erat_forte

Did you know that the EU is all foreign? They jabber away in their funny foreign lingo. Our plucky English government are made of sterner stuff. It won't be long before those upstart Europeans remember where their proper place is, and which country is Top Nation!

So is there a practical limit to income multiples? Could we have 20x if interest rates go negative enough?

Are you arguing that not one single person on here is "clearly barking mad"?

"be tough on them" - politicians love that because it plays well with racist and anti-immigrant voting base. However it doesn't actually work (the problem is still there after decades of being tough). Perhaps the politicians like that as well because it means they can have a continual "tough on immigrants" stance that doesnt work but which plays well - a bit like the "war on drugs". You could ask, why are they actually making the journey? I dont mean sounding off your opinion about what is wrong with this country, I mean proper peer reviewed statistical analysis of migrants, their origins and destinations, and what motivates them. Then it should be easy to deal with the motivations. WIthout that accurate information about where they come from and what motivates them to come any attempted solution will be pointless.

https://www.saynoto0870.com/ gives 08448920232 as an alternative version of this premium rate number: Company Name 087x 084x 01 / 02 / 03 UKVAS 0844 892 0232 0300 790 6268

I should add that from a "good governance" point of view, whether the UK is a member of the EU or any other thing like EEA, ECJ, etc. is far less important than how those networks of international treaties and regulations are drafted, implemented and managed. So there's a big extent to which I don't care if the UK is "in" or "out" of the EU, as long as it is all managed competently, transparently, and honestly.

I don't agree actually, I don't think there was an "argument" to be "won or lost". Its more a series of small dull questions to do with governance and regulatory structure, checks and balances, accountability and transparency. My impression is that the Westminster elite (perhaps international elites) have decided that now is the time to push back against the growth of what could be stereotyped as "good governance". The Brexit referendum could be seen as part of that campaign by the "private networking" elites against the "transparent regulatory" elites. The ordinary people on both sides being marshalled like lobby fodder in the referendum and in subsequent elections (see Bob's comments about voter characteristics). Personally I am very much in the "good governance" camp, having got there through radical libertarian anarchism... I realised at anarchism was a failed ideology because there would always be people who would play the system to their own advantage and become an elite. I see "good governance" as a way to try and hold the elites to account, to crop their ambitions. However I freely admit that definitions and implementations of "good governance" are very much exploratory work in progress.

I don't know, I can't remember what "contact details" I gave.

That is the main issue with all pension systems though. The idea of an entire generation "putting money away" and then spending it when they get to retire is a kind of category error - when they retire they will be consuming goods and services, which need produced and supplied at the point they are being consumed. The money system, the particular pension mechanism, is just an accounting system for distributing the resources. I suppose the centralised state pension scheme makes that "current workers provide for current retirees" closed system much more apparent that all private schemes based on investments, annuities, etc. etc. There might be a huge difference for each individual case, but on aggregate over the entire population it makes little difference, the demographic issue is the same.

You yourself said that the high capital price of a new house was restricting your options. Consider over a "lifetime cost", how much would you pay in rent vs. how much would you pay to own and maintain the same asset. Everyone's options are different. Opportunity cost vs. return on/of capital.

Why not sell up and rent?

No they are not better off because there are still the same number of assets, there are just more devalued currency units. In fact probably people are worse off because of mis-allocation of resources away from actual wealth creation and prosperity and into asset prices.

Mandatory crash helmets when riding in a car would be a good idea don't you think?

Like what? Housing is just one asset, any other asset is going to have the same kind of outworking. I read somewhere about the general downturn in energy/resource/production means everyone gets gradually poorer on aggregate. Fixed costs of essentials rise, squeezing discretionary income. Here we have discussion about a trajectory of increasing the public sector and being unable to shrink it. THe suggestion made elsewhere was that (following the example of furlough etc.) that the govt might start to guarantee the supply of "essentials", so there might be a creeping programme of nationalisation, housing, food, power. That would allow the public sector to keep growing, shrink the private sector to only provide "discretionary" things. Not saying this is a good or desirable thing! Just wondering if it is a possible outcome from where we are now.

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0628/1231742-sefcovic-protocol-stormont/ Will be interesting to see what comes out of this meeting. Will the nutters shout at him about sausages? Will he nod sagely and say that they are "exploring all options" bla bla