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If you’ve always been a lurker, nighthawks gives you an opportunity to delurk, make some Changes, Tonight, be a Rebel Rebel, and start posting, I’m sure you’ll be Dancing in the Street once you start posting
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10116032/It-is-time-for-Lord-Ashcroft-and-the-Tory-party-to-part-company.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22847986
Already seen the PS4 video, but it's a very astute and quite amusing kick in the nuts for Microsoft, whose PR approach to the Xbone appears to be sub-optimal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/zerohours-contracts-for-workers-to-be-reviewed-by-coalition-8656328.html
Though I think I saw a tweet or something today re scraping the minimum wage in London? Mooted anyway.
Arf - the Brighton walrus makes it into the header!
It was turning a corner and having one present himself face on that was a little disconcerting...
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2013/04/Andrea_Jenkyns_selected_for_Morley_and_Outwood.aspx
http://player.stv.tv/programmes/road-referendum/2013-06-11-2000/?yes
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
Young girl gets raped at 13 by a 17 year old. Conservatism of her home town makes her keep the baby. The rapist is let out on bail, and likely to get between probation and a couple of years. The victim gets slut shamed as a pregnant teenager.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130605/NEWS/306050112/An-Elwood-girl-became-pregnant-sexual-assault-13-Her-story-illustrates-growing-problem-Indiana-?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Anyway, taking away the distracton of kids whooping and cheering at every possible opportunity, I'd say it's apreety good action movie. Very easy to compare it with last years masterpiece 'The Avengers' due to the ott amount of general destruction and mayhem. It's not amazing, but well worth seeing. Second best movie this year after Star Trek I'd say.
More importantly, been scanning through the last thread on the bus home. Someone brought up IHT again I see, and as usual the word stealing got used. If inherited wealth isn't the ultimate definition of unearned income-for the recipient, then I don't know what is. Probably the economically most inefficient way of allocating wealth there is, after the national lottery. For example, what exactly did the Milibros do to either earn or deserve their bonanza from marxist daddy? A bonanza they did their best to avoid paying tax on I may add. Hypocrite overload as always.
When you earn money it's yours, if you give it away to family it becomes a gift. Tough if it gets taxed heavily again. It shouldn't have been taxed when you worked for it of course. As usual punish people for doing positive things, reward their kids for doing nothing.
Just as an update on my fave topic, the Roma invasion of Stockholm. The begging and pickpocketing situation is reaching critical mass, really is becoming an obscenity and blight on the city.The Rumainian government is quite happy to see the back of them of course. Glad the EU is chucking truckloads of money at the country whilst they are partaking in ethnic cleansing on an epic scale. These people should be in their own country and being educated and integrated into society. It's so pointless them coming here or moving to the UK en masse next year, just more problems and understandable racial tension await. Believe me, this is the worst cultural clash I have ever seen, the normally placid Swedes are furious, and I have heard comments from usually sane and hippiesque people that would have you covering your ears in shock. This mix is incendiary, and it's coming big time to a town you live in soon.
Cue cries of racist bigot...
That's really disgusting and I'm shocked the mods don't ban him for it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/low-wages-not-benefits-holding-britain-down?CMP=twt_gu
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
It's entirely reasonable to critique supranationalism, without people assuming that you believe in some Jewish conspiracy.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
There's nowhere to go after seeing that performance. It was like the absolute pinnacle of conspiracy insanity. With a healthy dose of total w**kerness thrown in as a bonus.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Socrates, when you bought your car, did you look at a Bristol? After all, that's British made, and I'm pretty sure that the guy who owns it doesn't make much money at all. You could have voted with your wallet for lower inequality and a British manufacturing base.
What is really worrying is seeing who the government seem to be taking advice from - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10114361/RBS-should-be-more-like-a-Canadian-bank-according-to-Davide-Serras-Downing-Street-show-and-tell.
As I do not want OGH to fall foul of m'learned friends, I can say no more.
Put it this way, were I Governor of the Bank of England or, indeed, Chairman of the FCA, I would be raising both eyebrows as high as they would go.
As for me, I don't own a car. I'm part of the metropolitan elite.
I'm a bit 'Taylor-ish' when it comes to mankind, all in all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB74Wxp8BWw
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent.
And I think you're right that too many governments are trying to actively debase their currencies, which will hurt the poor and the middle classes disproportionately (albeit it will be a hidden tax).
Bloody capitalist greedy Tory scum......oh wait.
What is lobbying?
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
Our situation is slightly different. Partly the starting point was very high (a few years ago the Sunday Times reckoned the founder of the business left just under £3bn in today's money). The other point is that we have made the business sustainable by creating a culture that sees ownership as a temporary act of chance: it is a trusteeship on behalf of all of Sir Richard's descendents. The partners get paid a decent wage, but don't take any money out of the business. In many ways it's more like a mutual than anything else (albeit with a rather limited membership). [I'm from the 11th generation, just for reference]
(The only really successful lobbying effort I can think of is the Green lobby. But this is a conspiracy of the poor against the rich. Just one year of BP's cashflow would be sufficient to acquire all three of the world's largest wind companies, and the ten largest solar players. So it's hardly evidence of the rich successfully buying the political system and twisting it in their favour.)
(I still bought a second hand BMW though...)
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/ImgGalleryTn/4/65404/6027_12581.jpg
"To be fair to Twigg, it’s not his fault he hasn’t got a policy to speak of, and therefore no means of sensibly critiquing the Coalition’s. It’s common knowledge within the shadow cabinet that if he tried to come up with one, Ed Miliband would sack him. Or rather, Christine Blower of the NUT would be on the phone telling him to sack him. And Ed being Ed, he probably would."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100221432/you-show-me-your-education-policy-and-ill-show-you-mine-michael-gove-steals-diane-abbott-away-from-ed/
Constructive huh? Do you think Dave and Ed should do a swop with Ashcroft and Hodges?
(I assume something similar led to the UK's "light touch" regulation also.)
The tax regulations which allow companies to register their brand in a tax haven and then transfer their business profits to the tax haven by paying to use the brand.
I'm sure i could remember a few more if i put my mind to it.
So the employers gain and the workers gain, the ex-workers lose. Temporarily if an expanding economy is able to create employment opportunities for them and they are able to retrain to take them, permanently if not.
Replacing the existing workforce with a cheaper one doesn't increase productivity. But it does create a wealth transfer from the employees to the employers. In particular those employers which have most opportunities to enact this transfer of employees.
There are other issues as well at an national macroeconomic level.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=24041#more-24041
On the markets, more down to come in the short term, but still one last high in the US around about 20th-25th July around the corner I think. Its still not time to turn mega-bearish just yet, patience, patience, patience!
http://www.pretzelcharts.com/2013/06/spx-and-bkx-no-material-change.html
Good night all.
There was a reason the North won the US civil war.
I think the origins of the financial crisis were two-fold: (1) allowing retail banks to gamble with money that was government guaranteed. And (2) a belief that house prices always rose, and therefore no amount of debt - so long as it was secured on a house - was excessive. The government had nothing (really) to do with the second, except in that it loosened explicit controls in the early 1980s. It was much more culpable in the first case, in that the Big Bang allowed financial markets firms (in particular stockbrokers) to be owned by corporations.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dHBJLWkxVDlsdHZXMnFTQjNDUEE2MGc#gid=0
The name of the district, etc. in bold indicates that it shares the same boundaries as a parliamentary constituency. Unless I've missed any, this is the list of authorities in that category:
1. Chiltern / Chesham & Amersham
2. High Peak
3. Derbyshire South
4. Devon North
5. Castle Point
6. Hertsmere
7. Isle of Wight
8. Gravesham
9. Burnley
10.Pendle
11.Leicestershire North West
12.Great Yarmouth
13.Kettering
14.Mansfield
15.Taunton Deane
16.Cannock Chase
17.Spelthorne
18.Crawley
19.Bromsgrove
20.Worcester
21.Wyre Forest
22.Anglesey / Ynys Môn
2) Less need for innovation based competition in the industries they sell their services too.
Its a line we all recite but do any of us really believe it when we properly think about it.
Who are the PB commenters ?
A bunch of affluent, educated middle class Westerners.
And we're affluent, educated middle class Westerners mostly because of the fortune of our birth into affluent, educated, middle class Western families.
Give or take we hit the jackpot in life when we were born.
The problem is that being born into affluent, educated middle class Western families will no longer be enough to ensure an affluent, educated middle class western lifestyle for future generations.
And for those lower down the socioeconomic scale the difficulties increase.
Squeezing more and more people into more crowded living areas, with no open spaces and stressful commuting conditions, reduce the quality of life for the vast majority. Building small flats and houses en masse in already densly populated areas will just make things worse. People only look upwards in anger when they feel they are the only ones bearing the brunt of any pain during economic downturns. That's why lower income tax up to the average salary, a cap on energy and other utility bills, (sod green energy taxes), lower fuel costs via reduced petrol taxes, and similar ideas would go a long way to relieve the burden on the working masses. I don't think people are generally hung up about bosses pay or jealousy over the lifestyles of the rich. They just want less pressure on themselves and their families in hard times. The privitised utilities need stronger oversight, there are still too many monopolies that are distorting the market and ramping up prices. Some companies just have a license to print money.
Seeing everything through an East Germany circa 1970 style prism is not the solution. All parties should ignore the rich at the moment, concentrate efforts on the other workers in society. Stop bleeding, and allowing others to bleed people dry.
Total and utter cnuts like those who's destiny in life is to ease their own green conscience by grinding the average consumer down, whilst profiteering from lobbiyists etc are the true enemy. Hypocrisy will not be tolerated and examples should be made.
What we've had is a relative shift from production to consumption in Britain especially and the West generally.
The extra money needed to fund this being provided by debt.
The problems arise in those areas where the producers have a near monopoly and support from the state in upholding it.
Some parts of the public sector for example.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent."
@Sean_F Back in the 80's we had four TV channels with allotted news programmes, radio and the dead tree press delivering our political news. You couldn't visit a site like PB to discuss the latest up to date 24 hour rolling news on digital channels, or turn on your twitter link to watch the Westminster Lobby or the general public openly mocking our politicians.
That confidence in our governing classes was less about them being more competent or less malevolent, and more about a time before the onset of the X Factor generation and explosion of the internet. At the end of the day, we get the politicians we deserve. Indeed, the country voted Blair back into Office despite Iraq and various other New Labour scandals.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21579000-britain-has-gangsters-it-deserves-not-police-it-needs-gangland-britain
"Trident, the Met’s anti-gang unit, estimates there are around 250 gangs in the capital alone, selling drugs, carrying out muggings and sometimes stabbing each other."
Pretty much only the BBC and the political class left to admit the problem exists.
LOL. You should copyright that.
Dan Hodges is a great example of wonderful British design.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
(Agree with general point about Chinese riches through that era compared to Europe).
BTW, am starting to think that TIGER WOODS may be starting to shed some of his charisma. Just too much stupid, purely ego-driven drama. We've already got the Kardashians for that kind of bullcrappy.
Speaking of uberhype, Boston Patriots have just signed up Tiger's current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, Tim Tebow.