CokeSnortingTory

Yeah, I've got most of my cash in current accounts, which means I'm being twatted by inflation, but at the moment I'm more interested in ease of extraction than anything else.

Ah yes, who needs Panzer divisions?

No we took away billions of freshly printed Marks.

It's the declining marginal returns of complexity again. Our technologies are destroying all that we once valued. The archaeologists of the future are going to love all this.

Not really true. The population in Soviet Russia pretty much fed themselves from communal plots for decades due to the fantastical failure of the Soviet agricultural system. They probably had access to even less growing land than is spare in the UK. You should read Dmitry Orlov on this. Of course, if the bond markets start to get iffy about Tesco's debt pile, we'll have to follow their example.

Yes - this is the old Viz "Top Tip": "Anarchists - when smashing the system, remember not to burn down your local dole office."

Always amazed at how people can get things 100% wrong. The problem with the Conservative Party over the last 30 years is that they've been the very opposite of a conservative party - they've been a radical party, who weren't even interested in conserving the country's primary industries or infrastructure. The Labour Party of the 1950's were more conservative than the present Tories, and the Conservative Party of the 1950's were more socialist than the current Labour Party. Conservatism is, in it's practical effects, a good thing. Of course this goes against the infinity-worshipping late-capitalist Western mindset, in which politicians bizarrely pursue abstracted objectives such as "change".

Go and ferret out Ambrose's take on this, irro.

The biggest mistake the Tories made was after they won the miners' strike. If they'd had any nous they would have been magnanimous in victory, and kept open any pits that were even marginally viable (or even cost less than the equivalent dole + scrappage costs). They did the opposite and even closed the pits of their UDM allies. It's stuff like this that has basically made them unelectable in vast swathes of the country to this day. This was Thatcher's basic problem - she didn't understand nuance. Humiliating Scargill didn't require humiliating every single miner. That said, no-one has mentioned there is (was) a totally different side to the Conservative Party. Macmillan and Heath loathed Thatcher just as much as Scargill did.

In hindsight, all Thatcher really engaged in was can-kicking, via North Sea oil revenues and the disposal of infrastructural assets (eventually to foreigners). Also, the dubious economics of destroying entire industries to prevent the unions destroying entire industries (we had to kill them in order to save them, as George Bush might say). You don't really need to make left-wing arguments to not vote Tory, tbh.

The "legal" mechanism won't work because any threat to the Greeks will have them turning to Russia for assistance - both countries have long cultural ties (they have the same church, the Russian language is based on the Greek language, they are traditional allies etc.). This will of course put the fear of God into NATO, and encourage the Serbs (allies of both the Greeks and Russians) to consider some kind of military assistance. Also the Turks, historically a ferociously aggressive nation who have given a good impersonation of being dormant for the last 90 years, will also have an aversion to nuclear threats being made in their sphere of influence. But hey, if you've got no knowledge of geopolitics, keep on fantasising. The moral obligation is thus purely an academic matter, because if they don't want to pay, they ain't gonna pay.

And so the long day wore on......

The pedantic gold bugs will point out that gold can in fact be eaten. I like mine fried in batter accompanied by mushy peas.

Yep. That's because things don't have to be abstract to be abstractions or abstract symbols.

Well, if a crown isn't an abstract symbol, nothing is.

I looked up the definition of "abstract" in the OED, and the definition did not include the phrase "not something that can be carried in your pocket". Linky?

They're all abstractions. Gold was easier to carry in your pocket than live geese.

Gold was the first abstraction of land and its produce. Paper was the second abstraction (abstract from gold). Fiat was the next abstraction (abstract from paper). Then you had the next level still of abstraction (stocks, insurance) and finally the level of abstraction we have today (securities). I guess then the breakdown works backwards to source.

Note this also applies to Spain, Portugal and Italy.

No, it's my moving function.

Actually one suspicion I have is that people will start doing what the travelling/gypsy community are doing now - turning up at a spot of land en masse and saying "this is ours, now". And then they'll start to farm it. What the authorities don't realise is that they are setting a precedent.

You should read Gurdjieff - Tolle nicked most of his ideas from him.

I think it'll happen, as humans are self-organising creatures after all. Lot's of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the meantime, though.

Get some potting trays. No excuses.

Your time would be better spent refraining from whining, and learning how to grow vegetables instead.