The Anything Thread that is Never off subject.

[Tony1951]

The problem about taxing corporations more is that in the end, it isn't the corporations who pay. Their customers - you and I are the ones who pay. They simply put up the prices.

At the last budget, Rachel Reeves taxed employers by increasing the NI they had to pay on every employee. But who really paid that tax?

They got £25 billion for the exchequer, but YOU and I are paying for it.

I listened to a senior executive of a large supermarket firm being questioned the other day about food price inflation and why it was happening when the price of food commodities is falling. He pointed out that their profit margins were incredibly low - around 3%. The reason food is galloping upwards in price is the budget.

Reeves through the tax on jobs and Rayner on the increase in wages she lobbied for.
They have also made unemployment rise.

The welfare state is a giant Ponzi Scheme. Benjhamin is dead right there. The promise of ever widening support guarantees that governments can't meet the bill. This is a strong reason why no government really has tried to lower migration. They NEED more mugs to come and pay taxes and hang the other consequences, such as social disruption, massive pressure on housing, and ridiculous levels of house price and rent inflation, pressure on public services and so on. Like all Ponzi Schemes, it can never work, unless you recruit more 'investors'. They can't get the money through taxation without destroying the economy. When I was born the UK population was 50 million. Now it is 70 million.

As Benjamin Franklin said a couple of hundred years ago - once the people can vote themselves money the republic is stuffed.

 

[Tony1951]

Oh dear....

Electoral Calculus

This is what happens when established parties take the electorate for granted and ignore and scorn their demands.

 

[Woosh]

massive pressure on housing,

They need to push house price or real estate asset value up. That will help bank to lend more money to the same people so they can spend more. When I was a little boy, the word 'consumer' was practically unheard of. Now it's the most powerful economic engine in all democracies.

 

[Tony1951]

Congratulations to Starmer for his One in One Out Agreement with France.

Yesterday on Friday 19th September two illegal arrivals from France were returned to Paris on an Air France flight.

Unfortunately for everyone trying to buy a home, rent a home, get an appointment for medical treatment, over a thousand more illegal immigrants arrived on the south coast the same day.

None of these people were screened before they arrived.
All of these people committed a crime the moment they stepped ashore by arriving in the UK without a right to do so (Immigration Act 1971, section 22 D1

"(D1)A person who—

(a)requires entry clearance under the immigration rules, and

(b)knowingly arrives in the United Kingdom without a valid entry clearance,

commits an offence."


EDIT:

The Home Office confirmed on Saturday that the number who crossed was 1072 not 1000.

 

[Tony1951]

They need to push house price or real estate asset value up. That will help bank to lend more money to the same people so they can spend more. When I was a little boy, the word 'consumer' was practically unheard of. Now it's the most powerful economic engine in all democracies.

That is an even worse disaster (if you are recommending it as a strategy).

People on lower wage jobs and even middle of the road jobs can not afford to pay their rents and they can't borrow enough to get a mortgage which will pay for a house.

How much worse do you want it to get for the mass of ordinary people?

 

[Woosh]

That is an even worse disaster (if you are recommending it as a strategy).

People on lower wage jobs and even middle of the road jobs can not afford to pay their rents and they can't borrow enough to get a mortgage which will pay for a house.

How much worse do you want it to get for the mass of ordinary people?

If there is a better strategy for current Western democracies than inflating asset prices, successive UK governments have not found it yet. Starmer is the first pm for a long time to really try to reduce demand for new housing, look where it got him. Government borrowing cost is record high because foreigners stop buying London homes, leading to worsening balance of payments.

 

[soundwave]

 

[Benjahmin]

If there is a better strategy for current Western democracies than inflating asset prices, successive UK governments have not found it yet. Starmer is the first pm for a long time to really try to reduce demand for new housing, look where it got him. Government borrowing cost is record high because foreigners stop buying London homes, leading to worsening balance of payments.

And no governmnent will because they are all trained by Keynesians to be Keynesians. They therefore think and act within and out from the very theories and structures that got us all into this mess in the first place. ALL economists (with a few rare exceptions) are trained this way. If, whilst in university, they dare to offer alternstive views and theories, then they do not get their degree because the people marking their work are trained by Keynesian professors. We are stuck in a doom loop of theories and practicies that are driving us all into a growing debt trap.
Since 1972 (when Nixon closed the gold window making the worlds reserve currency free floating and backed by nothing) all currencies have lost around 98% of their value measured against 1ounce of gold. So what is the actual VALUE of a dollar, pound, euro etc. when they are only measured against each other or the dollar - all of which are declining in value because of the way it's set up.
A lot of you have an engineering mindset. You know that, when making measurements, you have a fixed and known datum against which to make those measurements. If the datum is floating then you have no way of quantifying your measurement. What is the datum for £1 sterling? You will be told it's the $. Fine, what's the datum for the dollar?
In 1972 it would cost you approximately $36 to buy an ounce of gold. Today it will cost you in the region of $3,600. An ounce of gold is still an ounce, nothing's change there, there is your datum.
Don't believe me, I could just be some raving nutter. Check it out for yourself, but be warned, you enter an Alice in wonderland world that makes the most lurid lsd fuelled fantasy seem utterly rational.

 

[Woosh]

In 1972 it would cost you approximately $36 to buy an ounce of gold. Today it will cost you in the region of $3,600. An ounce of gold is still an ounce, nothing's change there, there is your datum.

YearClose% change
1973$106.4866.79%
1972$63.8443.14%
1971$44.6014.65%
1970$38.90-5.12%
Roughly speaking yes, but you can see that the world economy was expanding quickly in the late 60s to early 70s while the quantity of gold in the fed reserve does not. Therefore the idea of pinning the dollar to be convertible into gold is fundamentally flawed and doomed to fail. The Bretton Woods agreement had served its purpose by then.
Nixon had no other choice than suspending the agreement.
As far as Keynes is concerned, his economic theory has little to do with printing money. It's our political system that does that. In bad times, governments cut taxes to stimulate the economy, in boom times, instead of putting up taxes and reduce spending, they just expand their spending and make even bigger spending promises to stay in power.
If we are to correct the system, we have to reform the voting system so that people cannot vote to give themselves money, whether it's tax cut or benefits.

From ChatGPT:
Keynesian economics is not a policy of “printing money” or “running up debt” by itself. It’s a framework for understanding the economy, especially recessions. Here’s the breakdown:

What Keynes actually argued

In downturns, private demand falls (people and businesses cut spending). This risks a vicious circle of lower incomes and higher unemployment.

Keynes suggested that government should step in by spending more (on public works, infrastructure, etc.) and/or cutting taxes to boost demand until the economy recovers.

In booms, governments should ideally reduce spending or raise taxes to prevent overheating and to pay down debt.


Money creation

Keynes did not argue for governments to “print money” directly.

Instead, governments usually borrow by issuing bonds to finance stimulus.

Central banks sometimes use “monetary policy” (interest rates, quantitative easing) to complement this, but that is not the same thing as Keynesian fiscal policy.


Debt

Keynesian theory does accept temporary government deficits as useful during recessions.

The idea is that stimulus raises GDP, so debt becomes more manageable over time.

However, in practice, many governments have been more willing to spend in bad times than to tighten in good times, which leads to a long-term ratcheting up of debt.


So is Keynesianism “responsible”?

Partially: It legitimized the idea that deficit spending can be a tool for economic management.

But not entirely: The persistent growth of debt is more due to political incentives (voters dislike spending cuts and higher taxes) than to Keynes’s theory itself.

“Printing money” (like quantitative easing after 2008) comes more from monetarist and central bank practices, not Keynesian fiscal policy.


In short: Keynesian economics supports countercyclical deficit spending (borrowing in recessions, repaying in booms). Persistent high debt and money-printing reflect how governments have applied—or misapplied—those ideas.

 

[Woosh]

BTW, the last PM who has followed Keynesian economics was Ted Heath. Margaret Thatcher was listening to the new monetarists like Milton Friedman and free market thinking economists like Friedrich Hayek. They are very different from Keynesian economists, they believe in government should keep their hands off the market economy.

From ChatGPT:

In the UK, most governments from the 1940s through the mid-1970s broadly followed Keynesian economics, though with different emphases. It was less about one prime minister personally and more about a cross-party consensus often called the “post-war Keynesian consensus.”

Here’s a timeline:

Clement Attlee (Labour, 1945–1951)

Strongly Keynesian in spirit: major public works, creation of the NHS, nationalisation of industries.

High government spending aimed at rebuilding after WWII and maintaining full employment.


Winston Churchill (Conservative, 1951–1955) and Anthony Eden (1955–1957)

Continued the commitment to full employment and welfare state.

Did not roll back Attlee’s spending but sought more efficiency.


Harold Macmillan (Conservative, 1957–1963)

Famously said “most of our people have never had it so good.”

Practiced Keynesian demand management: adjusting taxes/spending to smooth out the business cycle.


Harold Wilson (Labour, 1964–1970; 1974–1976)

Very Keynesian: expansionary budgets, focus on growth, sometimes leading to balance-of-payments problems.

Tried to use government planning to boost industry alongside demand management.


Edward Heath (Conservative, 1970–1974)

Initially tried a more free-market approach, but after unemployment rose, he “U-turned” back to Keynesian stimulus in 1972 (“dash for growth”).


The turning point: James Callaghan (Labour, 1976–1979)

In 1976, facing inflation and an IMF bailout, he declared that “spending our way out of a recession” was no longer viable.

This marked the end of Keynesian consensus in UK politics.


Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, 1979–1990)

Rejected Keynesianism in favour of monetarism, focusing on controlling inflation rather than full employment.



---

So, in short:

UK PMs from Attlee through Heath broadly followed Keynesian economics.

Callaghan began the shift away in 1976.

Thatcher broke with it decisively.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

The problem about taxing corporations more is that in the end, it isn't the corporations who pay. Their customers - you and I are the ones who pay. They simply put up the prices.

At the last budget, Rachel Reeves taxed employers by increasing the NI they had to pay on every employee. But who really paid that tax?

They got £25 billion for the exchequer, but YOU and I are pa

BTW, the last PM who has followed Keynesian economics was Ted Heath. Margaret Thatcher was listening to the new monetarists like Milton Friedman and free market thinking economists like Friedrich Hayek. They are very different from Keynesian economists, they believe in government should keep their hands off the market economy.

From ChatGPT:

In the UK, most governments from the 1940s through the mid-1970s broadly followed Keynesian economics, though with different emphases. It was less about one prime minister personally and more about a cross-party consensus often called the “post-war Keynesian consensus.”

Here’s a timeline:

Clement Attlee (Labour, 1945–1951)

Strongly Keynesian in spirit: major public works, creation of the NHS, nationalisation of industries.

High government spending aimed at rebuilding after WWII and maintaining full employment.


Winston Churchill (Conservative, 1951–1955) and Anthony Eden (1955–1957)

Continued the commitment to full employment and welfare state.

Did not roll back Attlee’s spending but sought more efficiency.


Harold Macmillan (Conservative, 1957–1963)

Famously said “most of our people have never had it so good.”

Practiced Keynesian demand management: adjusting taxes/spending to smooth out the business cycle.


Harold Wilson (Labour, 1964–1970; 1974–1976)

Very Keynesian: expansionary budgets, focus on growth, sometimes leading to balance-of-payments problems.

Tried to use government planning to boost industry alongside demand management.


Edward Heath (Conservative, 1970–1974)

Initially tried a more free-market approach, but after unemployment rose, he “U-turned” back to Keynesian stimulus in 1972 (“dash for growth”).


The turning point: James Callaghan (Labour, 1976–1979)

In 1976, facing inflation and an IMF bailout, he declared that “spending our way out of a recession” was no longer viable.

This marked the end of Keynesian consensus in UK politics.


Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, 1979–1990)

Rejected Keynesianism in favour of monetarism, focusing on controlling inflation rather than full employment.



---

So, in short:

UK PMs from Attlee through Heath broadly followed Keynesian economics.

Callaghan began the shift away in 1976.

Thatcher broke with it decisively.

ying for it.

I listened to a senior executive of a large supermarket firm being questioned the other day about food price inflation and why it was happening when the price of food commodities is falling. He pointed out that their profit margins were incredibly low - around 3%. The reason food is galloping upwards in price is the budget.

Reeves through the tax on jobs and Rayner on the increase in wages she lobbied for.
They have also made unemployment rise.

The welfare state is a giant Ponzi Scheme. Benjhamin is dead right there. The promise of ever widening support guarantees that governments can't meet the bill. This is a strong reason why no government really has tried to lower migration. They NEED more mugs to come and pay taxes and hang the other consequences, such as social disruption, massive pressure on housing, and ridiculous levels of house price and rent inflation, pressure on public services and so on. Like all Ponzi Schemes, it can never work, unless you recruit more 'investors'. They can't get the money through taxation without destroying the economy. When I was born the UK population was 50 million. Now it is 70 million.

As Benjamin Franklin said a couple of hundred years ago - once the people can vote themselves money the republic is stuffed.

Nuts and bolts obvious answer, but whether corporations put up prices or it's keynesian economics, the consumer pay. Aquintance from carribean pointed out once gordon Brown's raid on pensions transferred debt from government (courtesy tax raid) to consumers (ballooning mortgages), created generation of slaves working 30 years to pay that off. That may not be a bad thing (increased consumption, Chinese model of working until one dies). But it ignores uk's ballooning inequality (9th of 38 oecd countries) which risks societal collapse (as i thought last week as i sipped decent pod coffee in reception in moorfields private eye hospital while thinking about nhs patients dying on waiting lists)

 

[Benjahmin]

I applaude your historical knowledge and research. However I have to deal with the circumstance I find myself in.
Having worked my arse off since before leaving school I could not work out why I could not get ahead in an honest fashion.
So, with a mind to trying to self fund my retirement, I bought my first gold coin in 2007 at the price of £385. Still have that coin and if I were to sell it today I would achieve around £3800. I'm not mathmatically adroit enough to work out what that £385 would be now if I'd left it in a deposit account. I would suggest it would be far less.
So, I have a modicum of security for my old age without relying totally on specious policies of whatever government may be flavour of the day.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

I applaude your historical knowledge and research. However I have to deal with the circumstance I find myself in.
Having worked my arse off since before leaving school I could not work out why I could not get ahead in an honest fashion.
So, with a mind to trying to self fund my retirement, I bought my first gold coin in 2007 at the price of £385. Still have that coin and if I were to sell it today I would achieve around £3800. I'm not mathmatically adroit enough to work out what that £385 would be now if I'd left it in a deposit account. I would suggest it would be far less.
So, I have a modicum of security for my old age without relying totally on specious policies of whatever government may be flavour of the day.

Very happy for you, security (financial or otherwise is rare commodity). Have two (maybe three) caveats. Uncle oswald would say 'buy when everyones selling, sell when everyones buying'. It isn't gold plated advice, but - IF I were completely unprincipled twat (like uncle oswald) - I would sell gold now, buy United health stock (down 47% past year on trump hot air, the world and us of a will only get more unequal), but thats a risky strategy. Gold will never collapse. I too worked my arse off. Clearly it's not a meritocracy. Think epicurean saying about freedom from desire, beachfront villa in sicily is less than 100 gold coins and (if one stear clear of the italian burocracy and ndrangetha) just lovely

 

[MikelBikel]

Remember, it was Not a Controlled Demolition a plane hit it on the side.. that's why they fell Straight Down. The third one just had a case of sympathetic collapse ;-)
In other news, Tennessee demolishes the cooling towers for a newkleer reactor they Could have had!

WATCH: Eye-catching nuclear cooling tower implosion in Tennessee

The Tennessee Valley Authority used controlled demolition to safely implode the 540-foot hyperbolic cooling tower in Hartsville Thursday morning.

youtube.com

 

[MikelBikel]

You are the Karbon they want to Zero

London mayor responsible for producing 40 tonnes of carbon alone

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtube.com

 

[MikelBikel]

Issues a ticket to an Electric car in an "electric car space".. That's how dumb they are, Zero sense!

Your thoughts? #automobile #trending #alphamale #mentalhealthcare #funny #shorts

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtube.com

 

[soundwave]

ebike nearly got him lol

 

[soundwave]

 

[Woosh]

Gold will never collapse

Careful when predicting the future! These people are working on turning Mercury to gold and they are eyeing to produce 5000kgs of pure gold!

Scientists Turn Mercury Into Gold

A startup in San Francisco may have discovered how to convert mercury into gold using nuclear fusion. Marathon Fusion’s reactor concept replaces lithium with...

m.youtube.com

 

[Benjahmin]

Oh mate - really?
There is so much wrong there I don't know where to start.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for this miracle, have a look at this:

GOLD $3,750, SILVER $44: Exposing The Terrifying Cracks Of Systemic Collapse | King World News

kingworldnews.com