Trump

[F-ZeroOne]

Its not so much that privatised railways are automatically bad - Japan Railways are privatised (though mostly as a way of writing off the massive debt that Japan National Railways had incurred; there are obviously major differences between the Japanese and British situation) - but the way in which it was done in the UK, which was essentially intended as a winding up operation for the whole idea of railways, or at least state-support for them. Funny how that worked out.

[Rhythm]

Its not so much that privatised railways are automatically bad - Japan Railways are privatised (though mostly as a way of writing off the massive debt that Japan National Railways had incurred; there are obviously major differences between the Japanese and British situation) - but the way in which it was done in the UK, which was essentially intended as a winding up operation for the whole idea of railways, or at least state-support for them. Funny how that worked out.

Yep, the manner in which is was handled in the UK is the issue. We're astonishingly bad at creating decent, well-managed long-term plans.

[zip accident]

Its not so much that privatised railways are automatically bad - Japan Railways are privatised (though mostly as a way of writing off the massive debt that Japan National Railways had incurred; there are obviously major differences between the Japanese and British situation) - but the way in which it was done in the UK, which was essentially intended as a winding up operation for the whole idea of railways, or at least state-support for them. Funny how that worked out.

Yep, the manner in which is was handled in the UK is the issue. We're astonishingly bad at creating decent, well-managed long-term plans.

We're rather good at long term plans that make companies a lot of money while barely, if at all, doing what they are theopretically supposed to.

[Rhythm]

We're rather good at long term plans that make companies a lot of money while barely, if at all, doing what they are theopretically supposed to.

It's fucking embarrassing, watching our infrastructure crumble and new, common sense, ideas getting overlooked. I'm fundamentally opposed to HS2, for example, but at least I was able to console myself in the notion that a new cycle network was going to be piggy-backing on it. Except it's now not. Because of the overspend so far, they've decided to "save" £100 million by ditching the cycleways. That's £100 million out of a projected £55.7 BILLION, mind.

[zip accident]

We're rather good at long term plans that make companies a lot of money while barely, if at all, doing what they are theopretically supposed to.

It's fucking embarrassing, watching our infrastructure crumble and new, common sense, ideas getting overlooked. I'm fundamentally opposed to HS2, for example, but at least I was able to console myself in the notion that a new cycle network was going to be piggy-backing on it. Except it's now not. Because of the overspend so far, they've decided to "save" £100 million by ditching the cycleways. That's £100 million out of a projected £55.7 BILLION, mind.

All that overspend is money that someone has been paid. If you think that's accidental, I suggest you look again at which political party the people who make that money back.

I am somewhat biased in this, I'm not a Marxist because that theory is plain wrong, but I don't like the way the rich are conspiring to make everyone else poorer, there should be competition, and often there are monopolies and cartels, which ought not to be the case, and which there were government departments to oppose (particularly the monopolies and mergers commision), but they got neutered.

[Rhythm]

All that overspend is money that someone has been paid. If you think that's accidental, I suggest you look again at which political party the people who make that money back.

Ah, don't worry, I'm under no pretence that project spends like this are entirely accidental.

[CableTwitch]

Can't say that I blame them - after all, who in their right mind would want to move to America while Trump is in charge?

Hi!

Although I kinda got married, so it's not like I'm there for the politics. Can't even vote until I get fill citizenship, which might be in maybe 2 years from when I get the green card, which is another 6 months down the line... yay.

But yeah, believe me, I'm keeping a close eye on everything going on as much as is possible. At least in NY we're pretty far away from the majority of the lunacy.

[merman]

Cohen singing like a canary while good old Donny fails to do a deal with Kim... It's a good job he didn't run around saying how easy it was going to be...

[Dio]

I don't think it's fair to have a go at Trump for his handling of North Korea. At the least, it's less obviously a shitshow than most of the rest of what he comes out with and it might be genuine progress.

[skab]

I don't think it's fair to have a go at Trump for his handling of North Korea. At the least, it's less obviously a shitshow than most of the rest of what he comes out with and it might be genuine progress.

Oh, it's always fair to have a go at Trump. He's the pompous arse who claimed to be the greatest deal-makers of all time and he started this show.

[merman]

I don't think it's fair to have a go at Trump for his handling of North Korea. At the least, it's less obviously a shitshow than most of the rest of what he comes out with and it might be genuine progress.

Did you hear his rambling, incoherent press statement?

First he tries to distract everyone by talking about starving people in Venezuela*, and how India and Pakistan had "decades of hate" between them. Then he has to admit he didn't make a deal because HE wouldn't make any concessions over the sanctions.

You can't make a deal if you don't give. Unless it's one of his crooked, one-sided business deals.


*There are millions of starving people in North Korea thanks to sanctions and Kim's regime. Just sayin...

[PFVA]

Speaking of Venezuela they are transfering the European headquarters of their oil company from Lisbon to Moscow. I just hope Venezuela is not going to become another Syria.
And the US government who has been pressuring for us to freeze the Venezuelan assets has also told us that we should not do business with Huawei (or whatever it's called) or our economic relations with the US may suffer. Altisse here had just signed a deal with Huawei.

I don't like the way things are going. This is not free market, it's sounding more and more like dictatorship market.

[merman]

Speaking of Venezuela they are transfering the European headquarters of their oil company from Lisbon to Moscow. I just hope Venezuela is not going to become another Syria.
And the US government who has been pressuring for us to freeze the Venezuelan assets has also told us that we should not do business with Huawei (or whatever it's called) or our economic relations with the US may suffer. Altisse here had just signed a deal with Huawei.

I don't like the way things are going. This is not free market, it's sounding more and more like dictatorship market.

There are genuine reasons to be concerned about Huawei and other Chinese tech companies (especially when they get massive Government contracts).

Trump though is heading for a meltdown...

[Governmentyard]

The question is, will it happen in time?

It's no fun if he falls after leaving office. It needs to be during his term for maximum lulz.

[Dio]

I think it would be much better if it happened after he left office. Otherwise it's going to dig in more of the entrenched, antagonistic positions that led to his election in the first place.