India’s successful Moon Landing

[Jacob]

It is time this post was renamed angry old men banging on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Delete it moderators !!!!

Yes sorry I know its boring but sometimes it feels like a useful exercise! And it might stave off the Alzheimer's

 

[Jacob]

Under section 24 (B1) of the Immigration Act 1971, a person who a) requires leave to enter the United Kingdom and, b) knowingly enters the UK without such leave, commits an offence

They can apply for leave when they arrive - as this is the only option offered them, and we have additional obligations to asylum seekers Who is a refugee, a migrant or an asylum seeker?

It makes no difference whether they have entered UK territory but not yet passed through immigration - it is an offence and reasonably described as "illegal".

Except no legal action is taken and it isn't reasonable in the first place

.... - prosecuting asylum seekers

per se is against international law and contravenes human rights legislation, unless they are criminals

for illegal entry is pointless if on conviction they will still be in an asylum claim queue anyway. Proper prison as a punishment would would normally be both pointless and costly.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/irregular-migration-in-the-uk/The channels for applying for leave have been closed, so the UK has created a whole circular problem - in effect encouraging and supporting the people smugglers, not to mention turning a blind eye when there are fatalities. How do refugees travel to other countries? Why don't they take the plane?

 

[Jester129]

They are NOT asylum seekers, if they were they could have stayed in the country where they originally arrived.
The ARE illegal immigrants, plain and simple.
Jacob, you are so incredibly blinkered and full of yourself that deema is wasting his time arguing with you.
I agree with plainsleuth on one thing, Moderators please close this 'discussion' down asap.

 

[Keith Cocker]

LOL!
In mega text.

You're the angry man from down the pub and I claim my 50p

He’s in Slow Horses isn’t he?

 

[Daniel2]

They are NOT asylum seekers, if they were they could have stayed in the country where they originally arrived.
The ARE illegal immigrants, plain and simple.
Jacob, you are so incredibly blinkered and full of yourself that deema is wasting his time arguing with you.
I agree with plainsleuth on one thing, Moderators please close this 'discussion' down asap.

I'm not taking any position in this thread, other than to point out,
once again, that instead of calling for a thread to be closed, when
it may be of interest to others, you could quite simply not read it.
There is nothing obliging anyone to participate in any particular
discussion on here.
What you are asking, is for free speech to be silenced.

 

[deema]

I think it might help if we actually define what a refugee is, and why they might be entitled to Asylum. I’ve attached the definition below. What it doesn’t cover is fleeing from war, famine, or economic depravation. None of these appear to qualify for asylum status. If we look at the vast majority of where the UK ‘boat people‘ are coming from almost none would comply with the requirement for asylum.

The term refugee has a very specific meaning, and in most cases, it isn’t correctly applied when describing a situation.

Refugee

The definition of a refugee according to The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is:

“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

 

[deema]

I do find it amusing how certain left wing individuals feel the need to ask for free speech to be terminated when they can see that the fallacy of certain left wing perspectives are challenged. Typical of ‘stupid’ people as defined by Dietrich Bonhoeffe in the video I posted earlier. That’s not an insult just a recognition and definition of a particular traite.

 

[John Brown]

Do they feel insulted by it's dismissive use?........I don't think so, most probably think it's extremely childish behaviour and pub bore talk.

I don't think you have to be left to be woke, but it probably helps.

 

[Jacob]

I do find it amusing how certain left wing individuals feel the need to ask for free speech to be terminated when they can see that the fallacy of certain left wing perspectives are challenged.

Examples?

Very odd thing to say as it's almost a defining feature of the left to want to argue until the cows come home, whereas the right just wants everybody to shut up, or close/delete threads, as we often see in this forum and others.

Can you point to an example?

 

[John Brown]

I think it might help if we actually define what a refugee is, and why they might be entitled to Asylum. I’ve attached the definition below. What it doesn’t cover is fleeing from war, famine, or economic depravation. None of these appear to qualify for asylum status. If we look at the vast majority of where the UK ‘boat people‘ are coming from almost none would comply with the requirement for asylum.

The term refugee has a very specific meaning, and in most cases, it isn’t correctly applied when describing a situation.

Refugee

The definition of a refugee according to The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is:

“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

Words shift their meaning over time. Take "woke", for example. Used to be the past form of "wake", now it's perceived by some to be a perjorative term for someone who tries not to offend others, especially minority groups. Even though such non-offensive behaviour usually comes at little or no cost or effort, other than trying not to say "wasn't like that iny day" or "I've always called them (insert favourite racist/sexist word), I'm not stopping now!".

 

[John Brown]

I came across this quote from Steve Albini, an ex punk musician who's now a successful sound engineer, not that that's relevant, and it struck a chord.

“However you define ‘woke,’ anti-woke means being a c*nt who wants to indulge bigots”

He goes on to say that, being white and straight, he has the easiest job in the world, so why would he not want to leave some space for others.

 

[Jester129]

@deema - and to think I used to like you! Pah! LOL

I'm not against free speech whatsoever, but what is the title of the thread again? Just askin'

 

[John Brown]

They are NOT asylum seekers, if they were they could have stayed in the country where they originally arrived.
The ARE illegal immigrants, plain and simple.
Jacob, you are so incredibly blinkered and full of yourself that deema is wasting his time arguing with you.
I agree with plainsleuth on one thing, Moderators please close this 'discussion' down asap.

What a strange opinion. Seems to me that Jacob and Deema both qualify for your definition of "blinkered", the only difference being that you bought your blinkers from the same place that Deema did.

 

[deema]

@Jester129 You would always be welcome to visit my workshop, coffee pots always on and Id bring out the good biccies. I may disagree with a lot of views, but I have to say I change my opinion or modify my perspective considerably from the debates on here. It makes me think and see the world from all sides.

 

[deema]

I think I would definitely not consider myself as Woke. There are lots of aspects covered under the banner that I fully support, however, I think most would find that perspectives pushed that challenge either scientific facts or actual history and endeavouring to change it to suit a perspective is a step far too far. I also feel that there is a growing group within the ‘Woke’ fraternity that are pushing highly bigoted, sexist, and racist dogma that should be thwarted. For these reasons I would not describe myself as Woke and more anti woke

 

[John Brown]

Getting back on thread, I'd like to congratulate India on their successful moon landing. I sincerely hope that the money spent will have created a lot of jobs and stimulated the economy. As someone who spent the bulk of his working life stringing zeros and ones together, or choreographing the dance of the electrons, as I like to call it, I don't profess to understand how the levers of a nation's economy work, but I'm confident someone will enlighten me. If there's food in the shops, and the only thing that stops the starving from buying it is lack of money, then print some money, it's not doing the shopkeepers any good sitting there, and will rot eventually. Ok, it'll cause inflation, but if you have nothing, how does that affect you? As I understand it, India has more millionaires and billionaires year on year, and a great deal of that wealth leaves the country in one way or another. My guess is that the space program money generally stays within the Indian economy. But at the end of the day, it's just money, just numbers on bits of paper. It's not as though India is sending millions of tons of rice and vegetables into outer space.
I realise this is probably a very simplistic perspective, so I'm hoping someone can explain what I'm missing here.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

We all know the expression "slice of the cake". In conventional economic thought the total economy is the whole cake. By giving more of the cake (a bigger slice) to some, the slices enjoyed by the rest become smaller.

The issue is how society shares the cake - should everyone have a same size slice, or some through inheritance, effort, risk or talent enjoy a larger share - how much inequality is acceptable?

Simplistic options to improve the lot of the disadvantaged are just that - simplistic. The cake (economy) needs to be made larger. Short term largely illusory propositions may include:

• print money and give to the poorer - the main impact is inflation. It does nothing directly to make the "cake" larger although it may stimulate some economic growth if the poorer are better fed, watered, educated etc and able to work more productively.
• taxing the wealthier to give to the poorer - generally inflation neutral but it will change behaviours. The wealthier may become less inclined to invest, work and find ways to avoid/evade tax. The poorer benefit as above.
• government borrowing spent on the poorer - ultimately needs to be repaid. Eventually the credit rating of governments falls, interest rates increase, and further borrowing stalls.

Some would see hauling the disadvantaged out of poverty a moral imperative to be pursued at irrespective of the consequences.

IMHO policies which create a larger "cake" are more sustainable in the long term. Those policies which by happy coincidence of benefit the poorer and enlarge the cake should be given priority.

All the above is, of course, very simplistic. Were tax, wealth distribution, etc easy to engineer we would all inhabit a comfortable well fed and fulfilled utopia. Reality is that policy consequences are difficult to model before implementation and the outcomes uncertain.

 

[John Brown]

We all know the expression "slice of the cake". In conventional economic thought the total economy is the whole cake. By giving more of the cake (a bigger slice) to some, the slices enjoyed by the rest become smaller.

The issue is how society shares the cake - should everyone have a same size slice, or some through inheritance, effort, risk or talent enjoy a larger share - how much inequality is acceptable?

Simplistic options to improve the lot of the disadvantaged are just that - simplistic. The cake (economy) needs to be made larger. Short term largely illusory propositions may include:

• print money and give to the poorer - the main impact is inflation. It does nothing directly to make the "cake" larger although it may stimulate some economic growth if the poorer are better fed, watered, educated etc and able to work more productively.
• taxing the wealthier to give to the poorer - generally inflation neutral but it will change behaviours. The wealthier may become less inclined to invest, work and find ways to avoid/evade tax. The poorer benefit as above.
• government borrowing spent on the poorer - ultimately needs to be repaid. Eventually the credit rating of governments falls, interest rates increase, and further borrowing stalls.

Some would see hauling the disadvantaged out of poverty a moral imperative to be pursued at irrespective of the consequences.

IMHO policies which create a larger "cake" are more sustainable in the long term. Those policies which by happy coincidence of benefit the poorer and enlarge the cake should be given priority.

All the above is, of course, very simplistic. Were tax, wealth distribution, etc easy to engineer we would all inhabit a comfortable well fed and fulfilled utopia. Reality is that policy consequences are difficult to model before implementation and the outcomes uncertain.

Great! How do you propose to create a larger cake? And if you could, how do you propose to stop the fat cats from hoovering up the extra?
As you say, it's complicated. Like most things in life, if there were clearly defined right and wrong choices, most of us would opt for the right way.

 

[Jacob]

....

IMHO policies which create a larger "cake" are more sustainable in the long term. Those policies which by happy coincidence of benefit the poorer and enlarge the cake should be given priority.

This is a fond delusion of the soft right, and popular with the hard right too because it doesn't work!
It never has and never will, except briefly during economic cycles of various sorts.
Increased productivity merely shovels wealth ever upwards, and impoverishes the less well off, even making them redundant.
How to remedy this is the basis of Marxism, or Piketty's "Capital", or the bulk of economic thought in general, left right and centre.
But congratulations on getting to the point, the big issue!

All the above is, of course, very simplistic.

Yes. More than simplistic - it doesn't work. Exactly the problem!!

Were tax, wealth distribution, etc easy to engineer we would all inhabit a comfortable well fed and fulfilled utopia.

Yes, but it's not easy to engineer - you are on the ball again!

Reality is that policy consequences are difficult to model before implementation and the outcomes uncertain.

Outcomes fairly predictable - we've had a lot of experience, from magna carta, if not before.
e.g. During the astonishing boom times of the industrial revolution vast numbers of the population found themselves unemployed and in dire poverty, not to mention the slaves working away in the colonies.
on the other hand following WW2 the "post war consensus" was that taxes and public spending should be high, and the benefits were felt by all (except the very rich ).

Income tax top rates in the 1970s in the UK
Following the very high war time rates it was slightly reduced and was around 90% through the 1950s and 60s. In 1971 the top rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%. A surcharge of 15% kept the top rate on investment income at 90%. In 1974 the cut was partly reversed and the top rate on earned income was raised to 83%.

Since 1979 taxes have fallen and inequality has increased steadily.

One way or another wealth has to be proactively redistributed, or it accumulates in an ever reducing number of hands, leaving an increasing majority less and less well off.

https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/42714/9/42714_TIPPET_The_good_life_at_the_top.pdf
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed

 

[Spectric]

Can we please get back on topic, ie India landing on the moon as we are now heading to another galaxy and are leaving the moon far behind.