Actually, in my YouTube shorts feed, a video of Warren Buffet making the exact same point surfaced.
Indeed, as the tax cheque he sent to the government was $5 billion, he makes this same point to its extreme.
That if every member of the ultra-rich - and corporations like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. - all paid their taxes to that level, then not a single person would need to pay any taxes at all. The tax rate for everyone else could, in fact, be zero. The whole tax burden could be collected from the wealthiest alone, excusing everyone else.
But, ah, I was thinking of it in a fairer and more distributed way, where we just give everyone a massive tax cut - rich and poor alike - in celebration of finally getting full payment from everyone, now that that full payment means we don't have to fiddle the tax rates to make up the difference from all that previous non-payment.
And the daft thing is that it's all ultimately for naught.
As Rory Sutherland picks up here, once we're past the "basic survival" hurdle and someone is more than rich enough to never have to worry about money ever again, becoming richer still is all about excessive waste as a status symbol:
When you're already a multi-billionaire, then what's the point of clinging onto those taxes? It's all about "status" and you show off your status by demonstrating your capacity to be supremely wasteful.
As the clip covers, if something has actual useful utility - a truck is the most expensive vehicle you could buy to show off how rich you are, but the problem is that trucks are very much utility vehicles, so they're not displays of "excessive waste" to prove your "I don't care" levels of stupid wealth - then it loses its appeal as a status symbol.
Like, having your watch be made of gold is of no practical value whatsoever. It's just heavier, more fragile - as gold is a soft metal - and a better conductor of electricity, which is really not a useful attribute for a band around your wrist to have. Being made of gold, of course, has absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the watch's ability to accurately tell the time (indeed, the internals almost certainly won't be gold, because making a cog out of a very soft metal is just stupid engineering).
Bizarrely, the whole entire point is that it's impractical and a bit stupid - but that's how rich I am, that I can waste money on dumb shit for no good reason. Witness me!!
The ultra-rich are causing immense social damage here, but why?
So they can put their initials into the "money high score table". Witness me. I have the biggest collection of abstract "points" - a unit of no actual metric - that I'm in the Times "Rich Cunt" list, for all the excessive waste I ooze out of every pore.
I've addressed the money system itself before and how, with the current trajectory of AI automation replacing humans that all the Big Tech is chasing, they're going to stupidly break the very system they worship. If no-one has a job, then no-one has an income. If no-one has an income, then their AI robots can make all the products and services they like... no-one can afford them.
Capitalism is quite literally eating itself.
And the problem is that because all these people are living it large and "I'm alright, Jack", they really do seem to not understand they're breaking the very system that gives them their "status" in the first place.
It is, indeed, the stupidest thing ever. Like, this is not the politics of envy - I don't care that these people are rich unto itself - but it's that their hoarding instincts are going to run us all off an economic cliff and will just irrevocably break society, because they didn't get therapy for their mental problems and feelings of inadequacy.
That's ultimately what it boils down to, and it's just so insanely stupid, it's almost beyond comprehension that the rich are destroying society - to which they also belong, even if they haven't quite realised that yet - over unresolved "daddy issues" and the religious might possible destroy all life on Earth - possibly, as Brian Cox, has it, maybe all intelligent life in the entire galaxy - over fan fiction. Like a sci-fi or comic convention, where everyone's stabbing each other to death, arguing over whether Star Wars or Star Trek is real. A mass shooting over whether you're team Betty or team Veronica.
Homo Sapiens is not a "wise ape". A knowledgable ape, but not wise - we just can't help letting these silly vestigial instincts override our intellect, the one good and special thing about us. We know it's wrong. We can see it. We can accurately predict our downfall. But somehow are just unable to make that simple side-step to avoid it.
Civilisations so decadent that one of the biggest killers is essentially eating yourself to death. Just because we can't get over our "seek fats, salt and sugars" instincts, which "point" hoarders exploit to get their names in the meaningless "rich high score table".
We're morons. Completely fucking morons. It's same old, same old.
How much is enough?
Politics Thread!
Re: Politics Thread!
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Politics Thread!
I have an idea on how to deal with Trumps increasing obsession with other peoples territories. This time its the Falklands, and I will be delighted to see how Nigel handles that one!
So what we do is start telling Trump about fictional islands and behaving as if they're real and see how long it is before hes threatening to send B-2s to blow the crap out of, oh, I don't know, that bit of the "Final Fantasy VII" map where you find "The Knights of Round" materia.
He can start with Sodor. Thomas has it coming.
So what we do is start telling Trump about fictional islands and behaving as if they're real and see how long it is before hes threatening to send B-2s to blow the crap out of, oh, I don't know, that bit of the "Final Fantasy VII" map where you find "The Knights of Round" materia.
He can start with Sodor. Thomas has it coming.
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.
Re: Politics Thread!
I'm disappointed by all these time travellers coming back in time, trying to prevent the Orange Hitler from future crimes against humanity by assassinating him before he gets the chance, as they keep doing a piss-poor job of it.
Then again, perhaps it's logically impossible for them to succeed, due to the Grandfather Paradox, and the time loop will go round and round and round infinitely, until it finally settles on a version of reality where you must inevitably fail, as that's the only way to break the paradoxical loop.
Trump carries out his threat of genocide - to wipe out an entire civilisation overnight with nukes (which, by the way, would easily make him vastly worse than Hitler and the Holocaust, as Iran's population is 93 million, so that's more people than the UK and a third of the US population, and he'd be the greatest mass-murderer in all of history - which is why I found it absurd that the media acted like this openly genocidal threat was nothing. Some even defending it. When, if carried out as stated, it would easily be the biggest crime against humanity in all of human history, just because, ah, he's getting impatient with them disagreeing with him. Like, at least Hitler had a broken and completely wrong philosophy behind his crimes and he wasn't just doing it "because I'm bored now") - then the time travellers come back in time to assassinate him to prevent it happening, except if they succeed, then Trump never carries out the threat. And if he never does commit his heinous crimes, then the time travellers have no reason to come back. And if they don't come back, then Trump isn't assassinated and the genocide happens.
And this paradoxical loop goes round and round and round - unable to resolve itself - until one of the time travellers attempts the assassination and fails. Trump carries out his crimes and this prompts that time traveller to come back in time, where he fails. The past has been altered, but not in a way that prevents either Trump committing his crimes or the time travellers coming back to try to prevent it. They just, you know, fail to do so. Their own personal timeline is consistent. "Groundhog day" ends.
But this "time loop" logic means even if time travel to the past is possible, then you can't go back to prevent the thing that made you go back in the first place. That's paradoxical. But you can go back and try to prevent it and fail, then live the rest of your personal timeline in the past - your presence in the past does change history, by the way, but the crucial ingredient is that it does not change history in any way that prevents you from going into the past in the future. "Future you" still does that. And that's fine, so long as nothing "past you" does prevents "future you" from time travelling in the first place.
Otherwise, it's paradoxical and you get stuck in a "Groundhog day" time loop, where you do succeed but then you never time travelled to prevent it, so you don't succeed which makes "future you" go back in time, where you do succeed, so you don't go back in time. But that makes you go back in time. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. And the only logical ways out of this is that, on one of the loops, you fail in a non-time-travel-preventing way or you do something that prevents the time travel from ever happening in the first place. The paradox is resolved, so time continues as normal.
As reality resets on each time loop, no-one else is remotely aware of how many times the time loop occurred. All we ever see is the final resolved situation.
I can't imagine the innumerable amount of time loops it took for the insane coincidence of Trump turning his head at exactly the right moment for the bullet to just graze his ear to happen, to resolve the paradox. To turn at the right moment like that is, indeed, a one in a billion chance - so maybe the time loop really happened a billion times, before the resolution of only a grazed bloodied ear was found.
Somewhere in the future, there's a physicist arguing that you can't prevent specific past events that motivate you to go back in time to prevent them - as that's logically paradoxical - but yet the assassin is determined: "I've got to try" and then they all inevitably fail, as logic will forever prevent them.
But, note, there is still hope yet. If a time traveller comes back in time and accidentally - without intent - runs Trump over with a bus and kills him, that's not paradoxical. As I say, backwards time travel is possible in this "lore" - you can go back and you can change things, you just can't change anything that eventually leads to you going back into the past on your own timeline. Because that'll logically put you in a "time loop" that you can't get out of, other than failing miserably in your mission or the "butterfly effect" prevents you from travelling in the first place. But any other possibility can happen, so long as it's logically consistent.
So, go back in time, fail to assassinate the President. That's fine. So, go back in time, accidentally prevent the inventor of time travel from inventing time travel - can't be done. But you could go back in time, prevent that person from inventing time travel... but someone else invents instead and you use their time travel device instead. You can go around the loop and things can keep changing every single time - it's just that the loop can't end and time continue as normal, until we hit upon a non-paradoxical outcome.
And, somewhere - in Nazi Germany, in modern America - there's a big secret underground prison, housing all the failed time travellers. A thousand failed attempts all just piling up, shortly before "the incident" happened. So if the number of these failed assassinations keeps mounting, then we might be in for a "big one" soon.
Then again, perhaps it's logically impossible for them to succeed, due to the Grandfather Paradox, and the time loop will go round and round and round infinitely, until it finally settles on a version of reality where you must inevitably fail, as that's the only way to break the paradoxical loop.
Trump carries out his threat of genocide - to wipe out an entire civilisation overnight with nukes (which, by the way, would easily make him vastly worse than Hitler and the Holocaust, as Iran's population is 93 million, so that's more people than the UK and a third of the US population, and he'd be the greatest mass-murderer in all of history - which is why I found it absurd that the media acted like this openly genocidal threat was nothing. Some even defending it. When, if carried out as stated, it would easily be the biggest crime against humanity in all of human history, just because, ah, he's getting impatient with them disagreeing with him. Like, at least Hitler had a broken and completely wrong philosophy behind his crimes and he wasn't just doing it "because I'm bored now") - then the time travellers come back in time to assassinate him to prevent it happening, except if they succeed, then Trump never carries out the threat. And if he never does commit his heinous crimes, then the time travellers have no reason to come back. And if they don't come back, then Trump isn't assassinated and the genocide happens.
And this paradoxical loop goes round and round and round - unable to resolve itself - until one of the time travellers attempts the assassination and fails. Trump carries out his crimes and this prompts that time traveller to come back in time, where he fails. The past has been altered, but not in a way that prevents either Trump committing his crimes or the time travellers coming back to try to prevent it. They just, you know, fail to do so. Their own personal timeline is consistent. "Groundhog day" ends.
But this "time loop" logic means even if time travel to the past is possible, then you can't go back to prevent the thing that made you go back in the first place. That's paradoxical. But you can go back and try to prevent it and fail, then live the rest of your personal timeline in the past - your presence in the past does change history, by the way, but the crucial ingredient is that it does not change history in any way that prevents you from going into the past in the future. "Future you" still does that. And that's fine, so long as nothing "past you" does prevents "future you" from time travelling in the first place.
Otherwise, it's paradoxical and you get stuck in a "Groundhog day" time loop, where you do succeed but then you never time travelled to prevent it, so you don't succeed which makes "future you" go back in time, where you do succeed, so you don't go back in time. But that makes you go back in time. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. And the only logical ways out of this is that, on one of the loops, you fail in a non-time-travel-preventing way or you do something that prevents the time travel from ever happening in the first place. The paradox is resolved, so time continues as normal.
As reality resets on each time loop, no-one else is remotely aware of how many times the time loop occurred. All we ever see is the final resolved situation.
I can't imagine the innumerable amount of time loops it took for the insane coincidence of Trump turning his head at exactly the right moment for the bullet to just graze his ear to happen, to resolve the paradox. To turn at the right moment like that is, indeed, a one in a billion chance - so maybe the time loop really happened a billion times, before the resolution of only a grazed bloodied ear was found.
Somewhere in the future, there's a physicist arguing that you can't prevent specific past events that motivate you to go back in time to prevent them - as that's logically paradoxical - but yet the assassin is determined: "I've got to try" and then they all inevitably fail, as logic will forever prevent them.
But, note, there is still hope yet. If a time traveller comes back in time and accidentally - without intent - runs Trump over with a bus and kills him, that's not paradoxical. As I say, backwards time travel is possible in this "lore" - you can go back and you can change things, you just can't change anything that eventually leads to you going back into the past on your own timeline. Because that'll logically put you in a "time loop" that you can't get out of, other than failing miserably in your mission or the "butterfly effect" prevents you from travelling in the first place. But any other possibility can happen, so long as it's logically consistent.
So, go back in time, fail to assassinate the President. That's fine. So, go back in time, accidentally prevent the inventor of time travel from inventing time travel - can't be done. But you could go back in time, prevent that person from inventing time travel... but someone else invents instead and you use their time travel device instead. You can go around the loop and things can keep changing every single time - it's just that the loop can't end and time continue as normal, until we hit upon a non-paradoxical outcome.
And, somewhere - in Nazi Germany, in modern America - there's a big secret underground prison, housing all the failed time travellers. A thousand failed attempts all just piling up, shortly before "the incident" happened. So if the number of these failed assassinations keeps mounting, then we might be in for a "big one" soon.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
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zip accident
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Re: Politics Thread!
Hitler was a fool. WW2 without the nazis would have been much worse.
Heydrich was rightly assassinated, as was Yamamoto, but the rest of the top leaders were idiots and fools.
I can't tell with Trump yet, he's a liar, but is he also deluded into foolishness?
Heydrich was rightly assassinated, as was Yamamoto, but the rest of the top leaders were idiots and fools.
I can't tell with Trump yet, he's a liar, but is he also deluded into foolishness?
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
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Harlequin
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Re: Politics Thread!
* tries to imagine WWII without the Nazis *
Emoticon and contraction free since... quite a while ago.
Re: Politics Thread!
Probably because the Nazis were socialists, amirite?zip accident wrote:the rest of the top leaders were idiots and fools.
You don't half spout some shit, zip.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
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Re: Politics Thread!
Almost all the military were up for it. They might have built up their forces a bit more before starting. They'd have had France much the same, then not been distracted by the USSR. They wouldn't have been hobbled by the "Never retreat" bullshit.Harlequin wrote:* tries to imagine WWII without the Nazis *
Yamamoto had been in the USA and knew what he was up against, opposed the war because he didn't think it was winnable, but was ordered to attack.tufty wrote:Probably because the Nazis were socialists, amirite?zip accident wrote:the rest of the top leaders were idiots and fools.
Heydrich earned everthing he got. Mind you, I'm not sure Hitler didn't mess with his hospitalisation.You don't half spout some shit, zip.
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
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Re: Politics Thread!
At 2am it's looking like a bit of a wake-up call.
The number of councillors (not councils) at this time are:
Farage's lot are up 73 seats having lost none.
The Lib-Dems are on 10 which is a loss of 2.
Labour are on 7, which is a loss of 59.
The Greens are on 5 which is a gain of 3.
The Tories are on 4 which is a loss of 10.
Independents are on 3 which is a loss of 4 (but they're not exactly a party).
According to the BBC a lot of the Labour seats were in safe councils which will stay Labour despite these losses, so some of it may be protest votes, but it's a lot even so.
The results will change in a bit, but the trends are likely to continue.
The number of councillors (not councils) at this time are:
Farage's lot are up 73 seats having lost none.
The Lib-Dems are on 10 which is a loss of 2.
Labour are on 7, which is a loss of 59.
The Greens are on 5 which is a gain of 3.
The Tories are on 4 which is a loss of 10.
Independents are on 3 which is a loss of 4 (but they're not exactly a party).
According to the BBC a lot of the Labour seats were in safe councils which will stay Labour despite these losses, so some of it may be protest votes, but it's a lot even so.
The results will change in a bit, but the trends are likely to continue.
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
Re: Politics Thread!
An interesting observation was made on the BBC News.
The largest party in Scotland, if they don't win a majority, looks to be the SNP. The largest party in Wales, if they don't win a majority, looks to be Plaid Cymru. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin are in charge.
And whilst England works differently - although, I said it years ago that if you want to save the United Kingdom, you had to reset the relationship and make it a "union of peers for mutual benefit", with an English Parliament (or, more reasonably, English Parliaments for the regions to balance things out better and stop "black hole" London sucking up all the money and attention) and go for a more federal "United States of Britain", with strong "states rights" - the underlying truth is that Reform are really the English nationalists, and they're grabbing all the seats in England.
Goodbye, the United Kingdom.
The largest party in Scotland, if they don't win a majority, looks to be the SNP. The largest party in Wales, if they don't win a majority, looks to be Plaid Cymru. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin are in charge.
And whilst England works differently - although, I said it years ago that if you want to save the United Kingdom, you had to reset the relationship and make it a "union of peers for mutual benefit", with an English Parliament (or, more reasonably, English Parliaments for the regions to balance things out better and stop "black hole" London sucking up all the money and attention) and go for a more federal "United States of Britain", with strong "states rights" - the underlying truth is that Reform are really the English nationalists, and they're grabbing all the seats in England.
Goodbye, the United Kingdom.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Politics Thread!
The maths for Wales is interesting, as Plaid Cymru have 43 seats, but you need 49 to have a majority.
Looking at the other parties, Labour has 9, which could take them over, as do the Tories with 7. But Plaid can't get there with the assistance of the Greens and Lib Dems, as they only have 3 between them.
One can't imagine Plaid - who are more left than Labour are, typically - going to the Tories or, Heaven Forbid, Reform.
They're actually in a bit of an arithmetic pickle, as they basically need Labour to get things over the line. And Labour might well vindictively say "no".
By rights, they shouldn't say "no" because positions were once reversed and Plaid gave Labour its vote (mostly), and the favour should be repaid in kind.
But, like, this is politics. If you've just had your 100+ year reign destroyed then one strategy is to play "funny buggers", refuse to lend votes or form a coalition, so that Plaid have a nightmare getting anything useful done... and then hope you can use that at the next election to say: "See? Voting for other people is bad. Vote Labour back in again, please".
That said, if that happens, the Tories can play "funny buggers" and lend the votes Labour refuses... but, that said, finding policies that Plaid and the Tories agree on is low.
Because - especially when Farage has openly said that, were he Prime Minister, he'd just "undo" devolution completely and get rid of the Senedd - I've a terrible feeling that voting Reform into second place could be almost worse than voting them into first place.
They're likely to behave exactly like Farage did when he was an MEP for UKIP - he's there to spoil it all, fuck about and insult people. They'll just be a destructive distracting nightmare, purposefully trying to wreck everything that nothing can get done.
Looking at the other parties, Labour has 9, which could take them over, as do the Tories with 7. But Plaid can't get there with the assistance of the Greens and Lib Dems, as they only have 3 between them.
One can't imagine Plaid - who are more left than Labour are, typically - going to the Tories or, Heaven Forbid, Reform.
They're actually in a bit of an arithmetic pickle, as they basically need Labour to get things over the line. And Labour might well vindictively say "no".
By rights, they shouldn't say "no" because positions were once reversed and Plaid gave Labour its vote (mostly), and the favour should be repaid in kind.
But, like, this is politics. If you've just had your 100+ year reign destroyed then one strategy is to play "funny buggers", refuse to lend votes or form a coalition, so that Plaid have a nightmare getting anything useful done... and then hope you can use that at the next election to say: "See? Voting for other people is bad. Vote Labour back in again, please".
That said, if that happens, the Tories can play "funny buggers" and lend the votes Labour refuses... but, that said, finding policies that Plaid and the Tories agree on is low.
Because - especially when Farage has openly said that, were he Prime Minister, he'd just "undo" devolution completely and get rid of the Senedd - I've a terrible feeling that voting Reform into second place could be almost worse than voting them into first place.
They're likely to behave exactly like Farage did when he was an MEP for UKIP - he's there to spoil it all, fuck about and insult people. They'll just be a destructive distracting nightmare, purposefully trying to wreck everything that nothing can get done.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Politics Thread!
They're already planning a "Celtic Alliance" - for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, run by nationalist leaders - to work together, to force Whitehall to cease with its London-centric ways. A shame that there are not devolved English regional Parliaments as well, to really balance out the playing field between "black hole" London and the rest of the UK (a.k.a. "those fields outside London where the yokel peasants we ignore live" in Whitehall).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ders-in-uk
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ders-in-uk
Swinney keen to work with fellow nationalist devolved leaders in UK
SNP leader wants to ensure voices of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ‘are heard loud and clear’
John Swinney has said he plans to work with the nationalist first ministers in Wales and Northern Ireland in a coordinated opposition to Labour’s policies on the cost of living and UK government spending.
The Scottish National party leader said he had spoken to Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin first minister of Northern Ireland, on Friday night after she had called to congratulate him on his party’s “emphatic” victory in the Holyrood elections.
Swinney, who will be sworn in as Scotland’s first minister next week, said he expected Plaid Cymru’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, to be appointed first minister of Wales after winning the Senedd elections for the first time on Thursday.
He said he “looked forward to making sure our respective countries’ voices are heard loud and clear in the UK”.
[...]
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Politics Thread!
Trumps policies literally draining the colour out of the world:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... bu/043000c
Wizball, we need you!
Also, Super Space Greatest Unsinkable Mightiest Dimensional Battleship Trump even more likely not to be built now:
https://www.twz.com/sea/trump-class-bat ... ar-powered
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... bu/043000c
Wizball, we need you!
Also, Super Space Greatest Unsinkable Mightiest Dimensional Battleship Trump even more likely not to be built now:
https://www.twz.com/sea/trump-class-bat ... ar-powered
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.
Re: Politics Thread!
Thank you Mark Rubio for creating a political fuss in my country.
He praised Portugal for "saying yes before they even asked".
Our center-right government has spent the last weeks saying that they didn't have a choice because of the contract of the base in the Azores.
The left and the center left who since the beginning questioned why didn't we do like Spain that refused the use of their bases now want an investigation to find out if our government rushed to offer help to the Trump's government before they even asked. They wanted the story sorted out to know who is lying.
He praised Portugal for "saying yes before they even asked".
Our center-right government has spent the last weeks saying that they didn't have a choice because of the contract of the base in the Azores.
The left and the center left who since the beginning questioned why didn't we do like Spain that refused the use of their bases now want an investigation to find out if our government rushed to offer help to the Trump's government before they even asked. They wanted the story sorted out to know who is lying.
Re: Politics Thread!
Coming up to ten years since the Brexit vote. I know, hard to believe.
But, in retrospect, we can now clearly judge it as having been spectacularly wrong.
While it's hard to attribute how much economic damage is coming from Brexit, compared to the economic damage coming from the pandemic, the cost of living crises caused by wars throttling fossil fuel energy supplies (that we should already be phasing out, exactly because it's just an economic nightmare, due to die a permanent death in a few decades), no-one - not even Nige - is spinning this as having done economic good.
It's hard to quantify how much economic damage it's done, but it has only done economic damage. There have been no clear economic wins here at all - yes, we have trade deals with Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. but these are nothing in comparison to being part of the EU trading bloc. These are compensations and mitigations. They mean we're not quite as bad off as we should have been, but we're still fundamentally worse off.
What about immigration? That was a primary reason many voted Brexit.
I warned at the time that Brexit would prove ironic. I had no idea I'd be proved so right, almost immediately.
Because, fuck me, look at the graph - it almost quadruples, as the starting gun for this insane rise in immigration? Brexit finally being completed - the moment we literally "took back control" of our borders. At which point, despite all their rhetoric to the contrary, the Tories threw open the floodgates and levels of immigration that we've never ever come close to seeing before happened.
Like, look at 2015 / 2016. Those were the levels of immigration that people were worried about. See how it's going up very slowly? If you look closely - with a magnifying glass - then you can notice an incline to the graph. THAT was the big worry about immigration that made people vote for Brexit. They were worried about a now almost-imperceptible rise in the line. But look at the bloody line after Brexit!!
An unmitigated disaster.
As we approach 10 years, there is simply nothing to celebrate here. An ultimately pointless act of self-harm, with no redeeming features.
It made everything worse economically, and it did not stop immigration one iota - it made that vastly worse - while the "we can make our own laws now" argument is a bit empty because, like, okay, what fantastic laws, that the EU wouldn't have allowed, have we implemented? Yeah, basically, none. Not a single one. The EU wouldn't have gotten in the way of the under-16 Social Media ban, as they're likely sizing up the idea themselves. Yeah, ironically, the only ones that the EU might have gotten in the way on, on human rights grounds, are the ones where you'd hope they would - like child benefits caps, revoking the Winter fuel allowance, etc..
Nothing's gotten better, everything's gotten worse. By all metrics.
But, in retrospect, we can now clearly judge it as having been spectacularly wrong.
While it's hard to attribute how much economic damage is coming from Brexit, compared to the economic damage coming from the pandemic, the cost of living crises caused by wars throttling fossil fuel energy supplies (that we should already be phasing out, exactly because it's just an economic nightmare, due to die a permanent death in a few decades), no-one - not even Nige - is spinning this as having done economic good.
It's hard to quantify how much economic damage it's done, but it has only done economic damage. There have been no clear economic wins here at all - yes, we have trade deals with Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. but these are nothing in comparison to being part of the EU trading bloc. These are compensations and mitigations. They mean we're not quite as bad off as we should have been, but we're still fundamentally worse off.
What about immigration? That was a primary reason many voted Brexit.
I warned at the time that Brexit would prove ironic. I had no idea I'd be proved so right, almost immediately.
Because, fuck me, look at the graph - it almost quadruples, as the starting gun for this insane rise in immigration? Brexit finally being completed - the moment we literally "took back control" of our borders. At which point, despite all their rhetoric to the contrary, the Tories threw open the floodgates and levels of immigration that we've never ever come close to seeing before happened.
Like, look at 2015 / 2016. Those were the levels of immigration that people were worried about. See how it's going up very slowly? If you look closely - with a magnifying glass - then you can notice an incline to the graph. THAT was the big worry about immigration that made people vote for Brexit. They were worried about a now almost-imperceptible rise in the line. But look at the bloody line after Brexit!!
An unmitigated disaster.
As we approach 10 years, there is simply nothing to celebrate here. An ultimately pointless act of self-harm, with no redeeming features.
It made everything worse economically, and it did not stop immigration one iota - it made that vastly worse - while the "we can make our own laws now" argument is a bit empty because, like, okay, what fantastic laws, that the EU wouldn't have allowed, have we implemented? Yeah, basically, none. Not a single one. The EU wouldn't have gotten in the way of the under-16 Social Media ban, as they're likely sizing up the idea themselves. Yeah, ironically, the only ones that the EU might have gotten in the way on, on human rights grounds, are the ones where you'd hope they would - like child benefits caps, revoking the Winter fuel allowance, etc..
Nothing's gotten better, everything's gotten worse. By all metrics.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Politics Thread!
Aaaaaand he's out.
Starmer steps down, almost breaking up towards the end of his resignation speech.
While I hated him with a passion, I hope the next one lasts longer; we need to break this media circus-driven cycle of musical Prime Ministers.
At the same time, we need someone who'll actually listen to the public and not tell them what their opinions should be.
And we need a leader who won't try to beat Reform by mimicking them.
Critically, I suspect that whoever takes his place, they won't be rolling back the more Stasi-esque surveillance laws he put in place.
They should, but they won't.
And I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about Burnham I don't trust. I hope those suspicions are unfounded and that if he does become our next PM, he'll start doing the right thing and take a serious look at implementing a wealth tax.
But multiple successive politicians have proven to be serially venal and stupid in this respect, and rather cheap to buy.
The more this goes on, the more I realise that government is in place to control the population on behalf of those at the top, and make sure they keep working.
On my darkest days, I realise that slavery never really went away; it just got rebranded.
Starmer steps down, almost breaking up towards the end of his resignation speech.
While I hated him with a passion, I hope the next one lasts longer; we need to break this media circus-driven cycle of musical Prime Ministers.
At the same time, we need someone who'll actually listen to the public and not tell them what their opinions should be.
And we need a leader who won't try to beat Reform by mimicking them.
Critically, I suspect that whoever takes his place, they won't be rolling back the more Stasi-esque surveillance laws he put in place.
They should, but they won't.
And I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about Burnham I don't trust. I hope those suspicions are unfounded and that if he does become our next PM, he'll start doing the right thing and take a serious look at implementing a wealth tax.
But multiple successive politicians have proven to be serially venal and stupid in this respect, and rather cheap to buy.
The more this goes on, the more I realise that government is in place to control the population on behalf of those at the top, and make sure they keep working.
On my darkest days, I realise that slavery never really went away; it just got rebranded.