was on holiday in Somerset a couple of years ago….and drove home through Bridgewater -A few of those Hinckley double decker buses went past me.


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## cowtown_eric (26 Sep 2021)

when an economist gets really good, they become weaatherpeople presenters! Known that for a long time I have!

Eric in the colonies


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## Blackswanwood (26 Sep 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> Has anyone been called a nazi yet?
> Haven’t posted for a while been filling the bath with petrol.


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## Jameshow (26 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> and don't forget we are contracted in to pay a very high price per unit, £92 per megawatt hour plus inflation that was set before renewables drove the price right down to around £42 per megawatt hour as well as providing site security at our cost and as far as I am aware we are also liable for decomisioning and storing the waste for the next several hundred years. French economy should do ok, it is costing £23 billion plus it's carbon footprint to date is going to take many years before they get anywhere near neutral, they have been moving thousands of workers onto site for years in fleets of buses not to mention all that concrete which although bad for the climate must be good for the economy.


Sadly we don't have the gumption to build it. Too busy asset stripping our own construction firms and under quoting for maintaince jobs. 

My dad's old firm foster wheeler gone to the wall due to buy outs. 

Cheers James


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Making generic statements about the merits or otherwise of privatisation based on circumstances today is a nonsense. The bulk of privatisatons took place 30-40 years ago, since when governments of both shades have had the opportunity to make changes.


Changes still needed


> ....
> I do not believe the option to renationalise generally makes any sense - .....


This is not "generally" proposed. Only "particularly" as necessary


> More effective regulation would be far better, achieve critical national interest goal, be far, far less disruptive, and preserve the impetus the profit motive delivers to progress and efficiency.


Wishful thinking. 
The profit motive may lead to progress and efficiency, or it may lead to exploitation and greed with massive handouts to shareholders and management, or mere asset stripping and closure. 
It also leads to low wages and insecurity - placing a burden on the workers themselves and other parts of the economy. One thing it certainly does do is resist forward looking planning and investment, in favour of short termism and profit now.
In the end the state picks up the tab for the failings. It is not safe to leave essential utilities and services in the hands of speculators and gamblers, as history has showed over and over again


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## doctor Bob (26 Sep 2021)

The great thing about forum debates is how you can see people’s attitudes change through debate, for example Jacob used to be a very left wing socialist, yet through 2 decades of internet debate and reasoning he has become a very left wing socialist. This my friends is what internet debating can achieve over time.

Anyway no time for this, need to arrange my bog roll collection in year dates.


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> The great thing about forum debates is how you can see people’s attitudes change through debate, for example Jacob used to be a very left wing socialist, yet through 2 decades of internet debate and reasoning he has become a very left wing socialist. This my friends is what internet debating can achieve over time.


Wrong. If anything I've moved much further to the left, having been forced to look at things more closely. 
Perhaps it's inevitable and affects a lot of people the same way, to a little extent even yourself Bobby?
One thing which stands out is that the right tend to come across more and more like marginalised head bangers!


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## doctor Bob (26 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Wrong. If anything I've moved much further to the left, having been forced to look at things more closely.
> Perhaps it's inevitable and affects a lot of people the same way, to a little extent even yourself Bobby?
> One thing which stands out is that the right tend to come across more and more like marginalised head bangers!



Still your pleasant self Jacob, good morning to you.


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## Jameshow (26 Sep 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> The great thing about forum debates is how you can see people’s attitudes change through debate, for example Jacob used to be a very left wing socialist, yet through 2 decades of internet debate and reasoning he has become a very left wing socialist. This my friends is what internet debating can achieve over time.
> 
> Anyway no time for this, need to arrange my bog roll collection in year dates.


Don't forget to turn the bath taps off, petrol all over the floor is no good for the finish.......


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## Spectric (26 Sep 2021)

The problems are the ones we create or allow to be created, really great at causing a problem just not so good at solving. It is blatantly obvious how far we are into devolution and the world of utter stupidity when you cannot make a statement like " a woman has a cervix" which is no different than saying liquid nitrogen is very cold or an elephant has a trunk, all are statements of fact and ones beyond our ability to change. So how will the economy fair in this type of enviroment, one where we start to not accept reality and move into the world of fantasy, one where you just dismiss the obvious!

Then do we really have a fuel shortage or is it the creation of media hype, had there been no panic buying then our local garage would not have ran out, they sold a weeks delivery in a day! But getting extra ones to boost their profits whilst everyone tries to outstrip supply and many not realising there is a legal limit on how much fuel they can carry in containers.


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## clogs (26 Sep 2021)

no rush for Petrol/Diesel here, bog rolls and plaster board as well as cement is in good supply.....
Plenty of sunshine as well...
must take the dogs to the beach again (with poo bags) tomorrow....hahaha....

what was one of the basic sayings in "The A team"....u suckers...lol......

dont sit on ur buttocks and do nothing and voting labour wont help as they are totally useless.....
they pretend to help the workers etc but they really feed the problem whilst filling their pockets along with all the social scroungers n migrants.........
Give me a lab gov that did any real good since or during the reign of the pipe smoking silly person willson........

How a bit of forward planning.....oh, dont make me laugh.....
all they can think about is the next election....and troughing it again....

IF politions want to be trusted, how about full disclosure of monies and assets....they should have nothing to hide, Blair and Cameron make good examples...
that should whittle a few down....

as it happens if I'm gonna be ripped of by the government I prefer the "T" team to the hidden privileged, privatley schooled Putin lovin commies in the L team......

just glad I'm out of it.....just so u know, all the self employed engineers, printers, plumbers I knew all sold up and left the UK....that's pretty much everyone I did business with...
I wonder why......?????


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## Felipe (26 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Oops - should have replied to this earlier - sorry.
> 
> Free markets are far _more_ efficient, because they include innovation, and creative destruction. Monopolies of whatever flavour stifle innovation on purpose in order to continue as they are. Rather the point of a monopoly, in fact - fear of competition. A government monopoly will never admit to being wrong, and will wrongheadedly grind on for no reason, while the hangers on fleece the system and profit mightily. Jacob's comment on the Afghanistan war is a fine example of monopoly behaviour - hardly cutting edge and innovative to blow up goatherders for the umpty third time, just because.



have you studied in depth how China plans and organize its economy? They show a very intelligent planned economy that has no free market, but state filter to what lives and what dies, plus it was designed to exploit international capitalism.


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> have you studied in depth how China plans and organize its economy? They show a very intelligent planned economy that has no free market, but state filter to what lives and what dies, plus it was designed to exploit international capitalism.


_"Scholars have proposed a number of theories to explain China's successful transition from a planned to a socialist market economy."_




__





Chinese economic reform - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org




The future is beginning to look Chinese. They are moving rapidly ahead on sustainable energy and on other fronts.
Nothing is perfect but the last thing they want is free market nonsense as per Hayek et al, let alone drivelling berks like Johnson and Farage


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## Spectric (26 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> The future is beginning to look Chinese.


It is certainly one of the most common words you find in most places, it is on everything around the house. Imagine how different the world would be now if China had not gone into that period of closed to the world, the future is asian if not just chinese. How long now before we have the chinese equivalent to the cuban crisis, if we arm Australia then they can do the same to any asian country.


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## Felipe (26 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> It is certainly one of the most common words you find in most places, it is on everything around the house. Imagine how different the world would be now if China had not gone into that period of closed to the world, the future is asian if not just chinese. How long now before we have the chinese equivalent to the cuban crisis, if we arm Australia then they can do the same to any asian country.


I cannot not think of Blade Runner whenever I read that or think about China expansion. 
but countries are shifting to defend their industrial parks, that will reshape multinational capitalism.


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## AlanY (26 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> ...
> Then do we really have a fuel shortage or is it the creation of media hype, had there been no panic buying then our local garage would not have ran out, they sold a weeks delivery in a day! But getting extra ones to boost their profits whilst everyone tries to outstrip supply and many not realising there is a legal limit on how much fuel they can carry in containers.


Nah, the shortage is one created by PR men who understand human nature. Drop a hint that 'some' filling stations have been closed due to a shortage of drivers, get the MSM to run the story and...Bingo! you have caused an already insecure public to go into panic mode. Filling stations will close because the 'shortage' will drive up prices, so better to hold on to your existing stock for a few days and sell it at a 20% premium than let it go now. The whole thing is a bad joke. Worst of it is that the artificially inflated prices will stay with us long after the 'shortage' expires. For example, back when oil prices hit $120 per barrel, diesel prices hit £1.30 per litre, up fro something like 80p per litre. Today, with oil prices at $78 per barrel I have seen diesel prices at £1.48 at some filling stations near Chichester. The absolute laugh of it, though, is that pricing is considered to be a primary tool for managing demand and this plays a big part in the government's 'green' strategy. Yet it does not stop people filling up their tank! The rich get richer...


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> ,,,,,,,,,
> but countries are shifting to defend their industrial parks, that will reshape multinational capitalism.


Not if it's left to private industry and the free market - that's what brings in Chinese goods and weakens the importers national industries. Another good reason for staying in the EU - more power to act as a member of a larger group.


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

AlanY said:


> ....... The absolute laugh of it, though, is that pricing is considered to be a primary tool for managing demand and this plays a big part in the government's 'green' strategy. Yet it does not stop people filling up their tank! The rich get richer...


Prices not high enough to manage demand in any meaningful way. They should have been progressively cranked up from way back in response to climate change. Not much green strategy apparent yet!


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## Terry - Somerset (26 Sep 2021)

Price is not a direct determinant of demand. Demand is elastic only to the extent that people can:

modify behaviours in response to a price change - difficult short term, change job, kids to local schools, shop locally?
have alternatives - often don't realistically exist due to the dominance of the car
find the increased price a reason to actively change behaviours - petrol and diesel are incredibly cheap. 
If I ask myself the question "at what point would I materially and immediately change behaviour", I suspect the answer may be at around £3 per litre.

This would increase my annual expenditure by ~£1500 pa. A useful chunk of money but hardly a deal breaker (I accept it may be for some). In context - a daily Costa coffe + a newspaper 5 days a week will cost ~£2500 pa.


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## Jacob (26 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Price is not a direct determinant of demand. Demand is elastic only to the extent that people can:
> 
> modify behaviours in response to a price change - difficult short term, change job, kids to local schools, shop locally?
> have alternatives - often don't realistically exist due to the dominance of the car
> ...


This is why it should have been phased in from some years ago with progressive increase in tax so that people could adjust and also see what was coming. If these things are done suddenly there can be could be chaos, as with Brexit.
I'm amazed that nothing is being done about unnecessary fuel usage such as people bombing about in oversized vehicles, weekend leisure vehicles such as motor bikes , light aircraft etc.


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## Trainee neophyte (26 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> have you studied in depth how China plans and organize its economy? They show a very intelligent planned economy that has no free market, but state filter to what lives and what dies, plus it was designed to exploit international capitalism.


In depth, no - but I am aware of the differences in both their economic and political systems (if you can differentiate the two, that is).

The left seems to believe that China is the great new savior of the working man, with a government that allegedly acts in the best interests of the people. Interestingly China is actually more democratic than your average western country, except at the executive level. Again allegedly, as I haven't been there to see for myself, and I'm not sure I would actually understand it all if I went on on a whistle-stop tour of Chinese local committees. However, it would be tricky to be less democratic the the UK without actively taking the jackboot and sharp uniform route (see Australia for pointers).

So will China liberate the workers of the world and create a new shining city on the hill? Probably not, because culturally they are somewhat more insular and homogenous than the multi- culti west. Oh, and they remember the Opium Wars, and they are not pleased.


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## Flynnwood (26 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> The future is beginning to look Chinese.


Watch Evergrande over the next little while.
(642) Evergrande - China Faces a Potential Lehman Moment - YouTube


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## RobinBHM (26 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> The left seems to believe that China is the great new savior of the working man


Really?

I can’t begin to imagine how you reached that conclusion.


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## woodieallen (26 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> This is why it should have been phased in from some years ago with progressive increase in tax so that people could adjust and also see what was coming. If these things are done suddenly there can be could be chaos, as with Brexit.
> I'm amazed that nothing is being done about unnecessary fuel usage such as people bombing about in oversized vehicles, weekend leisure vehicles such as motor bikes , light aircraft etc.



You disappoint me. Surely Mummy driving Sebastian daily to his private school falls into your purview of wasteful use of resources ?


----------



## woodieallen (26 Sep 2021)

Felipe said:


> have you studied in depth how China plans and organize its economy? They show a very intelligent planned economy that has no free market, but state filter to what lives and what dies, ...



And who dies ?


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## woodieallen (26 Sep 2021)

evildrome said:


> *Public ownership saves money*
> 
> 
> Public ownership of water would save* £2.5 billion* a year - investing this could reduce leakage levels by a third.
> ...



These are all very questionable and selective links.


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## Terry - Somerset (26 Sep 2021)

China has unquestionably worked out how to win the capitalist game in the 21st century. They use money, influence and commerce to attain global economic dominance. 

The US hasn't moved on in 75 years since the end of WW2, still believing the cowboy ethos that firepower is economic power.

Russia still play the "baddies" as a foil to the US.

Europe fiddles but have at least avoided most internal conflict. Individual countries are not world powers, together they might (no guarantees) be if a federal Europe ever happens. 

Internally China is not a socialist country. It is now a rampant market economy. tightly regulated by its government who are concerned only that internal activity drives international success. Concern for individual rights and fairness seems secondary.


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## Jontherobber (27 Sep 2021)

clogs said:


> no rush for Petrol/Diesel here, bog rolls and plaster board as well as cement is in good supply.....
> Plenty of sunshine as well...
> must take the dogs to the beach again (with poo bags) tomorrow....hahaha....
> 
> ...


----------



## Jacob (27 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> China has unquestionably worked out how to win the capitalist game in the 21st century. They use money, influence and commerce to attain global economic dominance.


They didn't do it against any opposition from the west - the naive faith in free markets says buy Chinese if it's cheaper/better.


> .......
> Internally China is not a socialist country. It is now a rampant market economy. tightly regulated by its government who are concerned only that internal activity drives international success. Concern for individual rights and fairness seems secondary.


They are also concerned about sheer survival apropos climate change, which trumps all other issues to be realistic.


----------



## Trainee neophyte (27 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Really?
> 
> I can’t begin to imagine how you reached that conclusion.


By reading. Quite often by reading things that aren't the parochial, UK - centric dross that passes as "news". You should give it a spin sometime.




Terry - Somerset said:


> Concern for individual rights and fairness seems secondary.


There is a long history of Chinese dynasties losing the Mandate of Heaven, and being overthrown. The current incumbents seem to base their decisions on the idea that bringing the maximum number of people out of poverty is good. How does your government measure up in that regard?


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## Terry - Somerset (27 Sep 2021)

Suggesting China are concerned about climate change is fatuous.

Last year they brought on stream 38.4 GW of capacity with yet more still planned. Coal has been the means through which they have achieved global manufacturing dominance.

The most recently built still operational UK coal fired power station opened in 1981 - 40 years ago. It is due for closure in the next couple of years.

What may be the case is that when China decides the time is right to make a transition to green technologies, the transition will be quick.


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## Jacob (27 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Suggesting China are concerned about climate change is fatuous.


You haven't been following the news obviously.
Even though it has greatest CO2 national footprint China is still well down the list of CO2 emissions *per capita* with half of the USA figure CO2 Emissions per Capita - Worldometer and is catching up rapidly with sustainable energy and is likely to be the world major supplier of the technology


> ...
> 
> What may be the case is that when China decides the time is right to make a transition to green technologies, the transition will be quick.


That is rather the point and it is happening. “Greening” China: An analysis of Beijing’s sustainable development strategies. "_China's green technologies have benefited greatly from national R&D efforts. ... In 2019, China even held the highest number of world-class patents in three fields for future green technologies: *recycling, water, and waste treatment*. China is also on its way to the global forefront of renewable energy technologies."_


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## jcassidy (27 Sep 2021)

So as regards China, there's two things.

China may well be on the way to leading the world in blah-blah-blah, because dissent is not tolerated. 
If Boris or Biden tried to muscle industry and public into 'greener' fuel sources, there's be pretty predictable problems bringing people along with the plan.

In China, there's the Party Way, or... actually, there isn't an "or".

Secondly, much of the world doesn't share the West's concern for personal rights, freedoms, what have you. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The right to bodily integrity. Right to a fair trial - define 'fair'!


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## Jacob (27 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> So as regards China, there's two things.
> 
> China may well be on the way to leading the world in blah-blah-blah, because dissent is not tolerated.
> If Boris or Biden tried to muscle industry and public into 'greener' fuel sources, there's be pretty predictable problems bringing people along with the plan.
> ...


The trouble is; climate change also "doesn't share the West's concern for personal rights, freedoms, what have you. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The right to bodily integrity. Right to a fair trial"


----------



## jcassidy (27 Sep 2021)

Absolutely Jacob, but history didn't start with humans and it won't end with humans neither. We're not killing the planet, we're just gonna kill ourselves.

Not for a long time, hopefully...


----------



## Jameshow (27 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> You haven't been following the news obviously.
> Even though it has greatest CO2 national footprint China is still well down the list of CO2 emissions *per capita* with half of the USA figure CO2 Emissions per Capita - Worldometer and is catching up rapidly with sustainable energy and is likely to be the world major supplier of the technologyThat is rather the point and it is happening. “Greening” China: An analysis of Beijing’s sustainable development strategies. "_China's green technologies have benefited greatly from national R&D efforts. ... In 2019, China even held the highest number of world-class patents in three fields for future green technologies: *recycling, water, and waste treatment*. China is also on its way to the global forefront of renewable energy technologies."_



From the doc above :- 
"Beijing has not yet imposed strict limits on Chinese investments in carbon-intensive projects abroad. And China is still banking on “dirty” energy sources, even though it is a leader on annual installments of renewable energy.10 Nonetheless, China added almost 20 gigawatts (GWs) of coal power capacity in the first half of 2020, and approved an additional 48 GWs from new coal plants – more than Germany’s entire coal fleet.11 Furthermore, the launch of China’s emissions trading scheme, which was officially announced in 2017 and slated for nation-wide implementation in 2020, has recently been postponed.

Hardly green!! 

Cheers James


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## Jacob (27 Sep 2021)

Jameshow said:


> From the doc above :-
> "Beijing has not yet imposed strict limits on Chinese investments in carbon-intensive projects abroad. And China is still banking on “dirty” energy sources, even though it is a leader on annual installments of renewable energy.10 Nonetheless, China added almost 20 gigawatts (GWs) of coal power capacity in the first half of 2020, and approved an additional 48 GWs from new coal plants – more than Germany’s entire coal fleet.11 Furthermore, the launch of China’s emissions trading scheme, which was officially announced in 2017 and slated for nation-wide implementation in 2020, has recently been postponed.
> 
> Hardly green!!
> ...











China commits to ending foreign coal projects


In a major step towards eliminating coal, Chinese President Xi Jinping has used his anticipated address at the UN General Assembly to pledge an end to building new coal-fired projects abroad.




eandt.theiet.org




China moving slowly greener and is already out performing USA on CO2 per capita footprint.


----------



## TominDales (27 Sep 2021)

nd ma


Flynnwood said:


> Good day,
> I want to understand what is driving inflation in the private sector (world-wide, not just UK).
> 
> If it was Governments debt (public sector), I would "get it".
> ...


You ask a very good simple question. - Just seen this thread.
The simple answer is: Inflation happens when demand exceeds supply. We have that situation right now.

Typically inflation happens when workers and assets are fully utilised so they cant meet demand. Prices and wages rise due to this shortage. That is what historically produced the 5 year business cycle.

Over the past 25 years inflation has been at comparably low levels as new workers came on stream in Asia - mainly China in vast numbers. These workers had been (comparatively) unproductive working in fields in subsistence farming and then moved into modern factories producing the worlds goods. This caused supply to meet or exceed growing demand pretty well continuously for the past 25 years. The world grew fast without inflation.

The situation right now, is that global supply and demand was turned off by the pandemic for 15 months, followed by a rapid pick up in demand as people have come out of isolation. It takes time to turn all the factories and shipping lines back on in an orderly way. This is causing supply chain shortages across the globe. This effect is magnified because governments globally kept their people and economies ticking over on furlough schemes. Furlough paid people to consume but not produce. We now have lots of personal savings and government borrowed cash being spent at all at once. Furthermore people arnt fully fully productive yet, (still got isolation, pings etc) so supply is tight in many industries. We now have a situation than even Chinas massive output cant meet global supply. The fundamental driver of low inflation isn't there at the moment.
Energy is another global inflationary factor. Oil and gas were racked back 15 months ago, oil prices even went negative for a while. The result was a racking back of supply in Russia opec etc. Now demand is back, but it suits Opec etc to allow demand to exceed supply as that will help drive prices up even as supply increases. Its only when oil output exceeds supply that prices will stabilise, US shale has been the governor of that in the past.

Classic economics would predict inflation right now. However trying to predict the future is hard. Many people lost there jobs in the pandemic, so until all the furlough schemes come to an end and all the worlds assets are fully running again we wont fully know how much excess demand is in the system. Central banks aren't sure if they should carry on supporting the economies or to put interest rates up. It quite likely there will be a medium term uptick in inflation ie for 2 to 3 years which will be quite hard to tame. Governments have loads of levers to cool the economy down such as reversing QE or putting interest rates up.

Quelling inflation is painful so its not something central bankers do unless they have to. Conversely a little inflation early on makes everyone feel good. Its only as inflation settles in and starts to become a habit that the central banks will force an austere shrinking of demand.


----------



## Felipe (28 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Not if it's left to private industry and the free market - that's what brings in Chinese goods and weakens the importers national industries. Another good reason for staying in the EU - more power to act as a member of a larger group.



Overall China progress plus Covid are pushing countries toward more estate and closure. Brexit and Trump already were cultural manifestation of the closure, but done wrongly.
Now US is investing 90Bi in semiconductor, Nasa budget is highest since decades, and so on, which is the better path forward to compete with China.
I hardly belive countries will stick to the liberal fantasy nowadays. Only developing countries might, the ones that were brainwashed by the International Monetary Fund and signed the Washington Consensus back then (they ruined the Country I came from).


----------



## Trainee neophyte (28 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Secondly, much of the world doesn't share the West's concern for personal rights, freedoms, what have you. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The right to bodily integrity. Right to a fair trial - define 'fair'!


You may want to ask Craig Murray and Julian Assange how freedom of speech and freedom of movement and freedom of expression and...no I can't go on - it's too ironic. Fair trial? Having a trial at all would be nice for Assange. Murray is locked up for the heinous crime of going against the poisonous Crankee. Just two examples of how journalism is brought to heel by the freedom - loving west. No different to China. Possibly worse, because the west alleges to protect and follow all the ideals you list, but not only completely ignores them when expedient, but gets its entire flock of sheep to believe black is white and up is down. You've been sold a pup.

Just because someone tells you your system is best, it doesn't actually mean that it is true.


----------



## Blackswanwood (28 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Murray is locked up for the heinous crime of going against the poisonous Crankee.



An alternative point of view in the case of Craig Murray would be that the victim of an alleged sex crime had the right not to have her identity exposed. Perhaps I'm being gullible in believing that ... or you are sticking up for a mate as per your tag line ... didn't Murray also try to claim that the pictures of the Russians who carried out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury were dodgy?


----------



## GregW (28 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Absolutely Jacob, but history didn't start with humans and it won't end with humans neither. We're not killing the planet, we're just gonna kill ourselves.
> 
> Not for a long time, hopefully...



No one killing the planet  humanity slightly changing ecosystem that sustain humans. All what’s happening is climate is less and less affordable for mammals. Give Thame 100-500 years after coal industry humanity be gone - there will be no sign of humanity of coal industry other than synthetics 

Wake up - Earth will be in great shape. Human will self eliminate them selfs and other mammals. 

PS. When Vegans get to ultimate power, Cow will be extinct  just think about it that way - human is a parasite in ecology.


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## GregW (28 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> So as regards China, there's two things.
> 
> China may well be on the way to leading the world in blah-blah-blah, because dissent is not tolerated.
> If Boris or Biden tried to muscle industry and public into 'greener' fuel sources, there's be pretty predictable problems bringing people along with the plan.
> ...



China has one most transparent systems at the current time. They not waste money of own people, fairness in self care for everyone, individual responsibility is greatly emphasised from early years, extremely supportive towards self development, 100% capitalism allowing to become as much financially as that possible by not burden your success with choices of others, individuals who choose not to comply to high standards of living or experiences are re-educated for free with very clear choices…

Comparing it to west culture, west looks poor.
All it’s better it’s freedom to do nothing right, and liberty to excuses from fallowing the overwhelming complicated regulations of law so rich not be able to be trial fairly


----------



## GregW (28 Sep 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> Good day,
> I want to understand what is driving inflation in the private sector (world-wide, not just UK).
> 
> If it was Governments debt (public sector), I would "get it".
> ...



First one must understand difference between money and banknotes, in basic relation to generating money as production of market needs, in comparison emission of banknotes to cover a government overspending.

Money are created by generating product with money value to market needs for the product, against “promise to a bearer” that banknote represents.

Inflation is nothing more that effect of theft by government and central bank of the nations money, by watering down value of banknotes.


----------



## sploo (28 Sep 2021)

clogs said:


> I read recently somewhere if u wanna see a UK thief, sorry I mean GP doctor
> u need a £100 squids...bet thats only cash and no receipt....
> not sure but isn't the average pay around £100,000 per GP....?
> I like the NHS.....but not the quack GP's who use google to find out whats wrong....
> PS, if u have a life threatening problem service is free....and virtually instant....


So.... firstly I'm not aware of any £100 charge to see a UK GP.

The next issue is "quack" GPs vs the NHS. GPs in the UK _are_ NHS doctors. Junior doctors go through their basic medical training, and at a certain point in their career they have to choose a specialist area (such as Cardiology, Neurology, or Paediatrics). This step is very competitive; with fewer specialty training posts than there are junior doctors. Failure to get a specialist training post leaves you in limbo, and traditionally those doctors would go and become GPs.

General Practice can however now be specifically chosen as a route; and given the better work/life balance, some choose to go this route from day one.

Point being: UK GPs are not "quacks".




clogs said:


> Mind, if u bribe ur NHS consultant with cash u can get ur hip replacement within a week.....very fair.....
> 
> I needed an injection of 2 drugs into my shoulder joint.....discussed over the phone...needed an X ray....
> private x ray supplied for €25 euro...instant ....I walked into a shop like place....out in 10mins.....
> ...


These issues are problems with NHS funding, and the good profit margins available on some private work. _Some_, being the important word here.

For a long time the NHS has been quietly run down, underfunded, and sold off; inevitably leading to longer waiting times.

Services such as a private x-rays are great - easy, cheap to provide, profitable, and with very low risk. The problem is that this leaves the NHS with all the loss making long term care (e.g. treating cancer patients). At some potential point in the future with a fully privatised UK healthcare system people will be in for a nasty surprise when they get properly ill, and discover the costs.




selectortone said:


> I thank heaven the government knows that selling off what's left of the NHS would be death at the ballot box or that would be gone too. And then where would we be?


Publicly, yes; all politicians know that being seen to be positive towards the NHS is a vote winner. Unfortunately, if it's underfunded, run down, and quietly sold off in small chunks (as has been happening for years) we'll reach a point where the public are so fed up with the poor service they'll demand a fix. They may well be softened up sufficiently by then for the last bits to be sold off.

Sadly those politicians probably won't be blamed for this; after all, they spent 30s clapping for the NHS like moronic seals a few times.


----------



## jcassidy (28 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> You may want to ask Craig Murray and Julian Assange how freedom of speech and freedom of movement and freedom of expression and...no I can't go on - it's too ironic. Fair trial? Having a trial at all would be nice for Assange. Murray is locked up for the heinous crime of going against the poisonous Crankee.



And that fact that you are able to complain about this in a public forum validates the system you are dismissing.

My 2c is Assange has gotten what was coming for him, and Murray very conscientiously and deliberately engaged in contempt of court.



Trainee neophyte said:


> Just because someone tells you your system is best, it doesn't actually mean that it is true.


Quite true, luckily experience tells me that our system is the best.


----------



## Jacob (28 Sep 2021)

woodieallen said:


> You disappoint me. Surely Mummy driving Sebastian daily to his private school falls into your purview of wasteful use of resources ?


Well yes of course! Make the spoiled little twerp walk!
The point is; fossil fuel use is the primary cause of climate change and we are supposed to be cutting back. We have known this for 20 years or more.
Unnecessary use is easy to identify and could be stopped over night but there is absolutely no sign of this happening anywhere. Even the price is still historically low, there is no disincentive whatsoever.
It seems that all bets are on "innovation" - new technology providing solutions with no suggestion of change of behaviour. Lazy thinking IMHO.









‘Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis


Exclusive: Activist says there are many fine words but the science does not lie – CO2 emissions are still rising




www.theguardian.com


----------



## Trainee neophyte (28 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> My 2c is Assange has gotten what was coming for him, and Murray very conscientiously and deliberately engaged in contempt of court.


So revealing to the world the actual war crimes committed by the US gets you locked up indefinitely without trial, and deservedly so? I expect all the current journalists have taken the lesson on board and are carefully ignoring any war crimes as per the pretty obvious object lesson. So that's all right then. Biden blew up half a dozen children the other day, because he could, but they probably deserved that, too.

As for Murray, while he may or may not have "jigsaw identified" the women who made spurious allegations against Salmond (more government and party corruption never to be investigated, admitted to or even accepted as possible) , so did most of the mainstream newspapers, to a much greater degree. No one else was even prosecuted, let alone found guilty. However the judge ruled that non mainstream journalists must be held more accountable than "normal" journalists, and locked the man up for 9 months rather than the fine any newspaper would have been given. Very fair and even handed treatment.

The powers that be have hated Murray for years, ever since he blew the whistle on illegal torturing by US and UK operatives. Nice government you've got there. Luckily it's the best there is.


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## TominDales (28 Sep 2021)

GregW said:


> First one must understand difference between money and banknotes, in basic relation to generating money as production of market needs, in comparison emission of banknotes to cover a government overspending.
> 
> Money are created by generating product with money value to market needs for the product, against “promise to a bearer” that banknote represents.
> 
> Inflation is nothing more that effect of theft by government and central bank of the nations money, by watering down value of banknotes.


Although increasing the money supply faster than economic output is a source of inflation, that is not necessarily the case right now, its hard to tell as there are recessionary pressures as well as inflationary ones. In my opinion the money supply is an overly complicated way to think of inflation. Although its the way economists explain inflation, it turn a simple concept into something confusing. Money explanations get quite mathematical as it involves the flow rate and the amount of money. Money is an intangible concept, its created and destroyed by bank loans/repayments. I think its best to think of inflation simply as when there is too much demand for goods and services and not enough supply, so prices of goods and services go up.

In a previous post #142 I 've tried to comment on how current inflation is very much linked to the pandemic and a throttling back of supply while demand has been sustained through furlough etc. The primary driver for inflation is that growth in supply of goods verses the demand for goods and services. The pandemic caused a racking back in supply of goods 15 months ago. Oil and gas were in oversupply so production was cut, goods made in china were cut, computer chips for cars etc. However as the pandemic has unwound demand has picked up faster than supply, partly because supply chains have been disrupted and its taking a while for factories and systems to come back on stream and partly because the furlough schemes operating globally allowed people who were economically inactive to continue to consume goods, so supply went down but demand didn't. From a monetary point of view, the money supply continued to expand/flow through government and personal borrowing but output shrank. Also people who saved money during the pandemic are now spending their savings. This money is chasing too little supply of goods.

Its hard to predict the future, its likely that inflation will pick up for the next 2 to 3 years as the excess money/demand for goods works its way into the economy faster than the world can grow. However its hard to know, a lot of people may lose there jobs as furlough unwinds in which case there will be a huge reduction in demand. In this case the link between money supply and inflation is broken. That's because of two factors, one is people trade less in a recession so the money circulates more slowly - that has an equivalent effect to reducing money supply and secondly as people borrow less or repay debts they shrink the money supply (or constrain its growth). 

It's often overlooked that most money is created by private banks, 80% or more is created by companies and people borrowing money from banks, the rest comes from government borrowing. Here is an explanation from the bank of England How is money created? . In normal circumstance the money supply in an economy is regulated by peoples attitude to risk. We borrow money when they feel secure ie job prospects up so growth is coming and we borrow. Come bad times and we cut back, lower our borrowing or save money. That way money tends to grow inline with underlying growth. The central banks can fine tune this natural equilibrium by adjusting interest rates to encourage of discourage borrowing.

Most responsible governments manage the money supply to keep the currency and inflation stable at ca 2%. There have been famous cases where governments didn't do that such as the US Confederate states printed money to procured arms in the US the civil war = 700% inflation. Wiemar Germany printed money to repay its war debt and generated hyperinflation. Zimbabwe did a similar thing more recently. The US government part financed the Vietnam war with a loose money supply that contributed to global inflation in the 1960s. But most responsible governments avoid that.
However thinking of money can overlook the obvious. The inflation of the 1970s and 1980s was driven by demand for oil outstripping supply as OPEC managed supplies to encourage higher prices.

Also government make mistakes. During a recession there is untapped supply of labour, so government borrowing and low interest rates help keep those people productive and avoid what is called a liquidity trap. Keynes pointed out that tight money supply globally with the gold standard etc, exacipated the liquidity trap in the 1930s The liquidity trap is why Quantitative Easing did not lead to inflation during the financial crisis, the new money enabled those recessed to continue to consume taking up slack production an so keeping economies ticking along and so avoiding deeper recession. However if a government (central bank) allows an increased in the money supply, thinking the economy is in recession when it isn't then inflation sets in.
So although central bank control of money supply is a key lever for controlling inflation, its easier for those of us not close to markets and M4 etc to think in terms of supply and demand. Are too many of us buying stuff when its not available. Are we borrowing when we probably should be saving. Are we saving too much when we should be enjoying the prospect of good times. 
A long answer to your point, in my view governments only sometimes responsible for inflation as lot of the time is us the consumer or its an outside force such as structural changes in Asia (china) or Opec that is the real driver of inflation.


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## Flynnwood (28 Sep 2021)

TominDales said:


> The liquidity trap is why Quantitative Easing did not lead to inflation during the financial crisis.


@TominDales. Hello - OP here 
From Investopedia: "A liquidity trap is a contradictory economic situation in which interest rates are very low and savings rates are high, rendering monetary policy ineffective. First described by economist John Maynard Keynes"

Post 2008 crash, inflation has been low, as have interest rates. Hence my OP/Subject Title. 

(I think it was around 2010/2011 that I read teachers of Economics were giving up, because they could not understand why inflation hadn't kicked in after 2008.)

Interesting input from jcassidy in this thread (who works for a Central Bank).


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## Flynnwood (28 Sep 2021)

I mentioned Evergrande in China on Sunday.

Anyone interested in China might like to read these from Reuters this afternoon:
China's power crunch dwarfs Evergrande's troubles in investors' eyes | Reuters

China asking state-backed firms to pick up Evergrande assets - sources | Reuters


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## Jameshow (28 Sep 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> @TominDales. Hello - OP here
> From Investopedia: "A liquidity trap is a contradictory economic situation in which interest rates are very low and savings rates are high, rendering monetary policy ineffective. First described by economist John Maynard Keynes"
> 
> Post 2008 crash, inflation has been low, as have interest rates. Hence my OP/Subject Title.
> ...



If there is a recession and resultant job losses and insecurity generally along with house price deflation then inflation is going to be restrained?? 

Cheers James


----------



## Flynnwood (28 Sep 2021)

GregW said:


> Inflation is nothing more that effect of theft by government and central bank of the nations money, by watering down value of banknotes.


Hello GregW  OP here.

Genuine question as per OP, how can the enormous inflation the world is seeing in raw materials, private sector, (I've seen 240% in 8 months), being driven by Governments or Central Banks?


----------



## Flynnwood (28 Sep 2021)

Jameshow said:


> If there is a recession and resultant job losses and insecurity generally along with house price deflation then inflation is going to be restrained??
> Cheers James


Hello James - I don't understand what you are saying. Can you expand please? This is from landregistry.data.gov.uk today. I see no house price deflation post 2008/9 recession. 

*(Trying to stay 100% laser focussed on my OP question about huge inflationary private sector raw material costs, worldwide, not UK only).*


----------



## TominDales (28 Sep 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> @TominDales. Hello - OP here
> From Investopedia: "A liquidity trap is a contradictory economic situation in which interest rates are very low and savings rates are high, rendering monetary policy ineffective. First described by economist John Maynard Keynes"
> 
> Post 2008 crash, inflation has been low, as have interest rates. Hence my OP/Subject Title.
> ...


thanks, which number is jcassidy post? there are so many random comments that its hard to see the wood from the trees. I must say I keep a very simple view of inflationary pressures, is stuff in short supply and is it a trend. I'm no economist, but that has kept me safe for 40 years. I shared a house with two world class economists when doing my Ph.D (in science I might add), one was an econometrician - ie mathy and the other more into peoples behaviour and inflationary expectations. Although its not a science, its a fascinating discipline blending maths and people behaviour.
I hurriedly wrote the note on money supply so probably wasn't very clear. My understanding of a liquidity trap is its a situation where oversupply of money does not lead to inflation for a number of reasons, not all of which I understand, but essentially people wont spend money even if interest rates are low and money is being injected into the economy ie the flow of money is suppressed. I think the Investopedia definition is more a symptom than the underlying cause. 
Thanks for pointing out. my frustration with most new reporters is that they get bogged down in the details and mechanism of economics and dont stand back enough, the exception being David Smith of the Sunday Times.


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## TominDales (28 Sep 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> Hello GregW  OP here.
> 
> Genuine question as per OP, how can the enormous inflation the world is seeing in raw materials, private sector, (I've seen 240% in 8 months), being driven by Governments or Central Banks?


Although the central banks could be held responsible for letting it happen, the driver is not them but the pandemic. The pandemic changed human behaviours over 15 months, so that we produced less essential stuff whist leaving lots of people paid to be at home with nothing to do but order stuff for to improve their homes. For some people (not just in the UK) furlough improved family budgets as costs came down faster than expenses, for families that pay expensive child care the costs came down more than wages. For those in work that chose not to eat out or holiday last year, they ended up with surplus cash. This allowed for spending to outstrip making. (not universally true, sadly the pandemic has very uneven consequences, many people have been left destitute by it.

You could blame central banks for financing this spending through furlough etc and massive public borrowing to sustain spending while people were not working. So in a sense the expanded money supply has been financed by governments. So inflation is a price we have to pay for avoiding what would have been mass hardship and a massive recession. We will probably be paying the price over the next 2 to 5 years in terms of high inflation and high interest rates and probably sluggish growth. I don't think we can blame governments for this. The alternative lesse fair system would have had similar effects to the 1930's recession. The pandemic of 1348 complety upended the economic order - in that case it destroyed the feudal system having wiped out 1/3 of the population. Most economists say deflation is nastier than inflation so modern central bank economists have lent towards inflationary risk rather than deflationary.


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## Terry - Somerset (28 Sep 2021)

UK post pandemic period may not be recessionary, although inflation is uncertain.

Many EU citizens will have left the UK either due to Brexit or the pandemic encouraging a return to family and roots. This is evidenced by job vacancies at the highest level for many years - a possibly unexpected outcome!.

For some the pandemic has allowed increased savings - work from home, avoiding commuting costs, unable to spend on travel, hospitality, entertainment all contributed. This group will have these savings at their disposal as normality returns.

For those furloughed on lower incomes, many will have saved little. Fortunately concerns about longer term employment prospects may be improved with the high level of vacancies. 

Many self employed may have struggled during the pandemic - although their earning prospects are now reasonable. 

It would be complacent to assume the UK is without problems:

skills shortages - HGV drivers are an example - also evident in building trades (plumbers, bricklayers, electricians) and hospitality (coffee bars, hotels, restaurants)
the ease with which all sectors of the economy were able recruit already skilled staff from overseas has reduced UK training capability.
bizarrely current rules mean that skilled people may still be recruited from EU - but not lower skilled low paid jobs. I assume they are reserved for UK residents.
The pandemic has changed behaviours and attitudes - work from home, social care, vulnerable supply chains etc. It is not clear how permanent or how quickly this may change.

Short term there are clearly inflationary pressures due to pandemic dislocation of supply chains reducing supply of goods, whilst demand is likely increasing. 

What is not clear is whether this is a temporary pressure, or will be allowed to persist in the longer term as borrowings taken on by government and business will be easier to repay in real terms with moderate inflation.


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## Jameshow (28 Sep 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> Hello James - I don't understand what you are saying. Can you expand please? This is from landregistry.data.gov.uk today. I see no house price deflation post 2008/9 recession.
> 
> *(Trying to stay 100% laser focussed on my OP question about huge inflationary private sector raw material costs, worldwide, not UK only).*
> 
> View attachment 118747


These is a dip in the graph to posted from 2008 - 2010! 

House prices fall by 40k. 

Cheers James


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## TominDales (28 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> As a novice central banker, still struggling to understand how it all works, here goes...
> 
> Inflation is a function of supply and demand, specifically the demand for money.
> 
> ...



I would have thought the driver is a sudden drop in supply of goods, that has got things out of kilter. Gas prices are rising because gas is in short supply with maintenance of equipment due in 2019/20 has had to be postponed and added to the 2021 workloads so capacity is down. Its also down because it suits some producers to keep the market tight. Normally demand falls because of economic factors - rescission and so supply falls. with the pandemic demand fell for unique reasons, there was still latent pent up demand and cheap money continued to be supplied by governments. So in your function demand has exceeded supply, but the real cause was a sudden drop in supply followed by a slow resumption whereas demand bounced back much faster.







I have a question for a proper economist. In normal circumstances governments and central bankers will raise interest rates to quell inflation. However if we have a sudden rise and tough economic times ie stagflation, do you think the authorities would take the political risk to clamp down hard on inflation, or do you think they will live with it for a few years and hope that surging production in China over time will provide a natural deflationary effect on global prices as happened in the 2000s. Thanks


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## TominDales (29 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Some thoughts from a depressed pessimist: ymmv
> 
> During times of inflation asset prices rise faster than wages, benefiting asset owners at the expense of wage earners. During deflation the reverse happens.
> 
> In other words, deflation will be fought tooth and nail, because the owners of assets stand to lose more in deflation that the earners of wages, and asset owners make the rules.


I don't think that is the full picture. My reading of history is that deflation is horrible for everyone, with deflation the value of money increases, this means that debts become impossible to replay because assets and wages cant re-pay the debt. Mortgages become impossible to re-pay, the collateral property becomes less valuable - negative equity, so loads of people go bankrupt, that causes a further drop in demand, that feeds a vicious cycle of deflation. I've read contemporary accounts of deflation say it is terrifying for all, especially for the less well of and those in some form of debt. 

Wage inflation did keep pace with asset inflation in the 1960s and 1970 into the 1980s in the uk, as labour productivity grew fast. The problem these days is globalisation and move away from collective industries has created weak conditions for pay bargaining, so assets have won out, especially those in low supply such as housing. Also quantitative easing disproportionately benefited financial assets at a time when the fear of recession supressed pay bargaining. Right now in post brexit Brittan there is a chance to get some pay leverage back, not just in haulage but other manual industries.


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## WillM (29 Sep 2021)

Blackswanwood said:


> An alternative point of view in the case of Craig Murray would be that the victim of an alleged sex crime had the right not to have her identity exposed. Perhaps I'm being gullible in believing that ... or you are sticking up for a mate as per your tag line ... didn't Murray also try to claim that the pictures of the Russians who carried out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury were dodgy?


A sex crime that was not proven, where other journalists did far more of a jigsaw identification, and where Murray was the only journalist ever to be jailed for such an offence. He’s was jailed, like Assange, as punishment for letting the public know the truth. In fact, his accounts of the Assange trial, the most important UK trial in a century but virtually unreported in the press, are superb.


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## jcassidy (29 Sep 2021)

TominDales said:


> I have a question for a proper economist. In normal circumstances governments and central bankers will raise interest rates to quell inflation. However if we have a sudden rise and tough economic times ie stagflation, do you think the authorities would take the political risk to clamp down hard on inflation, or do you think they will live with it for a few years and hope that surging production in China over time will provide a natural deflationary effect on global prices as happened in the 2000s. Thanks



Well I for one am not a proper economist, more of an IT guy who somehow ended up in the business... 

However, you should note that both the US Federal Reserve and the ECB have amended their inflation objectives.

Previously the ECB wanted to keep inflation "below but close to 2%", whereas now it's target is 2% over the medium term.

In practical terms, this means that the ECB will not react to inflation nearing or over 2%, given that the last decade has seen inflation below that target. What does "medium term" mean? It means whatever the ECB want it to mean.

The US Fed has adopted a similar policy, based on it's dual mandate of managing inflation and promoting employment - essentially the Fed says, if inflation is at our target, but there is untapped labour reserves, we won't move on inflation until the unemployment number is lower.

(Typically speaking, the last people to benefit from an economic upturn are marginalised and minority communities with high long-term unemployment rates, and the Fed has a new theory that raising rates as usual means that these sectors never benefit from the upturn, as the economy has been cooled before the labour pools contract sufficiently to provide jobs for these sectors. THerefore letting the economy overheat a little - via higher inflation - should provide these crucial jobs)

Monetary Policy is not a political decision, although the US Fed and the UK Bank of England are both more sensitive to politics than the ECB is[1].

In fact, the US Fed repeatedly raised interest rates in 1994 which royally p***ed off Bill Clinton, who saw it as strangling his economic recovery plans - which to be fair it probably did a bit. The Fed probably wouldn't make that move today.

So in short, yes, the central banks will tolerate higher inflation 'over the medium term' as the current theory is that raising rates too soon is a Bad Idea.

[1] The ECB, although it touts its independence and regularly tells the European Parliament to get lost, rarely acts without an eye on domestic French and German politics. Hello, Greece? Clusterf**k driven by domestic politics in other EU states...

@TominDales I think he means this one? here or this one. It's weirdly gratifying that someone found one of my musings useful!


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## WillM (29 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> My 2c is Assange has gotten what was coming for him, and Murray very conscientiously and deliberately engaged in contempt of court.


It’s clear your 2C is not based on facts. The US chief witness against A has recently been recorded saying he made up his testimony, and the latest news is that the CIA has planned assassination attempts against A whilst an asylum seeker in the embassy - which significantly undermines the US position that A would be safe in US supermax. As safe as Epstein I suppose, who was murdered because he *did* work for US intelligence.


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## TominDales (29 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Well I for one am not a proper economist, more of an IT guy who somehow ended up in the business...
> 
> However, you should note that both the US Federal Reserve and the ECB have amended their inflation objectives.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the explanation. Although since becoming independent central banks have quelled inflation, they had it easy whist China was increasing labour at a phenomenal rate. I don't think they are fully immune to political sentiment, ok they have quelled the knee jerk treasury actions of the 70's and 80's where rates were adjusted to suit forthcoming elections, but I detect they are ac cutely aware of how the poorest suffer - your interesting comments about the Fed's view of marginalised communities seems to bear that out. The ECB isn't as independent as the Bundesbank was. I suspect Sunak has chosen someone he can influence at the BoE. However there is a big difference between influencing a separate institution and actually having the power to mint money in the treasury - it probably suits the chancellors that they can blame someone else for austerity. It must pee off smaller EU states that get lectured on fiscal riotousness, but if France or Germany need a bit of slack they get it.


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## Trainee neophyte (29 Sep 2021)

TominDales said:


> I don't think that is the full picture. My reading of history is that deflation is horrible for everyone,


Thankyou for your thoughtful, nuanced reply to my sweeping statements. I would note that your list of people suffering through deflation doesn't include savers or people living on fixed incomes - most notably pensioners. Both these groups are royally shafted by the endless, constant inflation which actually constitutes theft of their assets. Inflation doesn't need to happen, but is endemic and endless and entirely done on purpose. What is the long term purchasing power of a pound over time? A pound today is worth 4% of a pound in 1960. The only reason there aren't riots about this is because it happens gradually.






This constant devaluing of the currency is not because of shortages or increased demand - it is a carefully crafted, fully intentional destruction of wealth over generations for the benefit of...?


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## Jacob (29 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> ....
> 
> This constant devaluing of the currency is not because of shortages or increased demand - it is a carefully crafted, fully intentional destruction of wealth over generations for the benefit of...?


For the benefit of owners of property and capital. Wealth distribution has gone steadily from the poor to the rich for some time and probably be the reverse of your graph.


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## jcassidy (29 Sep 2021)

You both write as if inflation is a new thing invented by modern capitalists. The same arguments against inflation are in the Bible - something about unequal weights and measures beings an abomination to the Lord, and probably lots of other stuff. 'Your gold has turned to dross and your wine to water' or something.

Be it right or not, it's been around for a long time and probably will be until we transistion to some sort of sufficient-for-all model like Gene Rodenberry wrote about (Star Trek).


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## D_W (29 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> For the benefit of owners of property and capital. Wealth distribution has gone steadily from the poor to the rich for some time and probably be the reverse of your graph.



You haven't noticed any change in habits of the poor (spending, entitlement, devices, etc)?


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## D_W (29 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> You both write as if inflation is a new thing invented by modern capitalists. The same arguments against inflation are in the Bible - something about unequal weights and measures beings an abomination to the Lord, and probably lots of other stuff. 'Your gold has turned to dross and your wine to water' or something.
> 
> Be it right or not, it's been around for a long time and probably will be until we transistion to some sort of sufficient-for-all model like Gene Rodenberry wrote about (Star Trek).



As long as people will save money and keep it outside of the system if it doesn't lose value, we will have inflation. The change now is that the government has found the ability to keep debt rates low while inflation increases. In the US, the government retirement benefits are indexed to inflation, though, so that side will increase close to in line with staple living costs. Yard sales and flea markets are still loaded with gobs of usable stuff here that's worth almost nothing (when I was a kid, that wasn't the case - clothes were still made here in large amounts, and a lot of consumer goods were made domestically and were relatively expensive - the used market was pretty strong because there wasn't anything cheap and easy on the new market). maybe we'll get back to a place where people aren't just thoughtlessly throwing away stuff.

At any rate, a key underlying item here is that if bond rates remain low, the interest expense on government debt will remain low with it and everyone will continue to look the other way. Wages are a trailing indicator, so there will be some temporary pressure there.


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## Jacob (29 Sep 2021)

The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK | The Equality Trust


The UK has the 7th most unequal incomes of 30 countries in the developed world, but is about average in terms of wealth inequality. While the top fifth have nearly 50% of the country's income and 60% of the country's wealth, the bottom fifth have only 4% of the income and only 1% of the wealth.




equalitytrust.org.uk


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## D_W (29 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK | The Equality Trust
> 
> 
> The UK has the 7th most unequal incomes of 30 countries in the developed world, but is about average in terms of wealth inequality. While the top fifth have nearly 50% of the country's income and 60% of the country's wealth, the bottom fifth have only 4% of the income and only 1% of the wealth.
> ...



so, they get benefits (probably housing, food, health care, utilities) and don't have much income. How do they live? Aside from the truly disabled, I'd bet that most of the bottom fifth are worse off for not having direction and purpose than they are for staples of living.


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## RobinBHM (29 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Thankyou for your thoughtful, nuanced reply to my sweeping statements. I would note that your list of people suffering through deflation doesn't include savers or people living on fixed incomes - most notably pensioners. Both these groups are royally shafted by the endless, constant inflation which actually constitutes theft of their assets. Inflation doesn't need to happen, but is endemic and endless and entirely done on purpose. What is the long term purchasing power of a pound over time? A pound today is worth 4% of a pound in 1960. The only reason there aren't riots about this is because it happens gradually.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I’m sorry, I don’t understand the point you are making.

are Pensions fixed income?

the state pension increases roughly in line with inflation.

and those better off with private pensions probably own a house….not much asset theft there.


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## RobinBHM (29 Sep 2021)

D_W said:


> so, they get benefits (probably housing, food, health care, utilities) and don't have much income. How do they live? Aside from the truly disabled, I'd bet that most of the bottom fifth are worse off for not having direction and purpose than they are for staples of living.



I wonder if the poorest in society are more feckless than those who are richer. I’m not sure they are.

Im also not sure most people on benefits are lazy or in that situation of their own choice.

Domestic violence
disfunctional family upbringing
drug addiction
alcohol addiction
mental health 

are primary causes.


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## RobinBHM (29 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK | The Equality Trust
> 
> 
> The UK has the 7th most unequal incomes of 30 countries in the developed world, but is about average in terms of wealth inequality. While the top fifth have nearly 50% of the country's income and 60% of the country's wealth, the bottom fifth have only 4% of the income and only 1% of the wealth.
> ...



It’s quite shocking really.

and we are getting more like America every year.


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## D_W (29 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I wonder if the poorest in society are more feckless than those who are richer. I’m not sure they are.
> 
> Im also not sure most people on benefits are lazy or in that situation of their own choice.
> 
> ...



some are, some are not. That's what makes the situation difficult to sort out, because reality never fits a partisan simplified argument. it doesn't fit a "vintage republican" sink or swim argument (some people will never survive on their own because they are dealt cards that prevent it or they don't have the aptitude), and it doesn't fit the Jacob argument on the other end, that somehow people will be noble and put forth lots of effort and corporations won't leave when you give them a lazy unmotivated workforce. 

One of my favorite shows here is Roseanne, because it shows people I recognize from my youth. Roseanne said in an interview that one of the things she wanted to do was show that poor people, and poor and fat people, aren't stupid. My grandparents were that - they didn't finish school (common for farmers), would be considered backwards by many now, but were industrious and proud and refused public benefits above and beyond subsidized programs given to all farmers in the US. One they were absolutely not is feckless, and they ended pushing anything they could save forward, ultimately accumulating 330 acres by "lying in wait" for the right time to buy, and save. 

Another friend of mine lived in a house with four kids, the dad drove as a delivery driver and the mother bred exotic birds. I doubt their combined income put them much above the poverty level, but they didn't waste any money. it's also true that at that time (35 years ago, and closer to 90 years ago for my grandparents starting out), it wasn't as easy to get benefits. The number of social safety net programs in the US, and the sometimes sideways guidance, has exploded. 

I didn't know the class warfare language that Jacob likes to rely on when I was young, my parents were both teachers, and they saved like disaster was coming next and I thought we were poor (and was indifferent about it other than getting pineappled now and again that I could never get regular clothes off the rack at a store - they came from yardsales or the "irregular" rack). I thought my grandparents were interesting, and the same with my friend's parents - in his case, even though the parents had little money, they used it to buy land in the boonies and it was a fun place. They weren't stupid. Their house was small, and his parents slept in the living room for as long as I can remember. 

All four of the boys are employed now, and two are electrical engineers. 

(i'm sure on average at least most of the things you mention are higher among the poor. If where you are tomorrow doesn't matter, then it's hard to make good decisions today, and the unemployable folks with mental health issues (severe bipolar, schizophrenia, etc), there's no way around keeping them cared for first and worrying about whether or not they can find purpose second - they have to be accomodated to make sure they're safe).


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## Jameshow (29 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I wonder if the poorest in society are more feckless than those who are richer. I’m not sure they are.
> 
> Im also not sure most people on benefits are lazy or in that situation of their own choice.
> 
> ...


Yeap you have summed up my social prescribing workload in a typical northern town. 

Cheers James


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## Jacob (29 Sep 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I wonder if the poorest in society are more feckless than those who are richer. I’m not sure they are.
> ...


No the rich are much more sensible. Jeff Bezos just spent $5.8 billion on a 4 minute space trip in a rocket shaped like a huge pe*nis. Beat that, suckers!


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## D_W (29 Sep 2021)

the car you drive, the phone you use, the food you eat (cheaply), the TV you watch, the electric motors you use...

...all created for the most part by "foolish" rich savants.


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## Sean33 (29 Sep 2021)

TominDales said:


> I would have thought the driver is a sudden drop in supply of goods, that has got things out of kilter. Gas prices are rising because gas is in short supply with maintenance of equipment due in 2019/20 has had to be postponed and added to the 2021 workloads so capacity is down. Its also down because it suits some producers to keep the market tight. Normally demand falls because of economic factors - rescission and so supply falls. with the pandemic demand fell for unique reasons, there was still latent pent up demand and cheap money continued to be supplied by governments. So in your function demand has exceeded supply, but the real cause was a sudden drop in supply followed by a slow resumption whereas demand bounced back much faster.
> 
> View attachment 118764
> 
> ...


By no means a qualified Economist, but without doubt the biggest fear of any central bank or government is stagflation. All the major central banks are hinting at raising rates so there will be no surprises. The consensus is the fed will start to taper there bond buying program in November and .25 basis point rise in 2022. Similar is expected in the UK and Euro area. The biggest point to note is that the Fed and all have said they will suffer inflation until growth gets back to normalised levels, and they are looking out to 2022-2023, so in answer to your question yes inflation can and may stay higher for longer.
Oil, been a while since i last checked but from memory $52 and above the fracking and independents break even so production now will be ramping up, but as with most things at the moment backlogs for parts and machinery is horrendous. Recent comments from the oil services sector has been very positive with upgrades to estimates. When you think back to April last year and the April contract went negative nothing would surprise me with the oil price.


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## Sean33 (29 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> No the rich are much more sensible. Jeff Bezos just spent $5.8 billion on a 4 minute space trip in a rocket shaped like a huge pe*nis. Beat that, suckers!


Jacob, yes its a ridiculous sum of money, but, Bezos having spent that much i just wonder how many jobs have been created from it, then from the money they have earned how many things have they purchased, then how many more jobs have been created and so on...


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## TominDales (30 Sep 2021)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Thankyou for your thoughtful, nuanced reply to my sweeping statements. I would note that your list of people suffering through deflation doesn't include savers or people living on fixed incomes - most notably pensioners. Both these groups are royally shafted by the endless, constant inflation which actually constitutes theft of their assets. Inflation doesn't need to happen, but is endemic and endless and entirely done on purpose. What is the long term purchasing power of a pound over time? A pound today is worth 4% of a pound in 1960. The only reason there aren't riots about this is because it happens gradually.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi I totally agree with that. High inflation destroyed my grandparents retirement wealth in the 1970s as Terry said at the start of this section the best policy is stability and the targeting of inflation at 2% by most independent central banks has done a lot to achieve this.. In short stable money is essential to protect citizens.

I lived near and so helped my grandfather and was shocked to discover his retirement pension in 1989 was £200 per year- he retired in 1966 when £200 was just about ok. If we agree high inflation is horrendous, I've heard and read that deflation is even more horrific as it creates an ever increasing spiral of misery. Its not happened in my lifetime. I've read accounts in history books and I've seen the effects when researching the local history of the towns I've lived in - Leicester, Liverpool, Yorkshire and the period of deflation and recession in the later 19th century saw desperate hardship and high mortality despite rapid improvement up to that point through the 19th century. My wife has pieced together her family tree and the mortality during that period stands out. The cases of people driven into abject poverty. The 1920s Uk was similar, my granny witnessed the 1920s deflation in the UK (the US was more the 1930s but UK 1920s) and she used to describe to me how it was in county Durham when children had no shoes and starvation killed as work dried up. The way she talked its was far worse than what she endured in the 1980s even though pensioners were poor then. So poor that they barely heated their houses. She considered herself to have had a lucky lifetime. My grandfather was aware of how inflation had eaten his income, he was an erudite and well read person. Its true that their wealth eroded over a 25 year time and their outgoings declined as they aged, but they still referred to the deflation of the 1920s with horror.

Are you really sure inflation was a deliberate act to steel the savings of the old? The US did apply a slack monetary policy in the 1960s which drove up global inflation in the 1960s allegedly to pay for the Vietnam war. But the rest of the time governments seemed happy to inflict hardship to manage debt and supress inflation. the Attley government did all it could to pay down debt without driving up inflation after WW2 and the 1970s and 1980s hikes were largely due to the oil price shocks. Callaghan and Wilson were a bit ineffectual, but the Thatcher governments in the 1980s and 1990s put some strong measures to tame inflation, so much so that 250 economists wrote to the Times condemning Howes budget and interest rate hike in the teeth of a recession. I recall Uk interest rates hitting 17 or 18% shortly after I bought my house..
Having said all that, I detect a complacency about inflation at the moment, its been low for so long policy makers seem to have assumed its gone away. I suspect we will see high interest rates quite soon. That would have a major cooling effect on UK house prices. We live in interesting times.


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## Jacob (30 Sep 2021)

Sean33 said:


> Jacob, yes its a ridiculous sum of money, but, Bezos having spent that much i just wonder how many jobs have been created from it, then from the money they have earned how many things have they purchased, then how many more jobs have been created and so on...


Well yes but you could say the same of all and every blast of extravagance, self indulgence and luxury. In fact it's an ancient argument wheeled out to justify inequality, throughout history.
Think of how much more could have been done with that money, from paying Amazon workers more and giving them better conditions, to alleviating poverty.


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## Trainee neophyte (30 Sep 2021)

TominDales said:


> I recall Uk interest rates hitting 17 or 18% shortly after I bought my house..


Me too - and property prices fell by about 40% if I remember rightly. Certainly the house I bought halved in value from the frothy top. If the property market in the UK drops (deflation) what happens to the banks? This is where deflation causes the problem - lenders lose their capital. It will be great for new buyers, who may be able to afford a house for the first time in a generation, but no bank will be solvent to lend to them. Unless the government decide to ignore the rules, or decides to just bail out all the banks yet again. Saving the banks will be more important than saving the economy, or the people.

If interest rates rise the USA and the UK will be unable to finance their debt through taxation - there won't be enough money in the world if interest rates go to 17% again. Can interest rates rise all all? Is it possible? If interest rates denote the value of money, the current value is zero. In europe, interest rates are less than zero. At some point the people may catch on and start using something else for their interactions, which will be interesting.

My thinking is that the world economy still wants its deflationary recession which wasn't allowed in 2008/9. Because deflation is effectively illegal, world government's will do everything in their powers to stop deflation, and the only real power they have is printing. The Swiss central bank buys stocks directly - creating a false market and making true price discovery impossible. The Plunge Protection Team (a conspiracy theory now proven as fact) does similar albeit secret work in the USA, and I'm sure most other western central banks fiddle the markets in their own special ways. Until all this stops no one actually knows what the value of anything really is. It's all a bit of a mess. The upshot is we are living in a not very well run, but planned world economy. Nothing works the way it ought to, so trying to read the future is tricky.

Maximum borrowing would be the smart move right now, but I've been debt free for many years, so it's hard to break the habit.


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## Terry - Somerset (30 Sep 2021)

We can understand the reasons why both inflation and deflation are damaging. But why is the target ~2% for which there seems some international consensus, rather than 0%. 

Is it because consequential behaviours are not balanced - behaviours will tend to change progressively under increasing levels of inflation, but deflation at any level initiates an immediate behavioural change. Deflation:

reduces spending in the expectation that prices will fall - very directly reduces employment and economic growth
saving, not enterprise, is the basis upon which wealth is accumulated 
asset values (eg: property) tend to fall - their value rests upon their demand
makes it difficult to repay existing loans or act as security for new borrowing.
theoretically leads to negative interest rates which encourages money under the mattress rather than in the bank
There is a very different emotional response to interest rates which are used as the principal economic control lever and impacts the balance between spending, investment and saving. So it is probably better to target inflation at between (say) 1% and 3%, rather than -1 to +1%.


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## jcassidy (30 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> We can understand the reasons why both inflation and deflation are damaging. But why is the target ~2% for which there seems some international consensus, rather than 0%.
> 
> Is it because consequential behaviours are not balanced - behaviours will tend to change progressively under increasing levels of inflation, but deflation at any level initiates an immediate behavioural change. Deflation:
> 
> ...



Excellent post, thanks.

The Central Banks (The Fed, UK BoE, ECB anyway) are fairly transparant and publish a lot of information. The ECB's rationale is here.

Risk of deflation is indeed the principle reason why it's not zero.


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## Spectric (30 Sep 2021)

You just need more hot air and hype, I think that is how the financial sector and housing markets seem to work. If enough people get excited and produce lots of hot air and get talking then they can keep things up on a cushion of air, but if they feel pee'd of or down then less hot air is produced and the markets fall.

It is a world of virtual reality, how can a two bed terrace in London be worth £750,000, in the real world it cannot. But in the world of make believe and hype it can be worth what ever you can convince some poor sod to cough up and then people all jump on the bandwagon until the hot air can no longer support them and down they all come. The problem will never be solved until we remove the stupidity of London housing, someone has been real clever in making a fortune out of it because look at it without rose tinted specs and you just see it for what it is, a spawling cesspit of overcrowding, polluted, overpriced and filth yet people believe surviving here is better than living elsewhere, a good scam!


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## Blackswanwood (30 Sep 2021)

Spectric said:


> You just need more hot air and hype, I think that is how the financial sector and housing markets seem to work. If enough people get excited and produce lots of hot air and get talking then they can keep things up on a cushion of air, but if they feel pee'd of or down then less hot air is produced and the markets fall.
> 
> It is a world of virtual reality, how can a two bed terrace in London be worth £750,000, in the real world it cannot. But in the world of make believe and hype it can be worth what ever you can convince some poor sod to cough up and then people all jump on the bandwagon until the hot air can no longer support them and down they all come. The problem will never be solved until we remove the stupidity of London housing, someone has been real clever in making a fortune out of it because look at it without rose tinted specs and you just see it for what it is, a spawling cesspit of overcrowding, polluted, overpriced and filth yet people believe surviving here is better than living elsewhere, a good scam!



We all choose to live where we do with different motivations and requirements but is there really any need to describe where others choose to live in such derogatory terms?


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## Terry - Somerset (30 Sep 2021)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and thus what we are prepared to pay for same will differ.

It make no sense to me to spend £'000s on jewellery - small bits of yellow metal or tiny stones indistiguishable from glass from more than a few feet. No sense to spend £m's on a few square ft of paint and canvas. 

So to judge the value of property in London by reference to its acreage is superficial. 

Over the last 40 years I moved from north London to the west country, via Hertfordshire and Berkshire. I would not contemplate moving back to London. I find it difficult to think of the circumstances in which I would want to move back to the South east (but it is possible)

But for many London may seem wonderful, or at least the best compromise:

family, friends, education are local (we are all creatures of habit to some extent)
job and career propects
interest or involvement in music, arts and theatre
cultural diversity in food, vibrant social life etc 
For me it seems noisy, polluted, congested and expensive. These outweigh the positives for which a very high income would be required. But as Blackswanwood says it is a matter of personal choice and priorities.

Life would be irredeemably boring if we all thought the same things. We just need to be tolerant of that which we consider bizarre.


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## Trainee neophyte (30 Sep 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> We can understand the reasons why both inflation and deflation are damaging. But why is the target ~2% for which there seems some international consensus, rather than 0%.


In 25 years the purchasing power of each pound/dollar etc will almost halve. Governments think long term, and it's a handy way of defaulting on your debt without actually defaulting. My mother, who learned her household economics in the 60s and 70s reckoned on the value of money halving every 7 years. I see the last decade as being an oddity rather than the new normal.


Terry - Somerset said:


> reduces spending in the expectation that prices will fall - very directly reduces employment and economic growth


This is a well known economic truism, except it ignores all Apple products, computers, technology in general. People queue up for days to buy the latest iphone despite the fact that it will be hundreds of €£¥$ cheaper in a few weeks or months at worst - economics says that this is impossible because people always wait for the cheaper price. Personally I think that if people want something, they buy it as long as they can afford it. Who here has a flat screen TV? Why did you buy it? It will be cheaper and bigger in 6 months, so why didn't you wait? Time preference and associated economic theories tend to struggle in the real world.


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## Sean33 (30 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Well yes but you could say the same of all and every blast of extravagance, self indulgence and luxury. In fact it's an ancient argument wheeled out to justify inequality, throughout history.
> Think of how much more could have been done with that money, from paying Amazon workers more and giving them better conditions, to alleviating poverty.


Yes you could but i could turn your statement on its head and argue the same has been said throughout history to moan of inequality.
Yes it would be extravagant to 99% plus of the worlds population, but i say again without Mr Bezos and everyone else for that matter spending money it keeps people in employment and creates Jobs.
Before you mention the highly publicised throwing away of returned, broken, end of line stock etc that Amazon has been criticised for if you happen to be able to get into most distribution hubs you will find that household names are doing the exact same thing. Do i agree with it No, can i see why they do, Yes, it is pure economics.
Wages- The fulfilment and logistics space is very highly competitive, the good news for many employees is that most of the distribution hubs are closely situated with many different companies operating in close proximity. I do not have the numbers but i can tell you staff turnover is ridiculously high, and this is because staff will move to the highest payer and good on them for that.
Are wages poor ? it depends on the comparison you make, pay is similar to that of nurses, I have my own view on which is the more demanding and stressful, but they are mine and i dont try and put my opinions on others or berate others for there's..


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## Jacob (30 Sep 2021)

Sean33 said:


> ..... I have my own view on which is the more demanding and stressful, but they are mine and i dont try and put my opinions on others or berate others for there's..


Er - Isn't that exactly what you were doing? Make your mind up!
Not that I mind - I think people should exchange their points of view and talk about things, especially important things which affect all our lives.


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## Sean33 (30 Sep 2021)

Jacob said:


> Er - Isn't that exactly what you were doing? Make your mind up!
> Not that I mind - I think people should exchange their points of view and talk about things, especially important things which affect all our lives.


Was I ?


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## Jacob (30 Sep 2021)

Sean33 said:


> Was I ?


Well yes more or less! But feel free


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## Flynnwood (30 Sep 2021)

Just plopping this in here: maybe jcassidy would input.
(660) Aaron Russo on the Federal Reserve - YouTube


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## TominDales (30 Sep 2021)

jcassidy said:


> You both write as if inflation is a new thing invented by modern capitalists. The same arguments against inflation are in the Bible - something about unequal weights and measures beings an abomination to the Lord, and probably lots of other stuff. 'Your gold has turned to dross and your wine to water' or something.
> 
> Be it right or not, it's been around for a long time and probably will be until we transistion to some sort of sufficient-for-all model like Gene Rodenberry wrote about (Star Trek).


sorry meant to press like and hit reply... There some quiet amusing examples in history, amusing for us but not for those living through it. The black death was deflationary. The spanish silver haul from south america caused European inflation and I think funniest of all was Mansa Musa trip to Meccas from Timbuctoo. He passed through Egypt and gave away so much gold that it devalued the local metal currency causing rampant inflation for roughly 10 years. Debasing the currency was either outlawed by monarchs since the days of Archimedes or occasionally used as a trick to raise funds by medieval monarchs, until inflation caught up with them.


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## Spectric (30 Sep 2021)

A lot of people cannot understand finance, they just see the face value of their money which I think is wrong, much better to think in terms of buying potential.

When you tell someone that there money sitting in the bank is actually depreciating they laugh and just say " I put £25,000 in there in 2008 and when I look now I have £25,154" so no it is growing!! Trying to explain that what they could have purchased in 2008 with that money would have been more than it will buy now but deaf ears.

I think £20 in 1990 you now need closer to £100 to buy the same, ok not looking at some technology which is cheaper now, I certainly think that £30 K wages in 1990 was better than £50 K now, you could certainly live better on it.


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## Terry - Somerset (1 Oct 2021)

Bezos and space flight. We continually confuse and combine moral and economic judgements - they are quite different.

Spending $BNs on a space flight is economically little different to spending a similar amount on social needs etc. Money pays salaries of people who design, build, mine materials etc etc who in turn spend money on food, holidays, transport, dental care etc etc. 

Whether it is morally justified to spend the money on the indulgence of a few very wealthy whilst denying those with greater basic needs is another matter.

Precisely the same question could be asked of all inordinately high income individuals - footballers, tennis players, musicians, film stars etc.

Their economic value and income is determined by the sales generated by their performance. A moral judgement may conclude very differently. 

There is even an argument that space ships represent a far better way to improve social well being in the medium and long term by improving capabilities. A little along the lines of "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, give him a rod and he eats for life". Bit of a rabbit hole!!


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## jcassidy (1 Oct 2021)

Flynnwood said:


> Just plopping this in here: maybe jcassidy would input.
> (660) Aaron Russo on the Federal Reserve - YouTube


I'm not inclined to take anything a Libertarian says seriously and I'm glad my prejudices are confirmed by this interview! 

The Federal Reserve isn't a private bank - that's just nonsense. It's part of the Federal Government, accountable to Congress. It's Board is appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. Who owns the Federal Reserve


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## jcassidy (1 Oct 2021)

TominDales said:


> Debasing the currency was either outlawed by monarchs since the days of Archimedes or occasionally used as a trick to raise funds by medieval monarchs, until inflation caught up with them.



Many of the design features of modern coins derive from attempts to stop counterfeiting or debasing gold or silver coins. The milled edges of coins (all those little ribs) prevents the edges being shaved off - take a few shavings from each coin and soon an unscrupulous wealthy merchant would have a good pile of gold...

The dots near the edges of the face of coins is to prevent discrete clipping.

The Vikings for one were very fond of silver and saw no harm cutting coins into bits to make up the required weight - a quarter or half penny was literally a quarter or half of a penny.

I expect most of us are old enough to remember half-pennies! You could buy a sweet from the jar for a half penny in my local shop (or a single cigeratte for 6 pence)


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## TominDales (1 Oct 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Many of the design features of modern coins derive from attempts to stop counterfeiting or debasing gold or silver coins. The milled edges of coins (all those little ribs) prevents the edges being shaved off - take a few shavings from each coin and soon an unscrupulous wealthy merchant would have a good pile of gold...
> 
> The dots near the edges of the face of coins is to prevent discrete clipping.
> 
> ...


My father could buy as a child a small ice cream for 1/2d and a big for 1d, two small was bigger than one bigone so they collected up hapnies to buy ice creams. Farthings went out around when I was borne but you could still collect them in the 1960s are they were in circulation overseas, Falkland, Bermuda (until it went to $ - they were cross about that change as Birmuda earned a lot of overseas cash), it had nice image of a wren on the back.


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## Flynnwood (1 Oct 2021)

This is the best answer I have found to my OP.
(666) Inflation - A New Era? - YouTube
"Wood" is mentioned at 3 mins 30 secs ... 
Thanks to all (and the algo for the above)


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## J-G (2 Oct 2021)

jcassidy said:


> Many of the design features of modern coins derive from attempts to stop counterfeiting or debasing gold or silver coins. The milled edges of coins (all those little ribs) prevents the edges being shaved off - take a few shavings from each coin and soon an unscrupulous wealthy merchant would have a good pile of gold...
> 
> The dots near the edges of the face of coins is to prevent discrete clipping.
> 
> ...


English silver pennies prior to about 1300 had a small cross in the centre to guide the cutting into half or quarter. Pennies then were too thin to have milled edges so to combat 'clipping' Edward I introduced the 'Long cross' Penny ~1302 where the 'cross' was the same width as the diameter of the coin with a bar on the end helping to show that the coin was 'complete'. The general population didn't have the means (or knowledge probably) to weigh each coin they were given as payment.


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## J-G (2 Oct 2021)

TominDales said:


> My father could buy as a child a small ice cream for 1/2d and a big for 1d, two small was bigger than one bigone so they collected up hapnies to buy ice creams. Farthings went out around when I was borne but you could still collect them in the 1960s are they were in circulation overseas, Falkland, Bermuda (until it went to $ - they were cross about that change as Birmuda earned a lot of overseas cash), it had nice image of a wren on the back.


The last (UK) Farthing was minted in 1956 and ceased to be 'legal tender' on Dec. 31st 1960.

Overseas territories, such as Bermuda & Malta had one-third Farthings minted up to 1913.


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## Jacob (10 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> Bezos and space flight. We continually confuse and combine moral and economic judgements - they are quite different.


They coincide all the time inextricably. The whole left/right argument is about the economics of welfare for all


> Spending $BNs on a space flight is economically little different to spending a similar amount on social needs etc. Money pays salaries of people who design, build, mine materials etc etc who in turn spend money on food, holidays, transport, dental care etc etc.


So sending a few wealthy berks into space will improve the NHS? Seems very unlikely to me!
Would it work the other way - spend billions on health services and improve space travel by some mysterious process?


> Whether it is morally justified to spend the money on the indulgence of a few very wealthy whilst denying those with greater basic needs is another matter.


Same issue, inseparable


> Precisely the same question could be asked of all inordinately high income individuals - footballers, tennis players, musicians, film stars etc.
> 
> Their economic value and income is determined by the sales generated by their performance. A moral judgement may conclude very differently.


People pay for entertainment but the wealthy should be properly taxed. It's very simple. They don't need the wealth, others do


> There is even an argument that space ships represent a far better way to improve social well being in the medium and long term by improving capabilities. .....


Far better way than what?


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## Jameshow (10 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> They coincide all the time inextricably. The whole left/right argument is about the economics of welfare for allSo sending a few wealthy berks into space will improve the NHS? Seems very unlikely to me!
> Would it work the other way - spend billions on health services and improve space travel by some mysterious process? Same issue, inseparablePeople pay for entertainment but the wealthy should be properly taxed. It's very simple. They don't need the wealth, others doFar better way than what?


Interesting aviation fuel tax is 39% however road fuel is taxed at 59%. 

Those who take private planes and believe you me there are more than you think pay almost a half less in tax to pollute much more! 

Crazy! 

Cheers James


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## Terry - Somerset (10 Oct 2021)

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - popularised by Karl Marx.

A moral or ethical argument may conclude this has real substance. I am personally unconvinced by its wisdom as it ignores the purely pragmatic:

that which motivates people to make exceptional efforts, take personal risks, etc includes human competiveness, money, material possessions, status etc.. Remove the benefits and the motivation for many will evaporate
those who are content to ride upon the efforts of others will have their indolence reinforced with no obvious motivation to do otherwise
people should all be treated with respect - but are not born equal. Genetics impact both the important and trivial - health, intellect, height, hair colour etc. They may or may not be equal in the eyes of the Lord, but they are not equal!
I am not aware of any large and complex society that has embraced the philosophy and lasted for any length of time. Russia, China, N Korea all reward those at the top of the political pile over the general population. 
there are limited examples where for short periods the philosophy may have worked - Ghandi, and the Kibbutz movement being two possible examples.
If policies applied to the wealthy are not acceptable, they have the freedom to take their wealth and residence to wherever suits them. Taxation of the wealthy is necessarily by consent, not a moral imperative. 
Conclusion - a balance between economic and moral imperatives needs to be generally acceptable. The alternative - the ultimately a futile pursuit of the unachievable. 

In the UK this seems to extend (for instance) to free access to decent healthcare, education, justice. It is acceptable that the wealthy pay more than the less well off. 

Parties with broadly centrist policy agendas may succeed, those at the extremes of "left" and "right" will fail. Personally I will not waste time on that which ultimately leads to failure.


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## Jacob (10 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - popularised by Karl Marx.
> 
> A moral or ethical argument may conclude this has real substance. I am personally unconvinced by its wisdom as it ignores the purely pragmatic:
> 
> .....


Exactly wrong. As wrong as you could be.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is in fact the ultimate in pragmatism.
It's the rule which applies in an emergency, whether it's on a national scale like war or other impending catastrophe, or on a small scale like a few dozen people in a life boat. All of a sudden personal interest is forgotten and working for the common good is taken for granted.
This is what people realised in 1945 - if this sort of pragmatism could win the war then it could win the peace.

It has never stopped being a basic tenet of civilised society as life for many has continued to be in an emergency situation. It's also the basic rule of most communities from family, tribe, upwards - invoices are not exchanged!



> If policies applied to the wealthy are not acceptable, they have the freedom to take their wealth and residence to wherever suits them. Taxation of the wealthy is necessarily by consent, not a moral imperative


Was that intended as a joke?  
When have they ever consented? The whole ethos of the right has been to hang on to every penny - that is their agenda and that is why they are such a problem worldwide.
Who cares whether or not it's a moral imperative; it's a pragmatic necessity to keep lifeboat world afloat and everybody in it safe and sound.


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## RobinBHM (10 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> If policies applied to the wealthy are not acceptable, they have the freedom to take their wealth and residence to wherever suits them. Taxation of the wealthy is necessarily by consent, not a moral imperative



high levels of tax mean business and the wealthy go elsewhere.

Macron introduced tax incentives and the uber rich started to pile into Paris

socialism looks good on paper....reality is rather different.


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## D_W (10 Oct 2021)

Jameshow said:


> Interesting aviation fuel tax is 39% however road fuel is taxed at 59%.
> 
> Those who take private planes and believe you me there are more than you think pay almost a half less in tax to pollute much more!
> 
> ...



How much wear and tear do they put on the roads?


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## D_W (10 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> So sending a few wealthy berks into space will improve the NHS?



Do a chart for us - chart technological capability by country and then also average and median income, PPP. 

Let us know what you find.


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## Jacob (10 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> high levels of tax mean business and the wealthy go elsewhere.
> 
> Macron introduced tax incentives and the uber rich started to pile into Paris


Trickle down theory? It won't do Paris workers any good. Or anybody for that matter, except the uber rich. City of London has become major money laundering world centre. Won't do any of us any good at all - just ask a typical rent paying working person in London.


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## RobinBHM (10 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Trickle down theory? It won't do Paris workers any good. Or anybody for that matter, except the uber rich. City of London has become major money laundering world centre. Won't do any of us any good at all - just ask a typical rent paying working person in London



unfortunately simplistic ideological models don’t fit reality.

the UK when it was an EU member benefitted from high levels of foreign direct investment, partly because of single market access but also because of UKs light touch employment laws….at least compared to France, Germany etc.


I know trickle down theory doesn’t work on a macro level, but it certainly works on a local level.

If a multi millionaire moved in to a grade II listed manor and got a local joinery shop to make £100k worth of windows……that joiner would benefit from trickle down.


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## Jameshow (10 Oct 2021)

D_W said:


> How much wear and tear do they put on the roads?


Wasn't thinking about road wear and tear more about the environment.

Cheers James


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## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

Jameshow said:


> Wasn't thinking about road wear and tear more about the environment.
> 
> Cheers James



You guys may have a different justification behind fuel taxes. Here, they supposedly fund road use and road expenses, but the reality is that in some states, none of the fuel tax is used for that at all, and overall, road taxes in fuels only cover about 30% of actual road costs. 

Avgas here is far more expensive than motor fuel in most places. The taxes in it are probably higher by a long shot, too (they tend to cover air costs and certain government services that require flying so as to keep governor's pilots out of the line of fire of budget cutters and partisans). Gas here is $3.45 a gallon for road fuel and 100LL avgas is $5.66. 

Jet A is about five bucks.


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## Ozi (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Wars are hugely profitable - to the arms trade primarily.
> _Following the final withdrawal of US troops, President Joe Biden quoted two figures for the total cost of the war.
> He said: "After more than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan... [or] you could take the number of $1tn, as many say."_
> A trillion is a million million - or $2,617 per head of USA population or $26,315 per head of Afghan population.
> ...


Or gone in and built power stations, hospitals and Mosques, it would be hard for extremists to call them the great Satan then. Exactly what China is doing in parts of Africa right now. Buys a lot of respect, it's the modern way to build an empire and it's profitable.


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## Keith Cocker (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> If a multi millionaire moved in to a grade II listed manor and got a local joinery shop to make £100k worth of windows……that joiner would benefit from trickle down.


If the Grade II listed Manor was bought by public money, throughly renovated to become a well equipped and well run care home a lot more people would benefit for a much longer time. That would be a good ROI.


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## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> unfortunately simplistic ideological models don’t fit reality.


Actually they do! This is why they are so frantically anxious to persuade you otherwise. Don't believe what they are telling you Robin, it's a lie


> ....
> 
> I know trickle down theory doesn’t work on a macro level, but it certainly works on a local level.
> 
> If a multi millionaire moved in to a grade II listed manor and got a local joinery shop to make £100k worth of windows……that joiner would benefit from trickle down.


If a multi millionaire paid tax instead of building himself a palace, those same joiners could have been paid to build council housing better homes for 100s of other people. Perhaps allowing the multimillionaire to have a bigger one with a double garage. 
Roll on simplistic pragmatic models!
You use the term "ideological" but in a meaningless sense - it's part of the right wing propaganda you've picked up over the years. Don't believe what they are telling you they just want to hang on to their wealth. "They" are the problem worldwide - worse than any plague.
No coincidence that most "historic" houses have slavery somewhere in their history, in many cases the wealth came entirely from slavery. There is a battle currently over spelling out their colonial history in National Trust and other properties. Conservatives are trying to persuade us that it is "re-writing" history but they are just concerned to suppress the truth.
Trickle down theory does work but the best way to make sure it happens is through taxation. More _pull_ down than _trickle_ down.








Colonial Countryside: Facing up to Britain’s murky past


A new project shines a light on a hidden history, offering an alternative view of the British countryside, writes Rahul Verma.




www.bbc.com


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Actually they do! This is why they are so frantically anxious to persuade you otherwise. Don't believe what they are telling you Robin, it's a lie



socialism doesnt work and cant work because of globalisation and the digital age.

the UK doesnt have the power to control global corporations who can move to the lowest tax location.

you might not like it but that the truth.




here is a simple failure of your "simplistic arguments work":



*£15 an hour minimum wage*

it wont wont benefit the poor because many businesses wont be able to afford to pay the extra, so the poor will lose jobs

those businesses that can pay the extra will pass it on to their customers....so the poor will pay more for stuff



and that just proves simplistic socialist arguments fall apart at the slightest scrutiny.


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> If a multi millionaire paid tax instead of building himself a palace


false choice argument

no, the multi millionaire moved to a different country....it was too high in the UK, Mr Corbyn put taxes up too high.

the joiner got no work

another simplistic socialist argument fallen apart


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

I actually agree trickle down theory is a lie, but its far more complex than you accept.

you need to push yourself to understand the detail instead of relying on socialist utopian dreams


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> If the Grade II listed Manor was bought by public money, throughly renovated to become a well equipped and well run care home a lot more people would benefit for a much longer time. That would be a good ROI.


its a good point

sadly the reality is the conservation officers would refuse it to be converted so the manor would just fall into disrepair 

there have been numerous listed manor houses that property developers tried to convert to apratments, but the council refused the conversion or made onerous conditions.


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## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> socialism doesnt work and cant work because of globalisation and the digital age.
> 
> the UK doesnt have the power to control global corporations who can move to the lowest tax location.


Therein lies the problem to solve; prevent corporations from draining money from a country in which they're making a profit (into low tax locations via tax avoidance schemes).

Surely it could be possible for a nation's government to make it illegal for a business to operate in their country whilst that business has assets registered elsewhere _for the purposes of tax avoidance_? Easier said than done, granted, but perhaps it's a solution that wouldn't require world-wide agreement.

The issue I have is the large corporations benefiting from the services provided in a country via taxation (e.g. roads, healthcare and education for employees, police, fire service etc.) but then siphoning the profit they make out of that country; effectively eating a meal at restaurant and then leaving others to pick up the tab.

I guess my question is: would the likes of Apple or Amazon or Starbucks leave the UK market entirely if they were forced to pay a fair tax rate on the profit they make in the UK? My guess is they would stay - as they'd still be making huge sums of money.


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## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> .....
> 
> I guess my question is: would the likes of Apple or Amazon or Starbucks leave the UK market entirely if they were forced to pay a fair tax rate on the profit they make in the UK? My guess is they would stay - as they'd still be making huge sums of money.


They'd stay - they couldn't take their customers with them.
Actually Amazon or Starbucks wouldn't be missed there are plenty of others waiting to full their shoes. Is Apple any different? Probably not, there are hardly any places on earth where mobile phones and the internet are not available.


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## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> I actually agree trickle down theory is a lie, but its far more complex than you accept.
> 
> you need to push yourself to understand the detail instead of relying on socialist utopian dreams


 You need to wake up Robin!


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## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> They'd stay - they can't take their customers with them.
> Actually Amazon or Starbucks wouldn't be missed there are plenty of others waiting to full their shoes. Is Apple any different? Probably not, there are hardly any places on earth where mobile phones and the internet are not available.


I think it was Warren Buffett that made the point that investors aren't put off by taxation (in the sense that they'd rather make a million and pay half a mil in tax, than not make anything). The problem with the current international tax system is that large corporations can make that mil and _not_ pay the half a mil in tax; thus leaving everyone else to pick up the bill.


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> You need to wake up Robin!



No its you, it really is you.


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> Therein lies the problem to solve; prevent corporations from draining money from a country in which they're making a profit (into low tax locations via tax avoidance schemes).
> 
> Surely it could be possible for a nation's government to make it illegal for a business to operate in their country whilst that business has assets registered elsewhere _for the purposes of tax avoidance_? Easier said than done, granted, but perhaps it's a solution that wouldn't require world-wide agreement.
> 
> ...



the problem is that it is business that carry global power now, not politicians

in fact so powerful that Johnson went to meet Bezos whilst in USA.



It is a major problem to solve, something the socialists like Jacob dont address, nor even recognise.

the money in the UK comes from London -thats where a major part of tax revenue is created, so they call the shots.

its not right, but its what it is.


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## Terry - Somerset (11 Oct 2021)

There are real stresses between dogmatic and pragmatic arguments.

Dogma is usually defined as a belief or set of beliefs that people are EXPECTED to accept. Political dogma tends to define a set of beliefs by reference to moral and ethical considerations which SHOULD drive behaviours, policies and actions.

Pragmatism deals with circumstances as they ACTUALLY are. It would be a happy coincidence were the two were completely aligned - it is surprising they are soetimes even close.

Moral and ethical issues are rightly an important part of policy, but it seems self delusional to assert that pragmatism is somehow aligned to dogma despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Pragmatism is an expression of what DOES work, dogma is that we may PREFER to work.


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## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> .......It is a major problem to solve, something the socialists like Jacob dont address, nor even recognise.
> 
> .........


Interesting how you've completely inverted the truth. 
How would you solve it?


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## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> the problem is that it is business that carry global power now, not politicians
> 
> in fact so powerful that Johnson went to meet Bezos whilst in USA.
> 
> ...


Indeed. I guess the Tories are a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian businessmen, so that is an extreme example.

Until political leaders are effectively forced by the electorate into not being owned by big business there will be no incentive for them to tackle the problem of wide scale tax avoidance. I'm not holding my breath.


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> Indeed. I guess the Tories are a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian businessmen, so that is an extreme example.
> 
> Until political leaders are effectively forced by the electorate into not being owned by big business there will be no incentive for them to tackle the problem of wide scale tax avoidance. I'm not holding my breath.


the UK has a broken political system.

party donations, lobbying, privatised contracts going to mates etc etc enables the wealthy to influence policy
and the govt effectively control the media

its a failure of democracy, but its how things are currently, so any opposition party has to play by the existing rules -which is why no socialist party will win, however good their intentions are.

its grim really.


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## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> There are real stresses between dogmatic and pragmatic arguments.
> 
> Dogma is usually defined as a belief or set of beliefs that people are EXPECTED to accept. Political dogma tends to define a set of beliefs by reference to moral and ethical considerations which SHOULD drive behaviours, policies and actions.
> 
> ...




this goes to the heart of the dilemma of politics.

does a politician
1) have policies which would be best for the country 
or
2) choose policies that will win elections.

the public may claim they want honest politicians, but they vote for option 2


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Interesting how you've completely inverted the truth.
> How would you solve it?


Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.

and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power

and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.


----------



## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.
> 
> and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power
> 
> and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.


Funnily enough I was having a similar conversation with some very pro-Labour (anti-Starmer) friends recently. My suggestion was that Labour need a Boris; get an entertaining clown in charge, amuse the people, get the votes, then (in theory, probably not in reality) put in place policies to actually help the people. I mean, it's not like your actual policies need to bear any resemblance to your campaign promises these days, so it'd be nothing new.

That said, I suspect if the Sun et al. had even the slightest sniff that your party might be planning something honourable once in power (i.e. not accepting the big business coin) they'd crucify said clown in print and on TV.


----------



## Spectric (11 Oct 2021)

All these economic issues could be solved if there was the will to do so, a big problem is that for many motivation is directly linked to wealth and surpasses the need to only have enough to live comfortable and not to excess which is at the expense of others. So apply the law of diminishing returns, rather than just a crude taxation system have one that incentifies companies to more evenly share the profits and have more tax breaks than just 20, 40 & 45%, have a wider range and no tax free allowance but start at 5% and upto £30K it is 15% but above £60K starts to increment slow but sure. Can anyone really justify a wage packet in excess of £300K, if all earnings above this were evenly distributed amongst all other workers pay then poverty would drop drastically.

I may be biased because wealth has never been a big motivator for me, never could understand why someone who has reached the million just goes back to work because they want another, knowledge and achievment have kept me going, and woodwork can really provide the up's and downs and it is a good feeling when you can look at what you have made or done, much better than looking at financial gain.


----------



## Jameshow (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.
> 
> and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power
> 
> and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.


They did Alistair Campbell! 

They were centerist though so nothing changed. 

Cheers James


----------



## Spectric (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> My suggestion was that Labour need a Boris;


No more than the torries need a corbyn, british politics is shot, nothing more than a circus and hence why we have a bumbling borris. The BIG BIG issue, worry, concern is that we don't have much in the way of choice, I would not trust any of them as the common denominator is incompetance. The first step has to be to change the system, make it compulsory for all to vote so the results are representative and not just 18% in a given area.


----------



## Jameshow (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> this goes to the heart of the dilemma of politics.
> 
> does a politician
> 1) have policies which would be best for the country
> ...


Problem is the Labour party dosent imho support the working man. It would rather support the boat loads coming over the channel, rather than the working man hence the working man in desperation has turned to Boris which is really no help to him. The working class don't have a party, that creates jobs, working conditions and tax regime which supports them. 

Cheers James


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

Spectric said:


> Can anyone really justify a wage packet in excess of £300K, if all earnings above this were evenly distributed amongst all other workers pay then poverty would drop drastically.



What would actually happen is people capable of earning in excess of 300k after taxes would just leave instead. And whatever business they operate, that would leave, too.


----------



## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

D_W said:


> What would actually happen is people capable of earning in excess of 300k after taxes would just leave instead. And whatever business they operate, that would leave, too.


That's the root of the problem; if there were no tax havens available (such that the ultra wealthy couldn't leave to avoid taxes) then that issue would solve itself. I'm not talking about "punishing" high earners; just ensuring that those individuals and companies who are raking in huge sums of cash couldn't then use their wealth to avoid contributing back to the society that's made them rich.


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> That's the root of the problem; if there were no tax havens available (such that the ultra wealthy couldn't leave to avoid taxes) then that issue would solve itself. I'm not talking about "punishing" high earners; just ensuring that those individuals and companies who are raking in huge sums of cash couldn't then use their wealth to avoid contributing back to the society that's made then rich.



This is where idealism falls apart, and you have to actually look at outcomes (which people like Jacob have trouble with, as do "free market no barrier to entry" capitalists, who really just want no barrier to their entry and then change their tune once they have market share). 

If you had a majority of countries that were very harsh to high income earners, it would take only one haven country to loot all of the business owners and then attract away all of the true high value talent in the world. 

And then even people who aren't making 300k yet, but who want to in the future would leave. 

This is also the stupidity of jacob's comment about not allowing wealthy people to send themselves to space or embark on costly far off scientific ventures. They'll just go to a place where they can, and then they'll draw all of the talent out of other geographies. Idealism without ever measuring accomplishment gets you bernie sanders and corbyn. That is, nothing, but sitting and arguing about ideals. Thinking is required to make doing efficient. Thinking and not doing or thinking and making excuses for doing poorly is just stupid. That's idealism.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.
> 
> and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power
> 
> and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.


Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn with some straightforward pragmatic socialist policies.
In 2017 Corbyn almost pipped Blairs best result:
1997 Blair vote 13,518,167 swing 8.8%.
2017 Corbyn vote 12,878,460 swing 9.6%
Blair’s famous phrase was that Labour should win because of its policies not in spite of them. Corbyn was doing exactly that.
It's OK Robin I know you are still under the brain washing spell so you probably will find this comment upsetting, sorry about that!


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jameshow said:


> They did Alistair Campbell!
> 
> They were centerist though so nothing changed.
> 
> Cheers James


yes they made Labour electable.

and Blairs time in govt:

reduced pensioner poverty
reduced child poverty
lowered NHS waiting times
lowered class sizes
increased number of police
introduced min wage.

life was certainly better then compared to now.


----------



## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

D_W said:


> This is where idealism falls apart, and you have to actually look at outcomes (which people like Jacob have trouble with, as do "free market no barrier to entry" capitalists, who really just want no barrier to their entry and then change their tune once they have market share).
> 
> If you had a majority of countries that were very harsh to high income earners, it would take only one haven country to loot all of the business owners and then attract away all of the true high value talent in the world.


Personally, I'm not after harsh taxation; just preventing the massive tax avoidance that allows large profits to be made with almost zero tax payment.

Agreed that it'd "take only one haven country" to cause problems, but it would surely be possible for a nation to introduce rules to try to bar companies operating on their soil whilst shifting the profits elsewhere. I.e. you _can_ be registered in a tax haven, but you _cannot_ shift profit made in "our" country out to a tax haven. Given the choice of a large market, but paying some tax, or being barred from that market, I doubt companies would boycott a country.

That said, I'm sure there would then be other dodges to allowed profits to be reported as tiny, or some other (legal) accounting scam.


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn with some straightforward pragmatic socialist policies



simple answer to that:

2019


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> Personally, I'm not after harsh taxation; just preventing the massive tax avoidance that allows large profits to be made with almost zero tax payment.
> 
> Agreed that it'd "take only one haven country" to cause problems, but it would surely be possible for a nation to introduce rules to try to bar companies operating on their soil whilst shifting the profits elsewhere. I.e. you _can_ be registered in a tax haven, but you _cannot_ shift profit made in "our" country out to a tax haven. Given the choice of a large market, but paying some tax, or being barred from that market, I doubt companies would boycott a country.
> 
> That said, I'm sure there would then be other dodges to allowed profits to be reported as tiny, or some other (legal) accounting scam.



I don't disagree with that. The trick, I guess, is for politicians to extract money from companies with an implicit threat - 'i'm your buddy, keep the money coming, or else, but we're still buddies'. 

The other thing that's underestimated is that obscure bits added to the tax code will find takers, even if the CBO thinks they will only apply to people running the same scheme right now. 

I'd venture to guess that if you had another location 10% lower taxed and with less interference, you'd find a business in your locale relocating headquarters. California is finding that and will continue to find that. 

On the low end, incentivizing people who live a lifetime in debt and who don't pay their debts could be incentivized a little better to do that, even though they don't like to, but it's more profitable in votes to cater to them as a voting group.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> yes they made Labour electable.
> 
> and Blairs time in govt:
> 
> ...


And Labour was clearly "electable" in 2017. 
It's interesting reading the contorted arguments in the attempts to deny the recent past - but it is the brain washing still working away.


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> OK Robin I know you are still under the brain washing spell



says Jacob, who still believes Corbyn almost won.

and somehow Corbyns paltry 200 odd seats were virtually the same as Blairs 400+ seats.

you poor thing, you’ve brain washed yourself


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> And Labour was clearly "electable" in 2017



despite a terrible decade of Tory austerity and the worst Tory leader ever, Corbyn still lost by 50 seats.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> simple answer to that:
> 
> 2019


Following the most intensive right wing media vilification of any politician in a hundred years or more.
The brain washed now struggling to ignore that Starmer's polling so far has been far worse than Corbyn's very worst.


----------



## selectortone (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Labour need to find themselves another Corbyn.


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Following the most intensive right wing media vilification of any politician in a hundred years or more.
> The brain washed now struggling to ignore that Starmer's polling so far has been far worse than Corbyn's very worst.



Hilarious. You pine for the days that the public polled for 20% thinking your favorite leader was competent. And he did nothing to prove he's incompetent, and the best you can come up with is "I can find a guy that people like less". 

How's that working out so far? You've got brexit, and probably no chance of a leftward move in the next election.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

selectortone said:


> Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.


Do something similar with a careful look at what happened then, in 2019, and of course in 1997, with the intention to improve slightly on the 2017 result.
Interesting how 2017 is being written out of history as though of no significance. MSM propaganda.
In 2017 Corbyn almost pipped Blair's best result:
1997 Blair vote 13,518,167 swing 8.8%.
2017 Corbyn vote 12,878,460 swing 9.6%
Blair’s famous phrase was that Labour should win because of its policies not in spite of them and he was right, though he blew it later.


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

Show something done without blaming it on the media. The media hates conservative politicians. Stop trying to pretend that being a liberal idealist is a detriment from the media standpoint. 

Trump was a crackpot, but he wishes the media liked him half as much as they liked corbyn.


----------



## selectortone (11 Oct 2021)

D_W said:


> The media hates conservative politicians.


I had to chuckle at that. That's the baseball 'World Series' viewpoint (only American teams compete, the rest of the world doesn't count).

That might arguably be true in the USA, but here, the media, especially the old print media, is almost entirely right wing. And Jacob would argue that out of the two left-leaning mainstream papers, even one of those is rabidly anti-Corbyn.


----------



## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

D_W said:


> The other thing that's underestimated is that obscure bits added to the tax code will find takers, even if the CBO thinks they will only apply to people running the same scheme right now.


I guess that's always the problem with tax laws; simple and people will (rightly) point out that there are exceptions who are unfairly hit due to their specific circumstances. Complex and you introduce loopholes that are exploited by those with the resources to do so.

That said, I'm pretty certain I recall hearing something a few years ago about tax accountants (used by the UK government to draw up tax rules) then offering their services to companies - to explain exactly where the loopholes are in the rules they'd advised the government to run. If I were a cynic I'd wonder if said loopholes were not there by accident...


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

selectortone said:


> I had to chuckle at that. That's the baseball 'World Series' viewpoint (only American teams compete, the rest of the world doesn't count).
> 
> That might arguably be true in the USA, but here, the media, especially the old print media, is almost entirely right wing. And Jacob would argue that out of the two left-leaning mainstream papers, even one of those is rabidly anti-Corbyn.



Mainstream media here is generally about 90% registered democrat, but some of those registered folks have realized that there's money to be made during the day by pretending to be less liberal. 

IN the old days, it was just understood that media other than a few batty opinion writers (on both ends, but generally the straight up commie "there's no fact in the world, just people who say that their opinions are facts" types), most of the media was corporate democrat type, if a little idealistic, it was expected. They hated reagan and politicans of that type (the simple cowboy types, if you know what I mean, except reagan himself was a smooth pimp). Long story short, once a few were successful at offering limited republican curated news, then that market started to thrive, and the regular media went more overtly nasty, and now has mostly given up being objective (stating that literally as a business plan - it's more profitable. Pretty much the case that whoever is in office, the opposing cable news types will thrive). 

We used to note that the news in the UK was very tabloid-y, and I guess it is (plus, we're too prudish to ever have "news" with back page girls on it here, but maybe that's me-tooed out of existence now), but our media is now something worse - attempts to claim legitimacy with nothing but negative intent from both sides. 

President-wise, though, they will only turn on Biden if he does something extremely scandalous.


----------



## D_W (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> I guess that's always the problem with tax laws; simple and people will (rightly) point out that there are exceptions who are unfairly hit due to their specific circumstances. Complex and you introduce loopholes that are exploited by those with the resources to do so.
> 
> That said, I'm pretty certain I recall hearing something a few years ago about tax accountants (used by the UK government to draw up tax rules) then offering their services to companies - to explain exactly where the loopholes are in the rules they'd advised the government to run. If I were a cynic I'd wonder if said loopholes were not there by accident...



I do work that's highly involved with regulation. i watch and read draft bills from house and senate and watch as things are added and removed. Sometimes, there are oversights. The bulk of the time, it's political favors. The loopholes aren't accidental, and if they are, they are closed by a legislative fix quickly.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

selectortone said:


> .....And Jacob would argue that out of the two left-leaning mainstream papers, even one of those is rabidly anti-Corbyn.


Guardian was leader of the whole pack ranting against Corbyn in every issue for weeks before 2019 election and hasn't really let up. Was a well respected paper before that and more influential than many.
Which was the other left leaning paper- the Mirror?

Even New Statesman was in on the ranting though they have relented a bit. Why Labour needs to contend with the successes of Corbynism as well as its failures "_Though it’s rarely acknowledged, the economic policy consensus in Britain has settled somewhere strikingly close to the 2017 Corbyn programme"_

Interesting comment here from 2016 Why Corbyn so terrifies the Guardian - TruePublica
The Guardian has been forced to think a bit, though they don't use the C word here: People want bold economic change – the tragedy is, Labour hasn't realised this | Rachel Shabi


----------



## sploo (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> Guardian was leader of the whole pack ranting against Corbyn in every issue for weeks before 2019 election and hasn't really let up. Was a well respected paper before that and more influential than many.
> Which was the other left leaning paper- the Mirror?
> Even New Statesman was in on the ranting though they have relented a bit. Why Labour needs to contend with the successes of Corbynism as well as its failures
> Interesting comment here from 2016 Why Corbyn so terrifies the Guardian - TruePublica


I'm not sure I'd consider the Grauniad (sic) as a well respect paper. I mean, even as as stinkin' lefty on many issues I find it a bit over the top


----------



## selectortone (11 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> I'm not sure I'd consider the Grauniad (sic) as a well respect paper. I mean, even as as stinkin' lefty on many issues I find it a bit over the top


I've been a rank and file Labour Party member for most of my life, Labour born and bred, union convener grandad from Birtley, Co Durham. You don't get more Labour than my family. I too find the old Graun a bit left field sometimes. But Jacob seems to think they're a little bit to the right of Atilla the Hun


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

selectortone said:


> I've been a rank and file Labour Party member for most of my life, Labour born and bred, union convener grandad from Birtley, Co Durham. You don't get more Labour than my family. I too find the old Graun a bit left field sometimes. But Jacob seems to think they're a little bit to the right of Atilla the Hun


No they are good on most issues but they did indulge in hysterical rants against Corbyn, led by J Freedland, Nick Cohen, Jessica Elgot, Will Hutton, and others.
Getting things wrong is one thing but allowing the paper to be used for such blatantly partisan rants is another entirely.
The leaked governance report remains un-dealt with, the Forde Inquiry report is still suppressed , their chosen man Special K is failing dismally and wrecking the party. It's not all over yet!


----------



## selectortone (11 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> It's not all over yet!


It may well be if the party continues to be ripped down the middle by dinosaurs like you, mired in the past and unable to adapt to 21st Century issues!

The right are loving this. Enough with the treachery - get behind our leader. Or we're farked.


----------



## doctor Bob (11 Oct 2021)

Are you a bovver boots man Jacob?
Trouble is even if you had someone like that leading the party, people don't want to be stuck in the working class bracket, everyone is an aspiring millionaire now.


----------



## Terry - Somerset (11 Oct 2021)

It is unclear (to me anyway) who runs the country.

Folk believe they democratically elect government. PR is a non-issue - the referendum went 68/32% against. Most are not able to understand complex arguments and respond mainly to (a) media opinion, and (b) that which affects them personally. We perpetuate the concept of democratic process despite its weaknesses.

Politicians don't run the country. they think they do. They may set general direction and strategy, but they can't avoid media scrutiny and reporting. They are reliant for advice and implementation on the civil service. They can do nothing if they are not elected.

Businesses have some claim to run the country - they are able to deploy the resources as they see fit, although motivated by profit rather than public good. If corruption exists between business and politicians, it is business that gets the greater share of the corrupt cake.

The media could be charged with some justification they run the country - historically press (reducing circulation) and more recently TV. Their time is passing - uncontrolled social media being increasingly the way in which the young (< ~35) are informed and develop opinions.

The only constant over the last 165 years is the UK civil service. They have survived wars, countless changes of government, the loss of empire, economic turmoil, technological change etc. There are around 450,000 of them and comfortably outnumber politicians, business leaders and the media combined. So I suspect Sir Humphrey was right - they do run the country. 

Political success will will go to those that manage social media effectively. The "prize" of political leadership will be based on "personality", "spin" and "selective truths" rather than underpinned by serious debate. Whether politicians will find a way to displace the civil service is another matter entirely.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

selectortone said:


> It may well be if the party continues to be ripped down the middle by dinosaurs like you, mired in the past and unable to adapt to 21st Century issues!
> 
> The right are loving this.


Of course they are. Starmer is no threat even if he wins an election, which looks extremely unlikely. The right wing MSM are right behind him - suits them entirely to have a lame duck LOTO and a divided party


> Enough with the treachery - get behind our leader. Or we're farked.


The person ripping the party down the middle is Starmer, surely you have noticed?
Though maybe not it doesn't get reported too well in the MSM. You have to read Tribune, Morning Star, The Jacobin, Jonathan Cook, or the big array of alternative Labour FB pages.
The dinosaurs are not the issue he has lost the youth vote, deliberately it seems - he was setting out to purge Jess Barnard until he realised that this was a silly thing to do just before the conference,
Labour apologises to chair of youth wing for ‘investigation error’
I think everybody was behind him until he broke all his pledges one by one not least that he would unify the party. He hadn't said he would do it by purging half the membership.
PS The Forde report may be starting to leak! About time too.



PPS and as for party unity - Special K seems to have unified the left, which is quite an achievement!


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> It is unclear (to me anyway) who runs the country.
> 
> Folk believe they democratically elect government. PR is a non-issue - the referendum went 68/32% against. ......


Trouble is PR is a party issue too. As things are at the moment it would disadvantage the Tories, Labour not affected, but other minority parties would get more seats. 
This is interesting: as you can see Labour nearly level pegs seats to votes, Tories do very well, other parties do very badly. General Election 2019: Turning votes into seats
An archaic system and discarded in many other countries, and a very live issue. Essentially undemocratic as it stands.
The left are making a mistake by calling for a "progressive alliance" but the last thing most voters seem to want is progress. A "democratic alliance" would be a better term.


----------



## Flynnwood (11 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> So I suspect Sir Humphrey was right - they do run the country.



@Terry You reminded me of this clip from around three decades ago


----------



## RobinBHM (11 Oct 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> Are you a bovver boots man Jacob?
> Trouble is even if you had someone like that leading the party, people don't want to be stuck in the working class bracket, everyone is an aspiring millionaire now.



the political landscape has changed rather a lot.

less union bound heavy industry, more self employed contractors, more people in the gig economy…..all people that are effectively business owners.


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

Does seem that a lot of people really don't know whats going on in their own party. I'd add to the list of alternative Labour comment the JVL Jewish Voice for Labour


----------



## Jacob (11 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> ...
> 
> Labour need to adapt…..luckily Starmer is more in tune with reality than 70s man


If only! Starmer's inspiration seems to be Blair 1997, or some feeble version thereof. Mr nobody Mandelson was there back then and is still having no positive influence "helping" Special K! Is he an establishment mole/saboteur? They do want to keep Labour out of power.
Just been watching the Blair/Brown TV prog. Fascinating stuff. Blairs biggest (only?) achievement would seem to have been the NI agreement which is quite something and he deserves the credit for his part in it.


----------



## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> If only! Starmer's inspiration seems to be Blair 1997, or some feeble version thereof. Mr nobody Mandelson was there back then and is still having no positive influence "helping" Special K! Is he an establishment mole/saboteur? They do want to keep Labour out of power.
> Just been watching the Blair/Brown TV prog. Fascinating stuff. Blairs biggest (only?) achievement would seem to have been the NI agreement which is quite something and he deserves the credit for his part in it.



It is no surprise to me that you can’t find anything Blair achieved, despite him being the most successful Labour leader in your lifetime. 
Labour supporters refuse to give any credit to Labour’s most successful leader in modern history….and they wonder why the party always loses.


By the way, I’ve just noticed this thread is in the open forum so I guess we should avoid politics here.


----------



## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> It is no surprise to me that you can’t find anything Blair achieved, despite him being the most successful Labour leader in your lifetime.
> Labour supporters refuse to give any credit to Labour’s most successful leader in modern history….and they wonder why the party always loses.
> 
> 
> By the way, I’ve just noticed this thread is in the open forum so I guess we should avoid politics here.


I'll copy paste in the padded room!


----------



## Keith Cocker (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour need to find themselves a Dominic Cummings.
> 
> and have one single strategy: win power, win power, win power
> 
> and when they are in, ditch their manifesto and start doing what they want -maybe some of your socialist policies like renationalisation.



Sadly, the only way Labour can win is by cooperating with other “progressive “ parties in elections. One shared policy needs to be PR. And they won’t do it.


----------



## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> Sadly, the only way Labour can win is by cooperating with other “progressive “ parties in elections. One shared policy needs to be PR. And they won’t do it.


Actually they don't need to compromise beyond supporting PR. A "progressive alliance" not needed but a democratic alliance is. Quite a bright prospect nothing sad about it?
Starmer not supportive of PR, for no apparent reason, perhaps as part of appeal to the mythical "red wall" or perhaps just an extension of his sabotage of Labour. Members support PR by a big majority but Starmer is dumping members as fast as he can. 150k down already.


----------



## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> Sadly, the only way Labour can win is by cooperating with other “progressive “ parties in elections. One shared policy needs to be PR. And they won’t do it.


Labour don’t have the numbers currently to win in 2024

the next real chance is 2028.


Im not sure PR should be a manifesto policy - the UK public May see that as trivial compared to the impending economic crisis.


----------



## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour don’t have the numbers currently to win in 2024
> the next real chance is 2028.


Nobody knows. 3 years away, may be less. A week is a long time in politics


> Im not sure PR should be a manifesto policy - the UK public May see that as trivial compared to the impending economic crisis.


It is very popular with Labour membership and all minority parties, hence would certainly win votes, depending on how much propaganda the tories would launch as it would be very bad for them.


----------



## doctor Bob (12 Oct 2021)

Some thought Labour were going to win last election . I can only imagine their poor little faces on the release of the exit poles. Did John ever eat his hat?


----------



## Terry - Somerset (12 Oct 2021)

PR is only an argument worth putting forward whilst in opposition - it is simply a function of the way the maths work in a first past the post system.

20 years ago a similar argument could have been made by the Tories in respect of the Blair government.

Integrity in politics is in large part about sticking with fundamental beliefs irrespective of the immediate consequences. Not cynically flexing a position to gain immediate advantage.

PR was also subject to a referendum only 8 years ago and rejected 68/32. Scottish independence was 55/45 and billed as a once in a generation opportunity (although Mrs Sturgeon doesn't think so). Brexit happened on the back of 52/48.

The PR debate is dead and should remain so for at least 30 years, not regurgitated as if it suddenly now has overwhelming justification every time it produces a result you don't like.


----------



## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> ..
> 
> 20 years ago a similar argument could have been made by the Tories in respect of the Blair government.
> 
> ...


it's about democracy not party politics. It would favour Labour perhaps at the moment but that could change. The main thing is that it would favour the minority parties and give them seats more proportional to the national vote.
It's a live issue, a democratic deficit and long overdue for reform.
It could actually give more representation even to Farage and the nutters but that is democracy! In the process it might take out some of the anger around issues.

You can sign a petition below:
_"Trust in politics is at rock bottom. It’s no wonder why.
It is time for real reform to end the mass disenfranchisement we see under First Past the Post."_









Westminster’s voting system is bankrupt. It’s time for proportional representation


Millions of voters unrepresented. An unjust majority on a minority of the vote. And nearly one in three forced to vote ‘tactically’.Westminster’s voting system is not just bust.




www.electoral-reform.org.uk


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## Phil Pascoe (12 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> PR was also subject to a referendum only 8 years ago and rejected 68/32.




One specific form of PR was also subject to a referendum only eight years ago and rejected 68/32.

Ftfy.


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## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> The PR debate is dead and should remain so for at least 30 years, not regurgitated as if it suddenly now has overwhelming justification every time it produces a result you don't like



I can’t see any equivalence of referendums to PR in national elections.

PR in elections is not simply the greatest number wins, there are a number of systems.

the PR debate is certainly not dead in fact I would argue it is the most beneficial change this country could make.

This country has a completely broken political system and it needs reform desperately.

PR systems in a fair few European countries create stable, grown up, non tribal coalitions, far better than the UK.


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## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> PR is only an argument worth putting forward whilst in opposition - it is simply a function of the way the maths work in a first past the post system



you mean the party than wins on FPTP has no interest in changing the status quo.

although it will be happy to engage in gerrymandering by making constituency changes, introduce indenting cards to cut certain sections of the electorate out of voting…..or engage in pork barrel politics (”levelling up”)


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## sploo (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> PR systems in a fair few European countries create stable, grown up, non tribal coalitions, far better than the UK.


Which countries?

PR has always struck me as the most "fair" system; if 2.8% of the electorate favour the octopus nostril party*, then 2.8% of the seats in your house of parliament will go to the nostril boys. However, I thought that in practice it tends to rarely return a majority government; meaning the largest parties end up having to form coalitions with fringe (often pretty crazy) parties; meaning that the aforementioned eight tentacle lovers end up getting far more leverage in their nation's politics than their vote percentage would support (as they end up being key to holding up a coalition).

* Randomly chosen to avoid using <insert fringe party that will upset someone because they actually support said party>


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## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> Which countries?
> 
> PR has always struck me as the most "fair" system; if 2.8% of the electorate favour the octopus nostril party*, then 2.8% of the seats in your house of parliament will go to the nostril boys. However, I thought that in practice it tends to rarely return a majority government; meaning the largest parties end up having to form coalitions with fringe (often pretty crazy) parties; meaning that the aforementioned eight tentacle lovers end up getting far more leverage in their nation's politics than their vote percentage would support (as they end up being key to holding up a coalition).
> 
> * Randomly chosen to avoid using <insert fringe party that will upset someone because they actually support said party>


All explained here. There are many variations. Proportional Representation


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## doctor Bob (12 Oct 2021)

I'm a big fan of the "TONP".
Not as good as "The Urchin Rhino Democrats" but the name was an issue


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## Spectric (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour don’t have the numbers currently to win in 2024


But how many will vote tory again after this fiasco, there manifesto should be too little, never enough and eventually. There real colors are starting to show, they will not increase taxation for the wealthy end of the spectrum but more than happy to hit the other end and look like getting a big payrise just to prove they don't lead by example. The NI rates are also a sham, add another break so after a certain income the level increases again and use this to fund the NHS and leave the poorest to pay no more. Next election will be a hung parliament, they no longer have a Corbyn to get labour voters to defect.


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## Spectric (12 Oct 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> Some thought Labour were going to win last election


Well they might had they been honest and upfront with the people rather than sitting on the fence being undecisive over brexit so no one knew where they stood, and clearly demonstrating that they were not happy about that outcome, people don't vote for someone who cannot accept the peoples vote.


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## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Jacob said:


> t would favour Labour perhaps at the moment but that could change. The main thing is that it would favour the minority parties and give them seats more proportional to the national vote



Under PR Labour would almost certainly split, as it’s basically 2 parties.

the UK would then be likely to have coalition social democratic governments


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## RobinBHM (12 Oct 2021)

Spectric said:


> But how many will vote tory again after this fiasco



a lot.

I know Biden won “because he wasn’t Trump.

that won’t happen with Starmer.

Labour will still be deeply divided - there are a lot of Jacobs in the Labour Party…….busy bashing the party rather than being focused on winning.


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## D_W (12 Oct 2021)

Biden is also moderate with really little accomplished but with a reputation for compromising on legislative efforts. It looked attractive and he was able to get POed trump voters (for good reason - Trump squandered his own opportunity). 

I think Biden may be squandering his now. He was handed a gift situation. Trump won by not being Hillary or Obama. 

Obama won by not being G.W. Bush (he also had a lack of accomplishments, which seems to be an advantage these days as there's not much of substance to criticize if there's not much of substance in the first place). 

Obama is semi-forgotten already. If you asked people what he accomplished, I think they might remember the health care bill, but that failed to address the health care issues here and just protected insurers. I don't know what he really accomplished. 

I don't know anything that GWB accomplished either. 

I think GWB and Obama are both nice guys with good intentions. I don't think the same of Hillary or Trump. Biden graduated 76th out of 85 at syracuse law (which is an OK school, but nothing special). His performance is a lot like that - we didn't really expect a guy coming in with the aptitude to be that deceptive, and maybe that's a good thing.


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## D_W (12 Oct 2021)

(Biden did claim that he graduated in the top half of his law class before someone tracked down the official records, though. I guess even though I think he's a decent guy, he's still a politician and can't resist using a lie to try to sell his credibility).


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## doctor Bob (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> Labour will still be deeply divided - there are a lot of Jacobs in the Labour Party…….busy bashing the party rather than being focused on winning.



Jacob and his pals will keep Boris in power, daft but true.


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## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

Spectric said:


> .... people don't vote for someone who cannot accept the peoples vote.


Yes they do.They change their minds massively - thats why we have changing governments - sometimes out of the blue taking everybody by surprise. Anyway this idea of "respecting the people's vote" never meant going blindly ahead unconditionally.


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## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> a lot.
> 
> I know Biden won “because he wasn’t Trump.
> 
> that won’t happen with Starmer.


You mean Starmer won't win because he isn't Corbyn? But that's Starmers only platform "A New Leadership" etc etc. 
I agree with you - he will lose because he is Starmer, he doesn't need any help!


> Labour will still be deeply divided - there are a lot of Jacobs in the Labour Party…….busy bashing the party rather than being focused on winning.


What a ludicrous thing to say. Starmer is frantically bashing the left and purging the party. It's impossible not to know that. He's lost 150,000 members by banning or by resignations. He's even purging Jews - accusing them of antisemitism!!
This is typical 

Labour under Starmer is going through some strange times, like nothing ever before.

Seems to be a theme of all these political threads - people attempt to reverse the truth rather than bothering to look at tedious details. Very lazy - but then the details are disturbingly weird.


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## Terry - Somerset (12 Oct 2021)

In 2010 the UK had a hung parliament. The Libdems who won 57 seats negotiated with both main parties and settled on the Tories (rightly or wrongly).

Hooray - a chance for some grown up consensus cross party politics. It may have continued had the later alternative vote referendum been successful. Fiddling with different PR variants is just tinkering in the margins in the hope of an answer different to that already given.

To their credit Cameron and Clegg made it largely work - both making compromises they would not have wanted had either won overall control.

The judgement of the electorate on the Libdems in 2015 - LOSE 49 SEATS. Cleggs reward from his party - YOU'RE FIRED.

I somewhat doubt the ability of UK politicians to manage coalition politics where none call all the shots. The electorate certainly don't understand.

PR means subordination of political dogma to tolerance, compromise and willingness to act in the wider national interest. There is little evidence to inspire confidence in the UK. Even in Europe where some form of PR is commonplace there are some very clear stresses.

The real risk is that PR would bring with it a decade of instability which would make Brexit fall out seem trivial by comparison.


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## Jacob (12 Oct 2021)

Terry - Somerset said:


> ...
> 
> The real risk is that PR would bring with it a decade of instability which would make Brexit fall out seem trivial by comparison.


Exactly the opposite. PR can lead to stability with fewer lurches from one party rule to another, less anger about being under represented, more voices being heard and more respect for the process.
Yes the tories could lose by it as things stand but this wouldn't always be the case. ALL parties would find themselves having to take note of the others without betting all on a desperate grab for total power.


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## sploo (12 Oct 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> I'm a big fan of the "TONP".
> Not as good as "The Urchin Rhino Democrats" but the name was an issue


You can't trust the octopus guys; they're really slippery.

That said, I hear the rhinos are a bit horny.

Still, I'd rate either of them as having a better chance of winning a General Election than the Labour party Jacob would like to see.


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## Sean33 (12 Oct 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> If the Grade II listed Manor was bought by public money, throughly renovated to become a well equipped and well run care home a lot more people would benefit for a much longer time. That would be a good ROI.


Agree 100%. But, it would probably take 2 plus years to agree how the home should be divided into rooms, choosing the joiners, decorators etc etc, then to top it all it would almost always go over budget and be delayed...!


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## Spectric (12 Oct 2021)

Don't you think that politicians have become pointless, they all seem to have their own agenda's with a lot of overlap between parties. They certainly all lack leadership skills, people skills and the ability to form a coherent team and so cannot work as one.


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## D_W (12 Oct 2021)

sploo said:


> You can't trust the octopus guys; they're really slippery.
> 
> That said, I hear the rhinos are a bit horny.
> 
> Still, I'd rate either of them as having a better chance of winning a General Election than the Labour party Jacob would like to see.



Either would result in a more livable society, too, which the voters are well aware of. The vote amounts to a whole lot more than polls.


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## MikeK (13 Oct 2021)

If you want to carry on in the OT-II forum, please do.


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