India’s successful Moon Landing

[Jacob]

Except the wealthiest Country in the world?

What, Luxembourg? What's that got to do with anything?

 

[Jacob]

I never fully understand where some get their facts from, ...

..by very easy research. Ignorance and being unwoke is no excuse!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

[deema]

..by very easy research. Ignorance and being unwoke is no excuse!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom

Great, now your posting links to things that counter your own preposition.

 

[Jacob]

Great, now rather than just posting links that highlight the inaccuracy of your preposition, read them and appreciate the enormity of the unions folly.

The history shows deliberate confrontation of the miners by Thatcher, instead of an orderly process of closure and/or modernisation, as had been happening for many years previously - and carried on up to the present. One of the worst aspects of it was Thatchers complete disregard for the destruction of long established communities.
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-history

 

[deema]

Well, @Jacob, I have to ask you stop posting complete dribble. Use the time to read up before pontificating and giving opinions that are baseless. It’s as bad as Trump suggesting injecting bleach as a cure for Covid, ludicrous.

The conflict with the miners and just about every other nationalised industry is what brought down the labour government and led to Maggie coming to power. Everyone was fed up with strikes, bins not being emptied, trains not running etc etc. can’t you remember the huge piles of rubbish? Can’t you remember the three day week as we couldn’t generate enough electricity under Labour due to the strikes. The untold devastation the unions inflicted on the British economy.

The ship building, steel making and other industries didn’t die out globally, we just couldn’t modernise and improve efficiency of our nationalised industries (nationalised in the main because they were loss making) due to the intransigence and bloody minded approach of the unions. The industries were moved to other countries and are still alive and well employing millions creating new communities.

In your own words, the industry has to live with the consequence of making losses.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Forgot to say - you aren't supposed to actually believe in free market economics. Truss and Kwarteng were exceptions and hadn't got the message - look what happened next!
Neo liberalism is just an excuse to reduce public spending "we can't afford it" etc so that the mega rich can hang on to more of their ill-gotten gains.

You clearly don't believe in free market economics. I did not buy in to the Truss Kwarteng experiment but their key problem was the profoundly incompetent way in which they sought to implement their policies.

Basic communication management requires briefings, persuasion of colleagues, media management etc. This is fundamental to political success and they failed dismally.

There is a wider debate over what should properly be delivered as a public service:

A personal view- the state should:

• undertake that which either cannot be satisfactorily delivered by market forces, or requires a consistent national policy. Included in this should be foreign policy, defence, law and order, justice, major infrastructure planning (roads, airports, rail etc).
• provide some level of universal education and healthcare - it is in the national interest that folk are educated and healthy, and a moral imperative
• provide some support to those who are unable (not just unwilling) to support themselves.
• regulate businesses to ensure they operate appropriately (abuse of economic power etc)
• I use the word "some" deliberately - not to imply mean - the level needs debate.

Taxation should reflect only that which the government needs to deliver. Increasing public services and taxation beyond this level simply reduces personal choice in favour of government imposed consumption.

 

[Jameshow]

You clearly don't believe in free market economics. I did not buy in to the Truss Kwarteng experiment but their key problem was the profoundly incompetent way in which they sought to implement their policies.

Basic communication management requires briefings, persuasion of colleagues, media management etc. This is fundamental to political success and they failed dismally.

There is a wider debate over what should properly be delivered as a public service:

A personal view- the state should:

• undertake that which either cannot be satisfactorily delivered by market forces, or requires a consistent national policy. Included in this should be foreign policy, defence, law and order, justice, major infrastructure planning (roads, airports, rail etc).
• provide some level of universal education and healthcare - it is in the national interest that folk are educated and healthy, and a moral imperative
• provide some support to those who are unable (not just unwilling) to support themselves.
• regulate businesses to ensure they operate appropriately (abuse of economic power etc)
• I use the word "some" deliberately - not to imply mean - the level needs debate.

Taxation should reflect only that which the government needs to deliver. Increasing public services and taxation beyond this level simply reduces personal choice in favour of government imposed consumption.

To which I would add basic healthcare.

 

[MikeJhn]

The history shows deliberate confrontation of the miners by Thatcher, instead of an orderly process of closure and/or modernisation, as had been happening for many years previously - and carried on up to the present. One of the worts aspects of it was Thatchers complete disregard for the destruction of long established communities.

You have that the wrong way around as usual, the miners confronted the country and got the consequences.

 

[Jacob]

You clearly don't believe in free market economics.

True. They don't work well. They never did.
Politics is largely about rectifying the damage done by free market economics, from ending the slave trade onwards. And making it work for society.
Climate change looks like being the latest free market catastrophe and probably the last fling of free market economics

.... the Truss Kwarteng experiment but their key problem was the profoundly incompetent way in which they sought to implement their policies.

Their problem was in believing in childish free-market ideology. It was only for the masses and just a ruse to reduce tax and increase profits, both of which it did really well, but impoverishing the less well off, particularly on the housing front thanks to Thatchers sell off and the rise of the private unregulated landlord.

....

A personal view- the state should:

• .....

...redistribute wealth towards there being a more egalitarian society. Trickle down "theory" does not work and wealth moves rapidly upwards without a countervailing force of one sort or another. Taxation is better than theft or revolution!

Does anybody read these links I keep posting up? You should do.

https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/33...a_Progressive_Annual_Wealth_Tax_(2021)_v2.pdf
https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/42714/9/42714_TIPPET_The_good_life_at_the_top.pdf
Some notes here:
"1. Wealth in the UK in 2023 is extremely concentrated: the richest 50 families in the UK have more wealth than the bottom half of the UK population (33.5 million people): both groups own £466 billion.
2. Since the first rich list was published in 1989, wealth inequality has been on the rise: in 1989 a rich person had 6000 times the average person. Today it is 18,000 times.
3. COVID-19 and the cost-of-living crisis has not stopped rising wealth inequality: since the beginning of Covid-19, the wealthiest 200 families have seen their wealth increase in real terms by 22%. This increase alone is enough to give every family in the UK £9000.
4. While the super-rich of the STRL have never been wealthier, the UK government is poorer than at any time over the last 30 years. Privatisation, low / relatively low public investment spending and financial sector and COVID-19 bailouts have pushed the UK government’s liabilities to exceed its assets by £1.25 trillion in 2023.
5. Wealth inequality is likely to continue to grow into the future if nothing is done: if we continue at the current rates, the wealth of the richest 200 families will be larger than whole UK economy (GDP) by 2035.1
6. An increasingly popular solution is to raise taxes on the wealthy: taxing just half of the increase in the wealth of the richest 50 families each year would raise enough to give all public sector workers (5.5 million people) a standard of living preserving pay rise of 10.5%."

 

[Jacob]

You have that the wrong way around as usual, the miners confronted the country and got the consequences.

https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/miners-strike-1984-5-oral-history

 

[MikeJhn]

I don't need to read that, I lived through it and the constant strikes at Fords Dagenham where are they now.

@Jacob You seem to be very blinkered in your view or is it just your contrary, don't bother to answer I already know.

 

[Jacob]

I don't need to read that,

You should do. It tells a different story - and quite fairly too.

I lived through it and the constant strikes at Fords Dagenham where are they now.

Wrecked by backwards management and feeble government's inadequate pay policy.
There's a brilliant film about the earlier Dagenham women strikers which you should watch Made in Dagenham - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968

@Jacob You seem to be very blinkered in your view or is it just your contrary, don't bother to answer I already know.

Is it "blinkered" to have a different view from your own? Are you sure you aren't blinkered yourself? Do you read the Daily Mail?

 

[Daniel2]

Meanwhile, India has successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon...

 

[Jacob]

I never fully understand where some get their facts from, clearly a woke perspective on the world, .....

Honest of you to confess to having an unwoke perspective on the world. This sort of diversity is what makes threads like this interesting.
I find the unwoke idea particularly intriguing, not least because it is a powerful political force and gave us Johnson, Brexit and Suella Braverman, amongst other marvellous things.
Could you expand on it a little and tell us what the unwoke think and feel in general?
Is there a wider unwoke culture?
Where do you get your unwoke opinions from for instance?
Is it just the Daily Mail, or some sort of unwoke central?
55 Tufton Street perhaps?
Is there unwoke music? Max Bygraves, The Black & White Minstrel Show, Nadine Dorries's greatest hits, sing along with Enoch Powell, the Jakey Rees Mogg Experience?

 

[Keith Cocker]

I never fully understand where some get their facts from, clearly a woke perspective on the world, of ‘if I think it should be this way, it must be!’ So, to help those who weren’t around when the miners destroyed their industry and very brief potted history.
At the time of the miners strike, the British coal mining industry was unproductive, the cost for a tonne of coal was significantly higher than importing it from half way around the word, mined by the Aussys (25% higher). UK coal also had a much higher sulphur content than imported coal which had led to ‘acid rain’ over Scandinavia and the destructions of millions of trees. The UK needed to desulphur the British coal in order to reduce the acid rain. So every tonne of coal dug out of the ground required massive subsidies from the owner of British coal, the government.
So we had an industry that refused to modernise, was inefficient and its product more costly to actually use and far more costly to produce than importing the stuff. Now, any sensible person would have said, right chaps, we need to increase productivity, modernise and make our coal economically viable. We need to ensure than all the poor people in the UK can buy out coal, support out industry and not be in fuel poverty. Well that’s is exactly what Ian McGregor tried to do…..and the Union dug its heels in and refused to accept any change. In fact the Union had already achieved a 43% wages increase in 1972 under labour and was again pushing for a further exorbitant wage increase. The Union believed that by freezing the population, and turning the lights out (coal fired power stations) it would force the government under public pressure to back down. Well, it didn’t. The union shot itself and its members in its head, and never ever recovered from it. As a consequence, despite the world wide need for coal, the British industry and all the supporting company’s died a very rapid death.

Tosh as Mr Pascoe would say. I don’t know how rich you are but I’m puzzled why so many people who clearly aren’t rich are in favour of policies and approaches that only benefit the rich. Weird!!!

 

[Keith Cocker]

You clearly don't believe in free market economics. I did not buy in to the Truss Kwarteng experiment but their key problem was the profoundly incompetent way in which they sought to implement their policies.

Basic communication management requires briefings, persuasion of colleagues, media management etc. This is fundamental to political success and they failed dismally.

There is a wider debate over what should properly be delivered as a public service:

A personal view- the state should:

• undertake that which either cannot be satisfactorily delivered by market forces, or requires a consistent national policy. Included in this should be foreign policy, defence, law and order, justice, major infrastructure planning (roads, airports, rail etc).
• provide some level of universal education and healthcare - it is in the national interest that folk are educated and healthy, and a moral imperative
• provide some support to those who are unable (not just unwilling) to support themselves.
• regulate businesses to ensure they operate appropriately (abuse of economic power etc)
• I use the word "some" deliberately - not to imply mean - the level needs debate.

Taxation should reflect only that which the government needs to deliver. Increasing public services and taxation beyond this level simply reduces personal choice in favour of government imposed consumption.

Truss and Kwarteng got it wrong because of poor communication and management!!!! Tell that to the “Markets”.

 

[Jacob]

Tosh as Mr Pascoe would say. I don’t know how rich you are but I’m puzzled why so many people who clearly aren’t rich are in favour of policies and approaches that only benefit the rich. Weird!!!

Trickle down theory.
They imagine that if there are enough filthy rich about then some of it will find its way down the line. It's a delusion that the rich are keen to cultivate, and the main stream media is largely owned by just a few extreme right-wing mega-rich non-dom tax avoiders.
The other delusion is that we have to have rich people to invest in business and "grow" the economy. This completely ignores that the state is the biggest investor by far, that the mega rich do their utmost to divert their money off shore, and that continuous growth is now something we need to reverse, due to climate change.

 

[MikeJhn]

I have never understood how the word "Woke" was *******ised to mean anything other than "I woke this morning" American slang at its worst.

 

[Jacob]

I have never understood how the work "Woke" was *******ised to mean anything other than "I woke this morning" American slang at its worst.

You are not alone! Speaking up for the tofu-eating wokerati | Brief letters

 

[deema]

Ignore the provocative title, it’s a good watch and very interesting…..does this remind you of anything? Why facts don’t have any influence on some peoples perspective? A theory created by a guy fighting against the Nazis