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  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    On the concept of trading bets vs letting bets run to maturity, another factor is your confidence and comfort at absorbing potential losses.

    If you eg were willing to wager a tenner and willing to lose it, backing Corbyn at 100/1 then you could lay that now at nearly a grand profit whether Corbyn wins or loses. If you didn't have any bet in this market would you be prepared to enter it now risking a thousand pounds at Corbyn's current odds? If so then let the bet ride, if you wouldn't dream of wagering a grand now at these odds then hedge and take some of your profits.

    Exactly. I had no intention of getting into the leadership betting for serious money, that tenner now laid off will make me a grand if Corbyn wins and double my total £20 stake if he loses.

    I think the definition of the trading bet is one that is not intended as value for the contest itself, but rather that it's expected to shorten as the contest date approaches. I didn't think Corbyn had a chance of winning, but thought he might be 20/1 at some point.
    You'll feel sick as a pig if you end up with £20 at this point though !
    Yep!! If it does come off I'll be upgrading my ticket for the final F1 race of the season to hospitality. Will raise a glass of something bubbly to Mr Corbyn (and PB for the tip of course)!!
  • watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    edited August 2015
    Sandpit said:

    Morning all,

    Hodges:

    "Jeremy Corbyn is poised for victory. Across the Labour party the lights are going out. We may not see them lit again in our lifetime."

    Dan Hodges must have been really looking forward to the leadership election, knowing that he had been proven right over Ed and that the party would learn from the defeat, pull themselves back together and elect the moderate centrist.
    He must be pulling his hair out now.
    Hodges = Tory

    (Well, according to the Corbynistas).
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Sandpit, you decadent capitalist pigdog!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    On the question of potential mortality - Corbyn looks fitter now than he did back in 1990. He won't be dropping down dead in the next 5 years.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    edited August 2015
    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Isam, if you backed Corbyn at 150/1, you might choose to just leave it, instead of hedging [I'd hedge, but not everybody goes that way].

    I backed Corbyn at 550-1 and laid at 300-1 to get my £2 back.

    I went in again at 1.4 for a hundred quid, if I'd backed again (£2) instead of laying at 300s, I'd have doubled my current book profit on him. Every price should be considered on it's merits at the time... 1.4 is probably a still a big price given what we know at the moment.

    Your previous bets shouldn't matter if you are looking at betting in the purest sense, the fact you placed a bet on Corbyn at 150-1 previously is irrelevant - it is whether you feel his chance of becoming next Labour leader is greater than 72% NOW that should determine whether you are a layer or backer.
    ^what pulpstar said...

    Your book/previous bets/trades simply don't matter when assessing the current value in the odds.

    Basically, you should only ever cashout when the value shifts over to the other side of the bet.
    The cashout button must be a fantastic earner for bookies - in markets such as football you get to pay the overround again !

    With the nags if you identify a bet as value then bumf it is placed, the race is run and the time period is generally too short for you to make a poor cashout.

    With politics (And test cricket !) the time horizons are a bit longer so you can have a think about the correct move at any point in time.

    In play football cashouts must be amongst the most profitable for the bookies. The event is long enough that you can reconsider a winning value bet, but not long enough that you get to have a DECENT think about it.
    The Cashout button wouldn't be there if the bookies weren't making money from it. I'd say it attracts the amateur punter watching with friends in the pub, rather than the serious gambler trying to make money.

    Test cricket has been very profitable this summer, but one has to commit to watching as much of it as possible live. I'll be at hopefully two of the upcoming England v Pakistan series in UAE, will try and get some tips from the ground for the PB cricket punters. ;)

    Bets in the final Ashes Test will be £60 instead of £50, in honour of the Aus 1st innings score last time out!!
    If you go to the ODIs, fancy a bit of courtsiding?!
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401
    JEO said:

    Financier said:



    Digging down into the piece written by Brian Back we find:

    "creating a fairer society"
    "offering a real and compelling alternative vision, of a much fairer, more equal, and happier society""
    "His followers now have a deep emotional connection to his campaign, because of their longing and yearning for hope and change; for the fairer, and altogether better society they have always dreamed of, but never thought they could have, until now."
    "what Corbyn offers, is much more attractive to voters than any carefully costed and credible economic policy"


    So how is this fairer society achieved? By state control of what one does and earns? So there is no incentive for people to work hard, create wealth and retain that wealth?

    Were does the money come from for this fairer vision and how is it created?

    When I lived under fairer society communist systems - there certainly was no equality except for the luxury lived by those privileged few at the top.

    I would not want this lecturer to teach any of my family or friends.

    Was that because the communists just weren't very good at it or because. in your mature judgment, the pursuit of fairness and equality (two rather different concepts, of course) are in themselves misguided or even morally vicious? As for "hard work" I have no idea what it is. There are plenty of people who work long hours for a pittance. Slaves, I believe, worked pretty hard. If you measure the hardness of work by the output then your argument is circular.

    It's cerainly possible to become a billionaire if you start (through inheritance) as a millionaire. But to get from poverty to millions is almost never done in a mature capitalist economy and when it is done it is almost always more or less criminal.

    Marx himself recognized that slaves don't work hard at all, unless compelled to do under threat. That's why he identified slavery as the most basic form of organised society, inferior to feudalism, never mind capitalism - the three types his work had the opportunity to analyse.
    I think that was Marx himself bending reality to fit his own rigid ideological beliefs. Slavery has existed in thousands of different manifestations throughout human history. The odd prisoner of war slave in indigenous African tribes probably did not work very hard. A slave that is part of a gang system, with a whip hand behind him in a Jamaican sugar plantation, and who gets beaten if he does not cut as much sugar as the tough daily target, probably worked far harder than you or I do.
    But not as hard as a sugar-reaping machine.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080


    Wr a pittance. Slaves, I believe, worked pretty hard. If you measure the hardness of work by the output then your argument is circular.

    It's cerainly possible to become a billionaire if you start (through inheritance) as a millionaire. But to get from poverty to millions is almost never done in a mature capitalist economy and when it is done it is almost always more or less criminal.

    Thats rubbish. The people who have over a million in assets are all round you. They are self employed builders, plumbers, they are professionals such as accountants and doctors.

    Most would have made their first couple of hundred thousand through asset appreciation in property and used that to finance other investments.

    Every school teacher will leave (assuming theyve made their annual contributions) with a pension fund not far off equivalent value of £900,000.

    A teacher!
    Any GP partner in the country will be a millionaire after very few years. They are currently retiring in their early 50s because they have maxed out their lifetime pension contributions.

    And that is pension alone.

  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    JEO said:

    JEO said:

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    Well, I must take your word for it, I suppose. Unless they made their money in construction and/or military supply, industries that are as bent as a nine-pound-note in every country in the world.

    You don't need to take people's word for it. Just think about it: in law, consultancy, banking, engineering there are plenty of six figure salaries to go round by middle age if you're doing well at one of the top firms. And what you need to get in is to be a high academic performer, go to a Russel Group university, and pass the milk round interviews. No inheritance required. And then you have the entrepreneurs who've stumbled upon a good business idea and executed it well.
    Why waste breath and pixels on the deluded fool. He is typical of the frothing ignorant moronic nutjobs salivating over Corbyn. The living dead clawing their way up from the bowels of the earth.
    I disagree with him, but there's no need to get abusive over it.
    On the contrary - I think there is. Corbyn's mate McCluskey will if given the chance get deep down and biblical with you, all in the name of you being a 'criminal'. If you cannot see how you are being set up that's your problem
    I see no benefit at all in ignoring the drivel that some people grind out.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Pulpstar, Alexander the Great dropped dead [well, it took a few days, but still]. Whilst I agree Corbyn's unlikely to pop his clogs before the next election, it's possible for any of us.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Isam, if you backed Corbyn at 150/1, you might choose to just leave it, instead of hedging [I'd hedge, but not everybody goes that way].

    I backed Corbyn at 550-1 and laid at 300-1 to get my £2 back.

    I went in again at 1.4 for a hundred quid, if I'd backed again (£2) instead of laying at 300s, I'd have doubled my current book profit on him. Every price should be considered on it's merits at the time... 1.4 is probably a still a big price given what we know at the moment.

    Your previous bets shouldn't matter if you are looking at betting in the purest sense, the fact you placed a bet on Corbyn at 150-1 previously is irrelevant - it is whether you feel his chance of becoming next Labour leader is greater than 72% NOW that should determine whether you are a layer or backer.
    ^what pulpstar said...

    Your book/previous bets/trades simply don't matter when assessing the current value in the odds.

    Basically, you should only ever cashout when the value shifts over to the other side of the bet.
    The cashout button must be a fantastic earner for bookies - in markets such as football you get to pay the overround again !

    With the nags if you identify a bet as value then bumf it is placed, the race is run and the time period is generally too short for you to make a poor cashout.

    With politics (And test cricket !) the time horizons are a bit longer so you can have a think about the correct move at any point in time.

    In play football cashouts must be amongst the most profitable for the bookies. The event is long enough that you can reconsider a winning value bet, but not long enough that you get to have a DECENT think about it.
    The Cashout button wouldn't be there if the bookies weren't making money from it. I'd say it attracts the amateur punter watching with friends in the pub, rather than the serious gambler trying to make money.

    Test cricket has been very profitable this summer, but one has to commit to watching as much of it as possible live. I'll be at hopefully two of the upcoming England v Pakistan series in UAE, will try and get some tips from the ground for the PB cricket punters. ;)

    Bets in the final Ashes Test will be £60 instead of £50, in honour of the Aus 1st innings score last time out!!
    If you go to the ODIs, fancy a bit of courtsiding?!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DBFDoWwRw

    No ball !
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837

    Mr. Pulpstar, Alexander the Great dropped dead [well, it took a few days, but still]. Whilst I agree Corbyn's unlikely to pop his clogs before the next election, it's possible for any of us.

    It's true, but my guess is he'd be quite a way below the actuarial tables cohort probability seeing as he's thin as a rake, and doesn't smoke (I think) or drink.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Isam, if you backed Corbyn at 150/1, you might choose to just leave it, instead of hedging [I'd hedge, but not everybody goes that way].

    I backed Corbyn at 550-1 and laid at 300-1 to get my £2 back.

    I went in again at 1.4 for a hundred quid, if I'd backed again (£2) instead of laying at 300s, I'd have doubled my current book profit on him. Every price should be considered on it's merits at the time... 1.4 is probably a still a big price given what we know at the moment.

    Your previous bets shouldn't matter if you are looking at betting in the purest sense, the fact you placed a bet on Corbyn at 150-1 previously is irrelevant - it is whether you feel his chance of becoming next Labour leader is greater than 72% NOW that should determine whether you are a layer or backer.
    ^what pulpstar said...

    Your book/previous bets/trades simply don't matter when assessing the current value in the odds.

    Basically, you should only ever cashout when the value shifts over to the other side of the bet.
    The cashout button must be a fantastic earner for bookies - in markets such as football you get to pay the overround again !

    With the nags if you identify a bet as value then bumf it is placed, the race is run and the time period is generally too short for you to make a poor cashout.

    With politics (And test cricket !) the time horizons are a bit longer so you can have a think about the correct move at any point in time.

    In play football cashouts must be amongst the most profitable for the bookies. The event is long enough that you can reconsider a winning value bet, but not long enough that you get to have a DECENT think about it.
    The Cashout button wouldn't be there if the bookies weren't making money from it. I'd say it attracts the amateur punter watching with friends in the pub, rather than the serious gambler trying to make money.

    Test cricket has been very profitable this summer, but one has to commit to watching as much of it as possible live. I'll be at hopefully two of the upcoming England v Pakistan series in UAE, will try and get some tips from the ground for the PB cricket punters. ;)

    Bets in the final Ashes Test will be £60 instead of £50, in honour of the Aus 1st innings score last time out!!
    If you go to the ODIs, fancy a bit of courtsiding?!

    No ball !
    Haha... Mikey knew!
  • Oliver_PBOliver_PB Posts: 397
    Pulpstar said:

    On the question of potential mortality - Corbyn looks fitter now than he did back in 1990. He won't be dropping down dead in the next 5 years.

    Corbyn is only 66 and the average life expectancy for man in the UK is 79 - and you'd expect Corbyn to live longer given that he doesn't eat red meat nor does he drink, plus he has been living on a well-above-average MPs salary for over 3 decades.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Pulpstar, ..... that makes him sound quite like me.
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    MattW said:





    Wr a pittance. Slaves, I believe, worked pretty hard. If you measure the hardness of work by the output then your argument is circular.

    It's cerainly possible to become a billionaire if you start (through inheritance) as a millionaire. But to get from poverty to millions is almost never done in a mature capitalist economy and when it is done it is almost always more or less criminal.

    Thats rubbish. The people who have over a million in assets are all round you. They are self employed builders, plumbers, they are professionals such as accountants and doctors.

    Most would have made their first couple of hundred thousand through asset appreciation in property and used that to finance other investments.

    Every school teacher will leave (assuming theyve made their annual contributions) with a pension fund not far off equivalent value of £900,000.

    A teacher!


    Any GP partner in the country will be a millionaire after very few years. They are currently retiring in their early 50s because they have maxed out their lifetime pension contributions.
    And that is pension alone.

    Yes. Equally a GP partner will have had to buy into the partnership (which costs money) so I guess they will get money back when they retire. Paying into pensions now does as well mean you sacrifice current living standards at the same time
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Isam, if you backed Corbyn at 150/1, you might choose to just leave it, instead of hedging [I'd hedge, but not everybody goes that way].

    I backed Corbyn at 550-1 and laid at 300-1 to get my £2 back.

    I went in again at 1.4 for a hundred quid, if I'd backed again (£2) instead of laying at 300s, I'd have doubled my current book profit on him. Every price should be considered on it's merits at the time... 1.4 is probably a still a big price given what we know at the moment.

    Your previous bets shouldn't matter if you are looking at betting in the purest sense, the fact you placed a bet on Corbyn at 150-1 previously is irrelevant - it is whether you feel his chance of becoming next Labour leader is greater than 72% NOW that should determine whether you are a layer or backer.
    ^what pulpstar said...

    Your book/previous bets/trades simply don't matter when assessing the current value in the odds.

    Basically, you should only ever cashout when the value shifts over to the other side of the bet.
    The cashout button must be a fantastic earner for bookies - in markets such as football you get to pay the overround again !

    With the nags if you identify a bet as value then bumf it is placed, the race is run and the time period is generally too short for you to make a poor cashout.

    With politics (And test cricket !) the time horizons are a bit longer so you can have a think about the correct move at any point in time.

    In play football cashouts must be amongst the most profitable for the bookies. The event is long enough that you can reconsider a winning value bet, but not long enough that you get to have a DECENT think about it.
    The Cashout button wouldn't be there if the bookies weren't making money from it. I'd say it attracts the amateur punter watching with friends in the pub, rather than the serious gambler trying to make money.

    Test cricket has been very profitable this summer, but one has to commit to watching as much of it as possible live. I'll be at hopefully two of the upcoming England v Pakistan series in UAE, will try and get some tips from the ground for the PB cricket punters. ;)

    Bets in the final Ashes Test will be £60 instead of £50, in honour of the Aus 1st innings score last time out!!
    If you go to the ODIs, fancy a bit of courtsiding?!
    Will let you know about the ODIs, although I think a couple of the dates are clashes with other things. All the ODIs will be D/N games, by the way.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,261
    The latest polls put Bush and Rubio 2 points ahead of Clinton (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_bush_vs_clinton-3827.html), though Trump 5 points behind and Fiorina 7 points behind (which might be down to lack of name recognition). On the other hand, Obama's approval-disapproval balance has improved quite a bit since the start of the year (see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html) so the issue is apparently not an anti-Democrat swing but more the erosion of Hillary's position.

    Important to note that it's actually still very early days. We shan't get any primary voting for another 6 months.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Oliver_PB said:

    Pulpstar said:

    On the question of potential mortality - Corbyn looks fitter now than he did back in 1990. He won't be dropping down dead in the next 5 years.

    Corbyn is only 66 and the average life expectancy for man in the UK is 79 - and you'd expect Corbyn to live longer given that he doesn't eat red meat nor does he drink, plus he has been living on a well-above-average MPs salary for over 3 decades.
    By the time that someone has reached age 66, their life expectancy is considerably greater than 79. The ONS, for example, reckons that a 66 year old man will on average reach age 87:

    http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-long-will-my-pension-need-to-last/
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited August 2015

    Mr. Sandpit, you decadent capitalist pigdog!

    I know! Unfortunately, for "cultural" reasons the hospitality is the only place with a bar. The usual seats have the bar behind the stand and one can't take drinks to the seat. That's my excuse for upgrading anyway, thanks Jeremy!
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704
    Andy Burnham really is a drowning man flailing around isn't he....
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    IF Corbyn is elected, main stream moderate Labour MP's should be worried. There could be a putch within CLP's to get more Corbyn like prospective MP's.. Such moderate MP's could find themselves deselected, either as a result of boundary changes or as a result of instructions from the top.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656

    JEO said:

    JEO said:

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    Well, I must take your word for it, I suppose. Unless they made their money in construction and/or military supply, industries that are as bent as a nine-pound-note in every country in the world.

    You don't need to take people's word for it. Just think about it: in law, consultancy, banking, engineering there are plenty of six figure salaries to go round by middle age if you're doing well at one of the top firms. And what you need to get in is to be a high academic performer, go to a Russel Group university, and pass the milk round interviews. No inheritance required. And then you have the entrepreneurs who've stumbled upon a good business idea and executed it well.
    Why waste breath and pixels on the deluded fool. He is typical of the frothing ignorant moronic nutjobs salivating over Corbyn. The living dead clawing their way up from the bowels of the earth.
    I disagree with him, but there's no need to get abusive over it.
    On the contrary - I think there is. Corbyn's mate McCluskey will if given the chance get deep down and biblical with you, all in the name of you being a 'criminal'. If you cannot see how you are being set up that's your problem
    I see no benefit at all in ignoring the drivel that some people grind out.
    Bad behaviour from your opponents does not justify bad behaviour on your own part.

    I'm not ignoring anyone's drivel. I am just arguing against it in a respectful manner.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Isam, if you backed Corbyn at 150/1, you might choose to just leave it, instead of hedging [I'd hedge, but not everybody goes that way].

    I backed Corbyn at 550-1 and laid at 300-1 to get my £2 back.

    I went in again at 1.4 for a hundred quid, if I'd backed again (£2) instead of laying at 300s, I'd have doubled my current book profit on him. Every price should be considered on it's merits at the time... 1.4 is probably a still a big price given what we know at the moment.

    Your previous bets shouldn't matter if you are looking at betting in the purest sense, the fact you placed a bet on Corbyn at 150-1 previously is irrelevant - it is whether you feel his chance of becoming next Labour leader is greater than 72% NOW that should determine whether you are a layer or backer.
    ^what pulpstar said...

    Your book/previous bets/trades simply don't matter when assessing the current value in the odds.

    Basically, you should only ever cashout when the value shifts over to the other side of the bet.
    The cashout button must be a fantastic earner for bookies - in markets such as football you get to pay the overround again !

    With the nags if you identify a bet as value then bumf it is placed, the race is run and the time period is generally too short for you to make a poor cashout.

    With politics (And test cricket !) the time horizons are a bit longer so you can have a think about the correct move at any point in time.

    In play football cashouts must be amongst the most profitable for the bookies. The event is long enough that you can reconsider a winning value bet, but not long enough that you get to have a DECENT think about it.
    The Cashout button wouldn't be there if the bookies weren't making money from it. I'd say it attracts the amateur punter watching with friends in the pub, rather than the serious gambler trying to make money.

    Test cricket has been very profitable this summer, but one has to commit to watching as much of it as possible live. I'll be at hopefully two of the upcoming England v Pakistan series in UAE, will try and get some tips from the ground for the PB cricket punters. ;)

    Bets in the final Ashes Test will be £60 instead of £50, in honour of the Aus 1st innings score last time out!!
    If you go to the ODIs, fancy a bit of courtsiding?!
    Will let you know about the ODIs, although I think a couple of the dates are clashes with other things. All the ODIs will be D/N games, by the way.
    Nice one
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656



    But not as hard as a sugar-reaping machine.

    Perhaps not. Although, of course, slavery and automation can go hand in hand. The cotton gin caused an explosion in slavery.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Sandpit, don't try and justify your bourgeois alcoholism!
  • Oliver_PBOliver_PB Posts: 397
    edited August 2015


    It's cerainly possible to become a billionaire if you start (through inheritance) as a millionaire. But to get from poverty to millions is almost never done in a mature capitalist economy and when it is done it is almost always more or less criminal.

    I don't know why people are picking holes in what you're saying when the principle is true (well, "it is almost always more or less criminal" is a big exaggeration). It's still extremely uncommon even if there is a relatively minority of poor people who manage to overcome the odds being stacked against them. Doubly so later in life.

    Yes, the occassional person growing up in poverty and gets into a Russell Group university and graduates with a good degree and gets a good job, or manages to study medicine, but it's not that common and the odds are stacked against them.

    Similarly most Nobel prize winners - even if John Bell famously grew up in poverty, that makes him the exception not the norm.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Telegraph:

    "The UK stock market is in its 77th month of a bull market, which began in March 2009. On only two other occasions in history has the market risen for longer. One is in the lead-up to the Great Crash in 1929 and the other before the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s."

    Stick to betting.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    edited August 2015

    Telegraph:

    "The UK stock market is in its 77th month of a bull market, which began in March 2009. On only two other occasions in history has the market risen for longer. One is in the lead-up to the Great Crash in 1929 and the other before the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s."

    Stick to betting.

    Pile in after the crash.

    http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/29255-be-fearful-when-others-are-greedy-and-greedy-when-others


  • Thats rubbish. The people who have over a million in assets are all round you. They are self employed builders, plumbers, they are professionals such as accountants and doctors.

    Most would have made their first couple of hundred thousand through asset appreciation in property and used that to finance other investments.

    Every school teacher will leave (assuming theyve made their annual contributions) with a pension fund not far off equivalent value of £900,000.

    A teacher!


    Any GP partner in the country will be a millionaire after very few years. They are currently retiring in their early 50s because they have maxed out their lifetime pension contributions.
    And that is pension alone.

    Yes. Equally a GP partner will have had to buy into the partnership (which costs money) so I guess they will get money back when they retire. Paying into pensions now does as well mean you sacrifice current living standards at the same time


    Long time lurker but I couldn't let this post go unanswered. NO GP partner will be a millionaire in 'very few years'. That is a complete fallacy. We are not retiring in our early 50's because of maxing out pension contributions - it is because of pure burnout.

    The typical partner day where I am currently is starting 8am to go through results and mail. Seeing patients at 0900-1330ish, despite the surgery supposed to be ending at 1200. Then 3-4 housecalls whilst eating lunch in the car, getting back for evening surgery starting at 1530. This ends around 1800 (should be 1700) after which there is quite a few urgent results etc to go through. This is not if you are on call (=extra work) or if any emergencies show up, and this is in a fully manned practice (all the 3 others in the building are at least 1 WTE partner down).

    The system is collapsing around us due to spiraling demand, entitlement and chronic underfunding. There is no easy answer, but to say there is retirement due to being millionaires is rubbish. No one wants that life balance, especially when you can pick up a couple of locum shifts and support your final working years that way.

    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.

    FWIW the buy in idea has kind of been abandoned now, most places long term rent a place etc and it is a huge barrier to bringing in newbies.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    antifrank said:

    isam makes a good point about trading bets. Value bets should be held or added to, not traded. If they're value, enough of them will come home eventually. They should only be traded when the price runs ahead of the true odds.

    I think this isn't quite right.

    Of course it is mathematically correct, provided (a) that you actually are confident that you know the probabilities, and (b) if you have a wide selection of markets to choose from.

    In the case of political betting, neither is true. Political betting is very different from betting on tennis or horses because there are so few liquid markets to bet on. If you take a big position on the GE or US presidential election, and it doesn't happen to come good, there's a huge opportunity cost: you have to wait another 4 or 5 years to have another go. That tilts the balance in favour of going all-green, or at least covering a widish range of the probability space. Also the odds in political betting are very subject to shifts in sentiment, and the timescales of the markets can be quite extended, which makes trading more likely to be successful than it would be in many other markets.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.
  • calumcalum Posts: 3,046
    As the dust settles after the SLAB leadership announcements, SLAB are about to show the UK Labour party anything you can do we can do better, as it appears SLAB are on the point of splitting into Glasgow SLAB and Edinburgh SLAB:

    http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13599931.New_Scottish_Labour_leader_Kezia_Dugdale_inherits_an_in_tray_of_problems/

    In the Glasgow corner we have SLAB staffers from the pre-McMurphy era led by Neil Findlay and keen to tie themselves to the Corbyn mast. Meanwhile the Glasgow City council leader, Matheson, is in the process of being removed following the recent by-election defeat, half the councillors have already signed a no confidence motion.

    In the Edinburgh corner we have Kezia and the battered remnants of Blairism/McMurphyism fighting their last stand against Corbyn - with John McT and Blair McD busily trying to secure their futures at basically anyone else's expense.

    I think Kezia's first challenge is to manage expectations around Holyrood 2016, based on current polling SLAB would lose all of their 13 constituency seats and be left with just 25 list seats.

    The problem facing Kezia is that there are already going to be around 100 candidates after these 25 list seats. Kezia and her deputy are guaranteed 1st place on their regional lists, other than that it's going to get messy !! - I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the existing SLAB list MSPs who get culled by Kezia & co. to stand as independents or even dance with the devil of Solidarity.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    My mother in law (Good as) had to retire due to ill health just before Labour pretty much doubled GP salaries overnight. She was a bit unlucky tbh !
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    Mr. Divvie, jein. Roman slaves were sometimes horrendously abused, at other times they became practically trusted family friends, paid a wage and allowed to buy their freedom.

    Yep, I knew that. I'll obviously yield to your greater knowledge of the period but I'd bet the the latter number was a lesser fraction of the totality of slaves held during the existence of the Roman Empire. In any case the compulsion to work under threat of extreme punishment existed for all of them as long as they were slaves.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    edited August 2015

    antifrank said:

    isam makes a good point about trading bets. Value bets should be held or added to, not traded. If they're value, enough of them will come home eventually. They should only be traded when the price runs ahead of the true odds.

    I think this isn't quite right.

    Of course it is mathematically correct, provided (a) that you actually are confident that you know the probabilities, and (b) if you have a wide selection of markets to choose from.

    In the case of political betting, neither is true. Political betting is very different from betting on tennis or horses because there are so few liquid markets to bet on. If you take a big position on the GE or US presidential election, and it doesn't happen to come good, there's a huge opportunity cost: you have to wait another 4 or 5 years to have another go. That tilts the balance in favour of going all-green, or at least covering a widish range of the probability space. Also the odds in political betting are very subject to shifts in sentiment, and the timescales of the markets can be quite extended, which makes trading more likely to be successful than it would be in many other markets.
    The point I was trying to make was that in long term/political betting every bet is a "trading bet" and so the word "trading" can be dropped, it is meaningless. Its just a way of trying to sound clever
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    Sorry, I forgot to say: welcome to the board! Please lurk less in future!
  • watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    edited August 2015





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    Pulpstar said:

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    My mother in law (Good as) had to retire due to ill health just before Labour pretty much doubled GP salaries overnight. She was a bit unlucky tbh !
    The NHS pension stinks. There was no spouses pension at one time and if you retired before 2006? they take the pittance of a survivor pension away if you cohabit or remarry.
    Absolutely disgraceful.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    A trading bet also makes sense if you think the odds are too short, but will get even shorter in future. For example, you might think Joe Biden is a 50 to 1 shot to be the next president, but take out a bet at 30 to 1, because you think he will announce his nomination and shorten to 10 to 1.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    Oliver_PB said:

    Similarly most Nobel prize winners - even if John Bell famously grew up in poverty, that makes him the exception not the norm.

    I don't see why this is such a shock, it will be largely the case even with full equality of opportunity.

    Largely it is the cleverer, more able people that earn the most money, at least half of intelligence is genetic, so those people who earn the most money will on average have the brighter more able kids, who will on average go on to earn more money. Add in environmental factors that stem from having cleverer parents like they are on average more engaged with their child's education, and on average more able to help their child at home (i.e. they understand what the homework is about).

    This is before you consider the advantages money will bring directly in terms of diet, access to educational toys, tutors, books etc. Even if you were able to wave a magic wand and impose and equal lifestyle on everyone, which let us not forget even the most totalitarian regimes on the planet have singularly failed to do, the more able parents are still going to have more able kids and educate them better.

  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Divvie, hard to speak on percentage terms (I'm more concerned with warfare than domestic matters). There are two compelling arguments for a slave owner to be other than a total bastard, though. First off, a lot of people are just (even vaguely) nice. Secondly, brutalising slaves, who might have opportunity to kill you or foment a large scale rebellion, is not conducive to one's own survival.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    isam said:

    The point I was trying to make was that in long term/political betting every bet is a "trading bet" and so the word "trading" can be dropped, it is meaningless. Its just a way of trying to sound clever

    It's not meaningless, it's a bet which you intend, at the time you place it, not to hold until settlement, i.e. where you expect to make your profit not because you think the odds are longer than the true probability justifies, but because you are anticipating a shift in sentiment.

    A good example was a Sporting Index spread bet I placed in early 2011 on Labour to get a majority. I had no intention of holding the bet to maturity, I simply (and rightly) thought that at some time sentiment would shift towards Labour and I'd be able to cash in.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656

    Mr. Divvie, jein. Roman slaves were sometimes horrendously abused, at other times they became practically trusted family friends, paid a wage and allowed to buy their freedom.

    Yep, I knew that. I'll obviously yield to your greater knowledge of the period but I'd bet the the latter number was a lesser fraction of the totality of slaves held during the existence of the Roman Empire. In any case the compulsion to work under threat of extreme punishment existed for all of them as long as they were slaves.
    While the example of being a trusted family friend is obviously a relatively small case, the vast majority of Roman slaves were privately-owned domestic slaves who didn't have lives much worse than that of free peasants, and probably better lives than European peasants during the middle ages. Being a state-owned slave, working in the mines, however, would have been a living hell.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401

    Mr. Divvie, jein. Roman slaves were sometimes horrendously abused, at other times they became practically trusted family friends, paid a wage and allowed to buy their freedom.

    Yep, I knew that. I'll obviously yield to your greater knowledge of the period but I'd bet the the latter number was a lesser fraction of the totality of slaves held during the existence of the Roman Empire. In any case the compulsion to work under threat of extreme punishment existed for all of them as long as they were slaves.
    That is true and was also a feature of 18th/19th century slavery in N America and the Carribean. As a rule of thumb though, the more slaves an owner held, the more likely they were to be treated purely as a factor of production, and the closer the owner was to the slave personally, the less likely to be abused (with the notable exception of sexual abuse towards female slaves).
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    Mr. Divvie, hard to speak on percentage terms (I'm more concerned with warfare than domestic matters). There are two compelling arguments for a slave owner to be other than a total bastard, though. First off, a lot of people are just (even vaguely) nice. Secondly, brutalising slaves, who might have opportunity to kill you or foment a large scale rebellion, is not conducive to one's own survival.

    Well yes, the 'be nice to anyone who can piss or put ground glass into your Falernian' is always a strong one. Mind you, seeing the way some folk behave in restaurants, it's not an argument that seems to persuade all.
  • ReallyEvilMuffinReallyEvilMuffin Posts: 65
    edited August 2015
    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    6 figures is rather in the past, the salary has dropped hugely in the last 10-15 years. Why do you think there is a recruitment crisis? Plus it is not a 'normal' 6 figure salary like a person who runs a business, there is (well was) pay related to risk and responsibility burdened.

    Also compatibly it is very poorly paid. Easy places to jump to like Aus/NZ pay double - triple the amount here, it is fairly easy to find work and the system very similar. Ireland is around 2.5 times. It is poorly renumerated by global standards.
    watford30 said:





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    NO. Not like any other professional. Hospital consultants who we are closest related to get crown indemnity cover and therefore unless they practice privately get indemnity for around a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is not very equitable at all, especially when in the latest contract the idea was to balance pay out between hospital and GP colleagues.

    Also this is a new revalidation system that was pulled out and introduced rather haphazardly. They change the call dates on a whim, the central computer regularly emails out meetings that are in the past - it is all a faff.

    Also the amount of red tape to come back onto the performers lists after a year out (including a working year out abroad) is insane.

    However we can all bury our heads in the sand and let the storm overcome us. There is a lot of goodwill keeping the system afloat ie GPs not wanting to leave patients in the lurch. Unless something drastic changes in the next few years I will join the exodus to the commonwealth countries who pay a lot more for you to do a lot less
  • ReallyEvilMuffinReallyEvilMuffin Posts: 65
    edited August 2015
    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    Sorry, I forgot to say: welcome to the board! Please lurk less in future!

    Thank you :)
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,702
    edited August 2015

    Pulpstar said:

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    The NHS pension stinks.
    Cough I think its OK
  • Indigo said:

    Oliver_PB said:

    Similarly most Nobel prize winners - even if John Bell famously grew up in poverty, that makes him the exception not the norm.

    I don't see why this is such a shock, it will be largely the case even with full equality of opportunity.

    Largely it is the cleverer, more able people that earn the most money, at least half of intelligence is genetic, so those people who earn the most money will on average have the brighter more able kids, who will on average go on to earn more money. Add in environmental factors that stem from having cleverer parents like they are on average more engaged with their child's education, and on average more able to help their child at home (i.e. they understand what the homework is about).

    This is before you consider the advantages money will bring directly in terms of diet, access to educational toys, tutors, books etc. Even if you were able to wave a magic wand and impose and equal lifestyle on everyone, which let us not forget even the most totalitarian regimes on the planet have singularly failed to do, the more able parents are still going to have more able kids and educate them better.

    Not to forget the very basics like parents who read to their young children every day versus parents who use the TV as a babysitter.

    I started primary school with a basic knowledge of reading and writing that I'd picked up from my parents before school even started, some kids never read a book at home. Since my daughter was born either my wife or I has read to her every day and although she's still only one so can't read herself yet we often find her playing with (her hard indestructible) books pretending to read already.

    There is no way the influence of good parenting either could or should be cancelled out by the State.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    Interesting article suggesting that Trump's views on immigration aren't that far from the mainstream of US voters

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/are-trumps-immigration-views-out-of-the-mainstream/article/2570298
    The largest single group, 24.4 percent, supported the most draconian option -- closed borders and mass deportation -- that is dismissed by every candidate in the race, including Trump.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited August 2015

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    6 figures is rather in the past, the salary has dropped hugely in the last 10-15 years. Why do you think there is a recruitment crisis? Plus it is not a 'normal' 6 figure salary like a person who runs a business, there is (well was) pay related to risk and responsibility burdened.

    Also compatibly it is very poorly paid. Easy places to jump to like Aus/NZ pay double - triple the amount here, it is fairly easy to find work and the system very similar. Ireland is around 2.5 times. It is poorly renumerated by global standards.
    watford30 said:





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    NO. Not like any other professional. Hospital consultants who we are closest related to get crown indemnity cover and therefore unless they practice privately get indemnity for around a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is not very equitable at all, especially when in the latest contract the idea was to balance pay out between hospital and GP colleagues.

    Also this is a new revalidation system that was pulled out and introduced rather haphazardly. They change the call dates on a whim, the central computer regularly emails out meetings that are in the past - it is all a faff.

    Also the amount of red tape to come back onto the performers lists after a year out (including a working year out abroad) is insane.

    However we can all bury our heads in the sand and let the storm overcome us. There is a lot of goodwill keeping the system afloat ie GPs not wanting to leave patients in the lurch. Unless something drastic changes in the next few years I will join the exodus to the commonwealth countries who pay a lot more for you to do a lot less
    Welcome to PB! Good to hear a view from the inside. In your opinion what are the simple changes that would make life easier for GPs without breaking the NHS budget?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Welcome to pb.com, Mr. Muffin.

    You aren't a mule, are you?
  • Oliver_PBOliver_PB Posts: 397
    edited August 2015


    There is no way the influence of good parenting either could or should be cancelled out by the State.

    There is, however, plenty the state could and should do to encourage good parenting and provide additional support for those children without good parents or supportive family.

    Cue cries of "nanny state"...

    (Don't want to go into it, but this is something I feel rather strongly about!)
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656

    Mr. Divvie, jein. Roman slaves were sometimes horrendously abused, at other times they became practically trusted family friends, paid a wage and allowed to buy their freedom.

    Yep, I knew that. I'll obviously yield to your greater knowledge of the period but I'd bet the the latter number was a lesser fraction of the totality of slaves held during the existence of the Roman Empire. In any case the compulsion to work under threat of extreme punishment existed for all of them as long as they were slaves.
    That is true and was also a feature of 18th/19th century slavery in N America and the Carribean. As a rule of thumb though, the more slaves an owner held, the more likely they were to be treated purely as a factor of production, and the closer the owner was to the slave personally, the less likely to be abused (with the notable exception of sexual abuse towards female slaves).
    For those very reasons, there was actually a big difference between North America and the Caribbean. North America had some tobacco and rice farming, where slaves were quite skilled and worked individually, so while life was bad, you had some protection. But mainly it was cotton plantations, where about 50 slaves would work per plantation and you would have a very tough, hard life. However, the Caribbean (and Brazil) had sugar plantations, where you had 300-400 slaves to a plantation and every last inch of life force would be ground out of you. It also didn' thelp that you would be working in tropical, stagnant water, so disease was rife. Generally, the philosophy existed "it is better to buy than to breed", meaning that you got better financial returns if you just bought fresh slaves when you needed them over keeping slaves alive long enough to breed them to have children. Life expectancy for such slaves was usually around about eight years.
  • I think Kippers took the plunge and voted Tory partly because the possibility of A Miliband-Labour-SNP coalition seemed real to them. Whether Corbyn being PM, will seem a real prospect to this group remains to be seen.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Ms. Apocalypse, depends on the polls. But even if a lower chance, the prospect would be more horrendous.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    Not to forget the very basics like parents who read to their young children every day versus parents who use the TV as a babysitter..

    I am the last one you have to tell about that! When I am not running my main business (which doesn't take very long most days), I spend quite a bit of my time trying to teach kids of poor (real poor, not relatively poor), uneducated, and frequently disinterested parents, who mostly have no words of English and very few of their own language, its what you might call slow progress. Many of them have no books at home except the bible, most of them have never held a pen before they come to school, and most of them don't get enough food or sleep. Its what you call a challenging environment ;)
  • volcanopetevolcanopete Posts: 2,078
    Labour leadership ballot papers received this am.My votes have been cast and posted off
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    edited August 2015

    Labour leadership ballot papers received this am.My votes have been cast and posted off

    Are you a member, affiliate or £3er ?

    I trust you voted for comrade Corbyn :)
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Pete, can you reveal which of the dazzling quartet proved worthy of your support?
  • watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    6 figures is rather in the past, the salary has dropped hugely in the last 10-15 years. Why do you think there is a recruitment crisis? Plus it is not a 'normal' 6 figure salary like a person who runs a business, there is (well was) pay related to risk and responsibility burdened.

    Also compatibly it is very poorly paid. Easy places to jump to like Aus/NZ pay double - triple the amount here, it is fairly easy to find work and the system very similar. Ireland is around 2.5 times. It is poorly renumerated by global standards.
    watford30 said:





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    NO. Not like any other professional. Hospital consultants who we are closest related to get crown indemnity cover and therefore unless they practice privately get indemnity for around a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is not very equitable at all, especially when in the latest contract the idea was to balance pay out between hospital and GP colleagues.

    Medical professional maybe, but lawyers, accountants etc are likely paying similar premiums. And making their own pension contributions etc.

    There's a limited amount of sympathy for grumbling doctors from those of us paying the tax that pays their salaries, whilst working under the same conditions they seem to be moaning about. Don't complain too much.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    Oliver_PB said:


    There is no way the influence of good parenting either could or should be cancelled out by the State.

    There is, however, plenty the state could and should do to encourage good parenting and provide additional support for those children without good parents or supportive family.

    Cue cries of "nanny state"...

    (Don't want to go into it, but this is something I feel rather strongly about!)
    I am instinctively against the state interfering with people's lives, but I've come to the conclusion that poor parenting in some families results in far more government intervention that could be avoided. I remember when my first child was due, I was feeling guilty about not doing as much reading on parenting as my wife was doing. Then I went to the hospital for one of the scans, and the couple before us were having an argument, where the father was arguing he deserved credit for purely driving her to the hospital. She looked about eight months pregnant at the time.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    edited August 2015

    isam said:

    The point I was trying to make was that in long term/political betting every bet is a "trading bet" and so the word "trading" can be dropped, it is meaningless. Its just a way of trying to sound clever

    It's not meaningless, it's a bet which you intend, at the time you place it, not to hold until settlement, i.e. where you expect to make your profit not because you think the odds are longer than the true probability justifies, but because you are anticipating a shift in sentiment.

    A good example was a Sporting Index spread bet I placed in early 2011 on Labour to get a majority. I had no intention of holding the bet to maturity, I simply (and rightly) thought that at some time sentiment would shift towards Labour and I'd be able to cash in.
    "I simply (and rightly) thought that at some time sentiment would shift towards Labour and I'd be able to cash in. "

    ..and if you didn't think that about every single long term bet, you shouldn't be having them in the first place. Who puts bets on thinking "I reckon this will go against me, I'll be in negative equity, but sod it?!"

    I just backed Gomis at 40/1 ew Top Premiership goalscorer.. it goes without saying that I think at some point he will go below 40/1 giving me the opportunity to back someone else or lay him for a nice book.. otherwise I wouldn't have backed him, I'd have waited until he went 50/1
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,049
    I went to Las Vegas last year for a week. Was dragged there kicking and screaming- thinking it was going to be a huge, crass, vision of hell. I thought Manhattan would be the only part of the States I could stand- I have been to New York quite a few times
    But I absolutely loved Vegas- all of it. It was thrilling, exciting, indulgent- an adult playground, brash, vibrant- drinking bucket sized cocktails after breakfast at the pool, the shows, the clubs, the gigs. It so democratic too- everyone just mingles and fits in, filmstars, punters, tourists, locals. Americans are not posers (unlike Italians). I was at the pool one afternoon- there was a chap sitting next to me whom seemed vaguely familiar. He was really friendly- Americans love to talk- he bought me a couple of beers, alongside his other chums. My wife turns up and whispers in my ear that the guy is the actor who plays Roger Sterling in Mad Men. No one was bothering him.

    Mike is right that Trump's campaign has impressive resilience, and the looseness of party affiliation in the US makes it easier for him to draw in unaffiliated voters who like the cut of his jib. That said, I think there is a strong anti-Trump GOP vote out there (cf. TimT saying he'd even rather vote for Sanders) which is being masked by the size of the field. One or two rivals will eventually eclipse the others and I doubt if Trump can break 30%.

    FPT AndyJS: "I think visiting Disneyland is one of those things in life which often exceeds expectations. I expected it to be a glorified funfair but everything is done with such a spirit of enthusiasm and perfection that you can't help be impressed by it."

    Yes, exactly. I must be in the 99th percentile of the target audience - I don't like any Disney characters, or cartoons, or mass-marketing, or (much) scary rides. But I still thought it was great - that American enthusiasm and positivity that transcends political differences bubbles up and everything is so well done that one just suspends reservations and enjoys the feeling.

    And yes, Rod's probably right that I dodged a bullet on May 7. Life is fun, and I've not felt that for a while.

    Pleased to hear you're enjoying yourself, Nick. I mean that sincerely!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,670

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    For sure you can bet a lot of it was made by the sweat and toil of others. Unless pure speculation it is normally made when you have others doing a lot of graft for you.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    isam said:

    ..and if you didn't think that about every single long term bet, you shouldn't be having them in the first place. Who puts bets on thinking "I reckon this will go against me, I'll be in negative equity, but sod it?!"

    For other bets I might have no view on whether the odds will move towards me, against me, or not change at all until settlement, but if I think the odds today are longer than my current assessment of the probability justifies, I'll back it, in the expectation of making a profit (more often than not) at settlement.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited August 2015

    Andy Burnham really is a drowning man flailing around isn't he....

    Yep, says that only he can keep everyone in the big Labour tent at the same time as dismissing the others in the contest. Sounded both two-faced and condescending at the same time.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11807069/One-in-10-Labour-registered-supporters-has-never-backed-party-live.html
    The whole contest is just one big mess now. Thank the MPs who decided to overrule the checks and balances built in to the election process.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,401
    JEO said:

    Mr. Divvie, jein. Roman slaves were sometimes horrendously abused, at other times they became practically trusted family friends, paid a wage and allowed to buy their freedom.

    Yep, I knew that. I'll obviously yield to your greater knowledge of the period but I'd bet the the latter number was a lesser fraction of the totality of slaves held during the existence of the Roman Empire. In any case the compulsion to work under threat of extreme punishment existed for all of them as long as they were slaves.
    That is true and was also a feature of 18th/19th century slavery in N America and the Carribean. As a rule of thumb though, the more slaves an owner held, the more likely they were to be treated purely as a factor of production, and the closer the owner was to the slave personally, the less likely to be abused (with the notable exception of sexual abuse towards female slaves).
    For those very reasons, there was actually a big difference between North America and the Caribbean. North America had some tobacco and rice farming, where slaves were quite skilled and worked individually, so while life was bad, you had some protection. But mainly it was cotton plantations, where about 50 slaves would work per plantation and you would have a very tough, hard life. However, the Caribbean (and Brazil) had sugar plantations, where you had 300-400 slaves to a plantation and every last inch of life force would be ground out of you. It also didn' thelp that you would be working in tropical, stagnant water, so disease was rife. Generally, the philosophy existed "it is better to buy than to breed", meaning that you got better financial returns if you just bought fresh slaves when you needed them over keeping slaves alive long enough to breed them to have children. Life expectancy for such slaves was usually around about eight years.
    Indeed - and a sobering reminder of what a brutal industry it was.

    I did quite a bit of research into it for the alternate history novel I hope to finish one day.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    malcolmg said:

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    For sure you can bet a lot of it was made by the sweat and toil of others. Unless pure speculation it is normally made when you have others doing a lot of graft for you.
    Approaching half the houses inside the M25 are worth over a million quid, the owners of those are millionaires, must be one or two who got there without exploiting the downtrodden masses.
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Indigo said:

    Oliver_PB said:

    Similarly most Nobel prize winners - even if John Bell famously grew up in poverty, that makes him the exception not the norm.

    I don't see why this is such a shock, it will be largely the case even with full equality of opportunity.

    Largely it is the cleverer, more able people that earn the most money, at least half of intelligence is genetic, so those people who earn the most money will on average have the brighter more able kids, who will on average go on to earn more money. Add in environmental factors that stem from having cleverer parents like they are on average more engaged with their child's education, and on average more able to help their child at home (i.e. they understand what the homework is about).

    This is before you consider the advantages money will bring directly in terms of diet, access to educational toys, tutors, books etc. Even if you were able to wave a magic wand and impose and equal lifestyle on everyone, which let us not forget even the most totalitarian regimes on the planet have singularly failed to do, the more able parents are still going to have more able kids and educate them better.

    Not to forget the very basics like parents who read to their young children every day versus parents who use the TV as a babysitter.

    I started primary school with a basic knowledge of reading and writing that I'd picked up from my parents before school even started, some kids never read a book at home. Since my daughter was born either my wife or I has read to her every day and although she's still only one so can't read herself yet we often find her playing with (her hard indestructible) books pretending to read already.

    There is no way the influence of good parenting either could or should be cancelled out by the State.
    We also read to our son every day, usually several times a day when he was very small. Our GP who was very sound on such matters said that it didn't matter what you read and, as long as you read in the right tone of voice, reading to a babe in arms was a jolly good thing to do. So when he wouldn't settle in the early hours I used to take him downstairs put on some nice Mozart or something similar and catch up on my reading whilst cuddling him in a rocking chair. Quite what he made of Home Office internal reports, articles from the economist, minutes of meetings etc. all read in a happy-clappy tone we shall never know.
  • Ms. Apocalypse, depends on the polls. But even if a lower chance, the prospect would be more horrendous.

    Yeah, but if some people's doomsday predictions come true and Labour are polling 20% then tbh there is no prospect of PM Corbyn.
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,279
    @hurstllama Your post re happy clappy tones, reminded me of this weather forecast.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2jwDcb9wI
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704
    Indigo said:

    malcolmg said:

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    For sure you can bet a lot of it was made by the sweat and toil of others. Unless pure speculation it is normally made when you have others doing a lot of graft for you.
    Approaching half the houses inside the M25 are worth over a million quid, the owners of those are millionaires, must be one or two who got there without exploiting the downtrodden masses.
    Ummm you might live in house worth over a million but if you've got a mortgage on that, you won't be a millionare.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited August 2015

    Ms. Apocalypse, depends on the polls. But even if a lower chance, the prospect would be more horrendous.

    Yeah, but if some people's doomsday predictions come true and Labour are polling 20% then tbh there is no prospect of PM Corbyn.
    If Labour are polling 20% one imagines quite a few kipper seats north of the Watford Gap. People who don't like Corbyn aren't going to be defecting to the Green's after all.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    Betting post: Chelsea for the Prem each-way @ 7/2 (1/3 odds, 2 places) looks pretty reasonable.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721

    isam said:

    ..and if you didn't think that about every single long term bet, you shouldn't be having them in the first place. Who puts bets on thinking "I reckon this will go against me, I'll be in negative equity, but sod it?!"

    For other bets I might have no view on whether the odds will move towards me, against me, or not change at all until settlement, but if I think the odds today are longer than my current assessment of the probability justifies, I'll back it, in the expectation of making a profit (more often than not) at settlement.
    They are all just bets
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    Indigo said:

    malcolmg said:

    Innocent Abroad..In my rather short list of friends I know of several who became millionaires simply by working hard at what they proved to be good at..none of them inherited any money and all are working class..none of them are crooks and all live in the UK.

    For sure you can bet a lot of it was made by the sweat and toil of others. Unless pure speculation it is normally made when you have others doing a lot of graft for you.
    Approaching half the houses inside the M25 are worth over a million quid, the owners of those are millionaires, must be one or two who got there without exploiting the downtrodden masses.
    Ummm you might live in house worth over a million but if you've got a mortgage on that, you won't be a millionare.
    Very few of those will have mortgages even close the to sale price. If you bought the house 10 years ago it was for about 200-250k, if you sold it and paid off what is left of the mortgage you would be very close to a million quid.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Indigo, I agree. If Corbyn leads Labour to 20% in a General Election then UKIP's wide but shallow approach (which is ridiculous without a tsunami) would get the sea change it needs, and suddenly scores of seats would be in play for the purples.

    The south and Midlands would be great for the blues, and we'd have an incredibly fragmented opposition.
  • William_HWilliam_H Posts: 346
    Burnham seems to be the only candidate really trying to beat Corbyn. The only one trying to reach out to the people tempted to support Corbyn and offer a moderate alternative, and thus seeking to forge a coalition that can take the majority needed to win.

    The rest seem only interested in fighting for their share of the minority that oppose Corbyn. It's kind of ironic, considering they attack Corbyn for effectively doing the same thing at the general election.

    Of course, there probably is an argument for giving up this election and protecting your moderate credentials for another time.
  • tysontyson Posts: 6,049
    Actually I think there is a huge amount of sympathy for GP's- still I guess the most trusted public figures. It is an impossible job that is simply getting worse. How any of them can continue to work into their fifties is quite beyond me.
    watford30 said:

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    6 figures is rather in the past, the salary has dropped hugely in the last 10-15 years. Why do you think there is a recruitment crisis? Plus it is not a 'normal' 6 figure salary like a person who runs a business, there is (well was) pay related to risk and responsibility burdened.

    Also compatibly it is very poorly paid. Easy places to jump to like Aus/NZ pay double - triple the amount here, it is fairly easy to find work and the system very similar. Ireland is around 2.5 times. It is poorly renumerated by global standards.
    watford30 said:





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    NO. Not like any other professional. Hospital consultants who we are closest related to get crown indemnity cover and therefore unless they practice privately get indemnity for around a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is not very equitable at all, especially when in the latest contract the idea was to balance pay out between hospital and GP colleagues.

    Medical professional maybe, but lawyers, accountants etc are likely paying similar premiums. And making their own pension contributions etc.

    There's a limited amount of sympathy for grumbling doctors from those of us paying the tax that pays their salaries, whilst working under the same conditions they seem to be moaning about. Don't complain too much.
  • richardDoddrichardDodd Posts: 5,472
    MG As far as I am aware most of my millionaire friends who started businesses paid the going rates ..but most or them were freelance professionals who just charged the rate for the job... quite a number of them are really left wing too..always paid their taxes..and never seemingly pissed on their employees ..who ,of course, are always free to move on...
    Keep looking at the world as a glass half empty.. suits you..
  • isam said:

    isam said:

    The point I was trying to make was that in long term/political betting every bet is a "trading bet" and so the word "trading" can be dropped, it is meaningless. Its just a way of trying to sound clever

    It's not meaningless, it's a bet which you intend, at the time you place it, not to hold until settlement, i.e. where you expect to make your profit not because you think the odds are longer than the true probability justifies, but because you are anticipating a shift in sentiment.

    A good example was a Sporting Index spread bet I placed in early 2011 on Labour to get a majority. I had no intention of holding the bet to maturity, I simply (and rightly) thought that at some time sentiment would shift towards Labour and I'd be able to cash in.
    "I simply (and rightly) thought that at some time sentiment would shift towards Labour and I'd be able to cash in. "

    ..and if you didn't think that about every single long term bet, you shouldn't be having them in the first place. Who puts bets on thinking "I reckon this will go against me, I'll be in negative equity, but sod it?!"

    I just backed Gomis at 40/1 ew Top Premiership goalscorer.. it goes without saying that I think at some point he will go below 40/1 giving me the opportunity to back someone else or lay him for a nice book.. otherwise I wouldn't have backed him, I'd have waited until he went 50/1
    The contrast of a trading bet is to people who back Gomis with the intention of only backing Gomis and holding that bet until the final whistle of the final match backing Gomis.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721

    Betting post: Chelsea for the Prem each-way @ 7/2 (1/3 odds, 2 places) looks pretty reasonable.

    .. and lay the 2.08 top 2 finish on Betfair!
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    watford30 said:







    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    watford30 said:

    JEO said:

    ReallyEvilMuffin,

    An 8am to 7pm work day really is not an unusually long work day for someone earning a six figure salary.

    6 figures is rather in the past, the salary has dropped hugely in the last 10-15 years. Why do you think there is a recruitment crisis? Plus it is not a 'normal' 6 figure salary like a person who runs a business, there is (well was) pay related to risk and responsibility burdened.

    Also compatibly it is very poorly paid. Easy places to jump to like Aus/NZ pay double - triple the amount here, it is fairly easy to find work and the system very similar. Ireland is around 2.5 times. It is poorly renumerated by global standards.
    watford30 said:





    There are a lot of hoops to jump through to revalidate. For a full time partner (10 sessions is laughed at now but 8 sessions is common) around 8-10k yearly indemnity alone is needed. Then there is sickness cover, insurance etc as a private contractor to have. You have to contribute personally to pensions as you are not an employee.


    Oh dear, just like any other highly paid professional, and the self employed.
    NO. Not like any other professional. Hospital consultants who we are closest related to get crown indemnity cover and therefore unless they practice privately get indemnity for around a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is not very equitable at all, especially when in the latest contract the idea was to balance pay out between hospital and GP colleagues.

    Medical professional maybe, but lawyers, accountants etc are likely paying similar premiums. And making their own pension contributions etc.

    There's a limited amount of sympathy for grumbling doctors from those of us paying the tax that pays their salaries, whilst working under the same conditions they seem to be moaning about. Don't complain too much.
    Indeed so - and legal aid has been drastically cut so that lawyers paid from the public purse have seen a drop in income.

    But - genuine question this - what kinds of health services do the Commonwealth countries you are referring to have? Are they the same as the NHS or do they have more private provision?
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    Indigo said:

    Not to forget the very basics like parents who read to their young children every day versus parents who use the TV as a babysitter..

    I am the last one you have to tell about that! When I am not running my main business (which doesn't take very long most days), I spend quite a bit of my time trying to teach kids of poor (real poor, not relatively poor), uneducated, and frequently disinterested parents, who mostly have no words of English and very few of their own language, its what you might call slow progress. Many of them have no books at home except the bible, most of them have never held a pen before they come to school, and most of them don't get enough food or sleep. Its what you call a challenging environment ;)
    Mr. Indigo, As for the lack of books, never holding a pen, parents who aren't interested, poor nutrition and sleep deprivation you could be talking about an awful lot of places in the UK. As the reception teachers at our village school here in prosperous Hurstpierpoint will attest.

    A mate of mine who has taught in a sink school on a large estate in Brighton for thirty years (there is a man who deserves an OBE at the very least) is firmly of the opinion that something ought to be put into the water to stop the locals breeding. Either that or the children should be removed at birth and brought up in a properly run orphanage.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    Ms. Apocalypse, depends on the polls. But even if a lower chance, the prospect would be more horrendous.

    Yeah, but if some people's doomsday predictions come true and Labour are polling 20% then tbh there is no prospect of PM Corbyn.
    The Labour party is unlikely to poll under 27/8% even under Corbyn - if it goes as low as 20% for a sustained period it's finished and a new progressive left version takes over.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @christopherhope: BREAKING: Ed Miliband will not intervene in the Labour leadership campaign, The Telegraph can disclose. More here: http://t.co/KwtBYI0jxd

    What a chump
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    I watched the whole Burnham speech.

    Umm. Knocking something onto the floor in the first 60 secs, then rambling, making lots of football analogies, talking even more about How Labour He Is, Party Before Everything Else.

    I lost count of the references to I Agree With Jeremy. He mentioned setting up a commission to look into social care and I can't remember anything else.

    Came across as pretty genial, bit nervous - but otherwise an empty vessel that wants people to like him more than anything else.
    Sandpit said:

    Andy Burnham really is a drowning man flailing around isn't he....

    Yep, says that only he can keep everyone in the big Labour tent at the same time as dismissing the others in the contest. Sounded both two-faced and condescending at the same time.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11807069/One-in-10-Labour-registered-supporters-has-never-backed-party-live.html
    The whole contest is just one big mess now. Thank the MPs who decided to overrule the checks and balances built in to the election process.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    isam said:

    Betting post: Chelsea for the Prem each-way @ 7/2 (1/3 odds, 2 places) looks pretty reasonable.

    .. and lay the 2.08 top 2 finish on Betfair!
    If you like, though you'd probably get matched at < 2.0. Similar to my Man City @ 4/1 e/w tip last year... (though that was when 1/4 1-2) - no issue getting these on, even I was allowed £100...
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Plato said:

    making lots of football analogies,

    @PeterMannionMP: I am going to put this is in a language he can understand... ANDY BURNHAM, YOU ARE HEADING FOR AN EARLY BATH, SUNSHINE. #labourleadership
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    dr_spyn said:

    @hurstllama Your post re happy clappy tones, reminded me of this weather forecast.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2jwDcb9wI

    That is rather good and very cleverly done, Dr. Thanks.
  • watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    Scott_P said:

    Plato said:

    making lots of football analogies,

    @PeterMannionMP: I am going to put this is in a language he can understand... ANDY BURNHAM, YOU ARE HEADING FOR AN EARLY BATH, SUNSHINE. #labourleadership
    So, we're looking at Burnham, third, Kendall last?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721

    isam said:

    Betting post: Chelsea for the Prem each-way @ 7/2 (1/3 odds, 2 places) looks pretty reasonable.

    .. and lay the 2.08 top 2 finish on Betfair!
    If you like, though you'd probably get matched at < 2.0. Similar to my Man City @ 4/1 e/w tip last year... (though that was when 1/4 1-2) - no issue getting these on, even I was allowed £100...
    Sad to admit and prob quite unprofessional, but I don't have the patience for long term bets at shortish prices, esp if it means trapsing around shops... sounds a sensible enough bet though
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098
    Plato said:

    I watched the whole Burnham speech.
    ...

    I am not sure that there is any excuse for that sort of behaviour, Miss P.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    isam said:

    isam said:

    Betting post: Chelsea for the Prem each-way @ 7/2 (1/3 odds, 2 places) looks pretty reasonable.

    .. and lay the 2.08 top 2 finish on Betfair!
    If you like, though you'd probably get matched at < 2.0. Similar to my Man City @ 4/1 e/w tip last year... (though that was when 1/4 1-2) - no issue getting these on, even I was allowed £100...
    Sad to admit and prob quite unprofessional, but I don't have the patience for long term bets at shortish prices, esp if it means trapsing around shops... sounds a sensible enough bet though
    Was allowed £100 e/w online even as a 0.01 (I think). I usually just stick these sorts of things on and forget about them.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    Indigo said:

    Not to forget the very basics like parents who read to their young children every day versus parents who use the TV as a babysitter..

    I am the last one you have to tell about that! When I am not running my main business (which doesn't take very long most days), I spend quite a bit of my time trying to teach kids of poor (real poor, not relatively poor), uneducated, and frequently disinterested parents, who mostly have no words of English and very few of their own language, its what you might call slow progress. Many of them have no books at home except the bible, most of them have never held a pen before they come to school, and most of them don't get enough food or sleep. Its what you call a challenging environment ;)
    Mr. Indigo, As for the lack of books, never holding a pen, parents who aren't interested, poor nutrition and sleep deprivation you could be talking about an awful lot of places in the UK. As the reception teachers at our village school here in prosperous Hurstpierpoint will attest.

    A mate of mine who has taught in a sink school on a large estate in Brighton for thirty years (there is a man who deserves an OBE at the very least) is firmly of the opinion that something ought to be put into the water to stop the locals breeding. Either that or the children should be removed at birth and brought up in a properly run orphanage.
    Agreed, although your reception teacher actually has some books for the kids when they start school, and only teaches 20ish not 50ish like some places not to far from me, so she isn't doing too badly ;)
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    SeanT said:

    Something is very wrong in Sweden. A woman and her son were apparently beheaded in IKEA last week by "asylum seekers", one of them supposedly shouting Allahu Akhbar. There are gruesome photos online that provide strong corroborative evidence.

    However it is difficult to get concrete proof as the Swedish media is refusing to report it in any sensible way. Odd. Distressing.

    And now - right now - there are reports of a knifeman on the rampage in another Swedish town.

    It's alright. The Islamist problem will disappear when they appreciate Sweden letting in thousands of Syrian migrants.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    SeanT said:

    Something is very wrong in Sweden. A woman and her son were apparently beheaded in IKEA last week by "asylum seekers", one of them supposedly shouting Allahu Akhbar. There are gruesome photos online that provide strong corroborative evidence.

    However it is difficult to get concrete proof as the Swedish media is refusing to report it in any sensible way. Odd. Distressing.

    And now - right now - there are reports of a knifeman on the rampage in another Swedish town.

    Support for the ruling Social Democrats has collapsed in the opinion polls and the right-wing Swedish Democrats were within 0.8% in the latest one:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_general_election,_2018#Parties
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    A headless corpse has been found on Blackpool beach - I presume it's unlikely that a body could travel from Sweden to there?
    SeanT said:

    Something is very wrong in Sweden. A woman and her son were apparently beheaded in IKEA last week by "asylum seekers", one of them supposedly shouting Allahu Akhbar. There are gruesome photos online that provide strong corroborative evidence.

    However it is difficult to get concrete proof as the Swedish media is refusing to report it in any sensible way. Odd. Distressing.

    And now - right now - there are reports of a knifeman on the rampage in another Swedish town.

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