General Politics Thread

[NotThePars]

5 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

I don’t particularly agree with you but at least you’ve responded with a cogent argument.

Thanks for that.

Yoda dismantling your posts: slow, methodical, precise

Me:

 

[GordonS]

Enduring myths.

Mortgage rates were higher in the 1980s and most of the 1990s than in the 1970s (apart from a short spell for certain kinds of mortgage):

https://www.bsa.org.uk/BSA/files/5c/5c180498-5e52-4a41-b022-5821c25f3cbd.pdf

[Dawson Park Boy]

2 minutes ago, Pato said:

This is news to my father who had it done in the depths of lockdown 1

Good for him.

How long was he waiting?

Maybe, the lists hadn’t built up at that time?

The point is that folks shouldn’t need to be waiting ages for essential surgery.

If the NHS has a big waiting list, they should bring in private contractors to do the job.

Having to wait years is ridiculous.

[Bairnardo]

a few months, not exactly sure but it wasn't an outrageous length of time.
My socialist pinko version of your solution is to restore all the over-capacity that has been whittled away over the last 30 years by hiring more public sector NHS workers

The two year waiting list he speaks of hadnt had tine to build up yet..... 1 year ago [emoji2369]

[Dink]

Good for him.
How long was he waiting?
Maybe, the lists hadn’t built up at that time?
The point is that folks shouldn’t need to be waiting ages for essential surgery.
If the NHS has a big waiting list, they should bring in private contractors to do the job.
Having to wait years is ridiculous.

And where are the surgeons for all of these private contractors coming from? Private contractors would largely just take trained surgeons out of the NHS, who have been trained by the public purse/the NHS at a cost of well over half a million pounds each.

[SandyCromarty]

3 hours ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

When Thatcher came in, she gradually reduced taxes and revenue and prosperity increased.

 

Thatcher and her government came in in 1979, unemployment was at 1.5 million, by 1983 under Thatcher it had risen to over 3 million.

In her first budget after 1979 Thatcher cut the top end tax rate (for the wealthy) from 83% to 60%, by 1988 that top end rate was reduced to 40% (for the Wealthy). 

We the people had a a basic tax rate cut from 33% to 30% in that budget, yippee for the common folks

That top end tax rate cut in1979 did nothing for the economy in fact quite the reverse as what followed was a deep recession in the early eighties. 

In 1979 the government set interest rates, in November 1979 the Thatcher government raised interest rates to 17%, this severely harmed the manufacturing industry and exports.

Thatcher's tough budgetary measures in the early eighties led to a deep recession.

The police wage bill for the miners strike came to £200 Million.

The cost of the Falklands war came to £1.2 Billion.

And how about that Poll tax.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by SandyCromarty

[sophia]

2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

The only laffer theory I'm interested in is why all your posts are so damn laughable!

Boom!

Sniped his arse.

laugh-along-laffer with murdo

[D Angelo Barksdale]

[Cyclizine]

1 hour ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Good for him.

How long was he waiting?

Maybe, the lists hadn’t built up at that time?

The point is that folks shouldn’t need to be waiting ages for essential surgery.

If the NHS has a big waiting list, they should bring in private contractors to do the job.

Having to wait years is ridiculous.

The NHS in Scotland is highly likely to move to a similar model in the future for routine elective surgery. However, the centres will probably be NHS run in the majority.

Private contractors will only ever do profitable, straightforward cases, therefore cherry picking off the "easy" cases and leaving the NHS to deal with the more complex cases (and also the complications from the private sector, as, again, not profitable). It's easy to become slick and efficient when this is all you do. Also as has been pointed out, where do you think the staff come from? They're either moonlighting NHS staff or folk who've left the NHS. We'd be better retaining our own staff in the public sector.

We will probably see high volume "routine" surgery: hernias, gallbladders, joint replacements, tonsils, wisdom teeth, cataracts etc being done in "specialist" elective hospitals around the country, in the north places like Stracathro, Dr Gray's, PRI etc and the more complex and emergency work will be done in the larger hospitals like ARI, Raigmore and Ninewells.

This is a big change in how the NHS in the country normally functions, surgical autonomy will be reduced and training of future staff will be affected and needs to be balanced. We need to do something though, as currently the Covid backlog is insurmountable. I think patients will have to get used to travelling for treatment for the foreseeable future as stuff is going to be done where there is capacity for it to be done, even if that means you travel up to Elgin from Dundee to get your prostate sorted.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Cyclizine

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

I don’t particularly agree with you but at least you’ve responded with a cogent argument.

Thanks for that.

If it's more than ridicule and bites that you want, there are actual forums for the discussion of economics. You'll find plenty of folk there who will be happy to hand you your arse.

By this point, most folk are sick of engaging with the "the poor will always be with you" crowd.

[Detournement]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/british-gas-sackings-workers-rights

One of Owen Jones's rarer and rarer good columns.

I can't help but feel that the British Gas workers getting shafted is the signal that we are entering a new phase of British workers getting shafted. If an essential, skilled and highly unionised work force can't make any impact on their bosses then there isn't much hope for anyone else. Captialists will always want to drive down wages so fire and rehire is going to be used again and again.

[Bairnardo]

23 hours ago, Pato said:

Yup sucks. I've had this done to me too and let me tell you it does wonders for productivity. I hope they're all leaving jobs midway through at 5 on the dot and the like.

Seen this in action too and been threatened with it. Utterly abhorrent practice. 

[BFTD]

One of the main reasons why Brexit was popular with the right-wingers was because it's now easier to reduce workers' rights. The excuse will be that Britain needs a competitive advantage over the EU.

It's so mind-meltingly obvious that anyone who denies it is being disingenuous.

[GNU_Linux]

8 minutes ago, BFTD said:

One of the main reasons why Brexit was popular with the right-wingers was because it's now easier to reduce workers' rights. The excuse will be that Britain needs a competitive advantage over the EU.

It's so mind-meltingly obvious that anyone who denies it is being disingenuous.

Right so when are we getting the wains back up the chimney?

[BFTD]

Just now, GNU_Linux said:

Right so when are we getting the wains back up the chimney?

What a waste of labour that would be these days!

We do have fields of fruit that need picked, so I'm told.

[Salt n Vinegar]

1 hour ago, GNU_Linux said:

Right so when are we getting the wains back up the chimney?

Well if folk are so minded, they could reintroduce cock-fighting by having a debate between Salmon and Galloway . 

[SandyCromarty]

10 minutes ago, Pato said:

I've generally been of the opinion that western powers are mad at Huawei mainly because it used to all be US technology doing the spying but nonetheless the details of this from Holland are something else:

 

Not surprised at the findings on Huawei, however all countries operate with various branches of a security/secret service, the Netherlands international espionage service is the MIVD.

[renton]

59 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

Not surprised at the findings on Huawei, however all countries operate with various branches of a security/secret service, the Netherlands international espionage service is the MIVD.

Of course all countries operate security services. That's got nothing to do with this. 

[Juanhourjoe]

9 hours ago, Pato said:

I've generally been of the opinion that western powers are mad at Huawei mainly because it used to all be US technology doing the spying but nonetheless the details of this from Holland are something else:

 

I don't think it is any different to what the big US companies have done. They're getting a competitive advantage, whilst their state also benefits. The us got richer at the expense of mainly European countries in the same way.

The biggest reason I'd be less concerned about Huawei, is my personal data, they still have. But is too insignificant to them or the Chinese government.

[GordonS]

On 18/04/2021 at 16:45, Pato said:

German green party making a real go of becoming a dominant force:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/18/germanys-surging-greens-step-up-election-race-to-succeed-merkel

When AfD started getting meaningful polling numbers the BBC could give them enough publicity. Now the Greens are polling at twice that level and they don't cover it at all. 

FWIW, German Greens aren't the best. They've managed to get the government to hugely increase GHG emissions because of their irrational fear of nuclear power and they seem more into ephemera like GM crops than the climate and biodiversity crises staring them in the face.