Ronnie

BRITISH FREEDOM PARTY 25-POINT PLAN:

 

 

Getting back to Europe, I've found this whole thing has certainly made me think again. I was always instinctively pro-European in a sort of vague way,

Could make for a reasonable topic, I think. "Opinions on the euro prior to birth and in the palliative-care stage: Have they changed?" Do you think it's got legs? I'll start it if you think we might get anyone other than us two responding to it.

Let's talk instead about EUROPE!

 

Is this huge economic crisis

 

a) a moment to draw Europe closer together into a firmer union (ala Angela Merkel)

b) a time to reasses the whole European project (ala Cameron)

 

or

 

c) Is the Euro basically dead in the water and it's time to knock it on the head and throw it into the bin?

I think it's b), which should really lead to c) anyway for many countries.

Eurozone membership seems to have been considered the equivalent of the must-have toy for many of the member states without it actually being appropriate for them.

For the euro to work there was a need for the economies to be relatively in sync, since membership postulated a surrendering of monetary policy to the ECB. If an individual state's economy happens to be the average European one than this isn't so much of a cost, since the behaviour of the ECB would mirror the actions of one's central bank anyway. But that's clearly not the case for the Greeks and Italians (and others too); their economies weren't appropriate, not naturally meeting the convergence criteria for accession to the eurozone, which caused a raft of book-cooking to get overall debt showing as under 60% of GDP (or at least moving in the right direction).

It's the equivalent of a child standing on tip-toes when trying out for a role in a pantomime; once the one-size-for-all costumes are distributed they don't fit and never would have.

If monetary policy is tied then the only other way that I can think of for a currency union to hold are if there is a strong potential for transfer payments to be made readily. Think of the USA; despite the independence of the states the Federal Government can take taxes from New Yorkers and redistribute them in Nebraska easily, just as our own government can redistribute taxes from wealthier areas to poorer ones without protest. But I don't think this holds so well in Europe. It's simply not possible to envisage the British Government handing over a tonne of money to profligate cousins.

And the ECB doesn't have a role of Lender of Last Resort either. It can't prop up falling economies the way that we would expect the Bank of England to.

Whatever happened to Joe The Lion?

He won the "You think you're funny but you're not award" and never returned*. Prior to winning it (but at a point where he was leading the ballot) he sent neil a message to tell him he's a cunt and stuck it in his sig.

* Well, he returned once in Paid when his whereabouts were brought up to say that he still browsed and that he left because neil is a cunt, nothing to do with the awards. And that he earns

I think we could all see ^^ that playing out exactly as it did but it's still hilarious to scroll through!

Yeah. Cornette said they did every trick in the carnie handbook to get people to the building on that night. His exact words were that it was a "stadium that needed a show, rather than a show that needed a stadium". It was a perception based tactic, to make it look like they were still capable of filling stadiums. They wanted to show that WWF could still draw a huge crowd like they did back in the late 80s/early 90s, but with cheap tickets and running the show in the champions home town.

It's a shame that posts from 2008 have been deleted because I gave quite a comprehensive answer to a question about the 97 Rumble and I can't quite recall all the details. On top of what you said, though, they also went on a publicity overdrive with Shawn skipping shows to go on local radio and had the stations giving away free tickets, as was a local restaurant chain (Taco Bell springing to mind).

See what you mean.

All the same, that's dependent on the individual being ultra stringent in how they apply their Catholicism. It should be for the individual to say "Sorry, I can't marry you because ..." rather than be told "You're going to be excluded because you're a Catholic." I'm sure there are plenty of nominal Catholics who break the rules every day; my other half has eaten meat in every meal today in spite of having recently been told that meat's a no-no on Fridays.

And going back to the point about Catholicism being singled out: We don't say "CofE-ers can marry the monarch subject to having proven that their hymen is intact" because otherwise they would be in violation of the no-sex-before-marriage demand of their religion.

Fair play on the sexism bit but, considering the head of the royal family is the head of a specific religion, it's silly to expect religious equality there. It doesn't make any sense for the reasons Kenny pointed out.

What would be the difference between Catholicism and any other religion, though? There's no legislation barring any other religion. Or is it purely that you can't have the spouse of the head of the English Church being in thrawl to another man who is head of another religion? What about buddhists with the Dalai Lama etc?

Actually, doesn't the fact that the Queen is head of her own religion really underline how hokey it is? One king wants a divorce, the Pope won't grant it, so he takes advantage of frustration amongst elements of the populace at the selling of pardons etc and declares his own religion the true one. And 450 years later people still sign up to it.

Really?

 

I'm struggling to find a reason to give a shit on any level.. Any I don't mean that to sound dismissive, but the royals don't live in the real world; nothing that happens to them has any bearing on or relation to us.

It's rooting out instutionalised sexism and religious discrimination at the highest level of our society. It doesn't sway my conviction that, since God didn't put them there, the Royal Family shouldn't have their role but, given that they do, I prefer that it's at least not buffetted by discrimination.

To bring it down a level, I have no chance of being prime minister, but I'd be appalled if we had a rule saying that non-whites couldn't have that role. If such a rule were repealed I'd be happy, as I am with this one.

36 years after the arrival of the Sex Discrimination Act we're finally seeing it reflected regarding lines of succession. Following discussion between the heads of the 16 countries which comprise the Commonwealth there has been agreement that a female will no longer be bumped down the line of succession by a younger brother. The heads also agreed that the ban on royalty marrying Catholics needs to go.

Whether one's a monarchist or, like me, republican in nature, I think it's pretty clear that this is righting a couple of very obvious wrongs.

Why can't you talk about them? A bit shit, that. Censorship of a group of any sort just for discussion is ridiculous.

Because several unrelated threads in the space of a few days descended into nothing more than back-and-forth about the group. Mickey must have made dozens of posts about them.

It's not permanently banned but he needs to go through a stage (30 days, I think) of not mentioning them to provide some form of respite for the other discussions that would otherwise have been waylaid. No-one is allowed to goad him into either.

Not uniquely. It is a consequence of an increase in the money supply but not uniquely thereof and ought to be stymied by an increase in interest rates but, of course, can't be because the BoE has determined that rising interest rates would be incipient of another recession.

Inflation is driven by several other factors too, including petrol and energy prices, interest rates (which are historically low, meaning folk have little incentive to save and so have more money available to spend immediately), wages (which admittedly are a non-factor in these static times), house prices and so on.

Presumably that was you answering on David's behalf he posted his message. At any rate, I'll answer as though it were.

That doesn't mean you can't believe society shouldn't be run in a different way, it just means you're part of society as it's currently run.

But you can determine to what extent you allow your actions to endorse a society that you disagree with. I, for example, could choose to purchase shares with any surplus money, but make a decision that I will only do so ethically; no arms, no tobacco, irrespective of whether those particular industries offer the greatest returns.

The same would be true for anyone fundamentally opposed to the capitalist system and who abhors the difficulties faced by those at the bottom. A little bit of spare money could be invested in, say, a co-operative or some firm that provides a service to those who need it, but there's no call to buy a house and further contribute to pricing out the poor. That's where someone who believes in what he says and only participates out of necessity in the capitalist system could draw a line.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there in David's case. I asked him how he reconciled his approach and his action and he explained it.

^^ Chris B just told me he does.

I know that a blue collar worker getting paid anywhere near a decent wage is horrifying to you and others of your ilk, Van Dammer, but the truth is the rest of us lower-class grunts are reasonably happy to see at least some of our fellow workers get paid a decent wage. We also hope it's a harbinger of things to come, regardless of how dull that light of hope flickers at present.

 

I find it disturbing that you'll not have much to say when another executive gets a pay rise, or another shareholder takes home a nice big chunk of cash, but the minute some working class employees have the cheek to demand a decent wage you're up in arms.

How do you reconcile that condemnation with the fact that you bought a second house to let to people?

Buy-to-letters contributed to pushing up house prices, such that the poorest of the "lower-class grunts" were kept further away from the possibility of purchasing their own homes.

The whole notion of buying a house that you're not going to live in but will instead use for investment is capitalist in itself. The purchase of the house is no different to buying a large amount of shares; you hope to make money further down the line by selling it on for more than it cost you and, meanwhile, regular payments are made to you in the form of rent, just as a regular share-holder receives his dividends.

So you not only helped to price out the poorest, but you presumably didn't redistribute the nice periodical pay-outs to some workers along the way either.

But you weren't bright enough to actually mention those three letters, meaning he's not goaded you into using them. So no suspension for him.

Where's Ian?

as long as the system is doing everything in its power to keep wages as low as possible.

This would be the same system that instituted a guaranteed minimum wage, right? No more people working for

Simlar also happened when Ive been in town during the day and I had my stick with me. Tripped, fell over,couldnt pull myself up. Lots of people pointed and laughed

That's awful, it really is. Inundations of scumbags throughout.

You're not doing much to help us misanthropes get over our own condition, if we had any sense of humanity left after wading through this thread anyway.

For sure. The problem is, it also still acts somewhat was a poverty trap. I know a chap who's got 3 kids, and was working for a low wage, supported by various benefits. He got a pay rise at work which took him over some invisible margin, and lost a load of benefits, and ended up about 60 quid a week worse off.

 

Whoever is in government, they need to work out a scaled approach to benefits that allows people to move progressively out of reliance on the state and back into full-time employ. At the moment it's too complicated, too expensive to regulate, and too inflexible.

Totally agree; it's a shambles, absolutely unfit for purpose.

I'm about to take a colleague out for a drink for her last day. She's a single mother who works 18.5 hours a week and has the rest built up by some tax credit or other. A couple of years ago we had work coming out of our ears and couldn't have coped without her working full time for us. I don't think she ever saw the benefit of bailing us out, though; she couldn't be paid for her extra work because the drop in her credits would have left her out of pocket. We just spoke of giving her time off further down the line to make up the difference, though I don't think she ever had the opportunity to use it. It's bollocks, isn't it?

I seem to recall that you fell afoul of the system too once; wasn't it the case that you were expected to burn through your savings before you received help when you were out of work? It's a shambles. I suspect I'm more hardline than many others ("If you continually turn down work then you also forgo the State's funding you, even if life becomes uncomfortable" would be one of my approaches) but I think that it's ridiculous to say that the social insurance system won't be accessible to people who have continually paid into it and who have acted prudently in putting money to one side for the future.

Besides which you're taking his quote out of context, when his family lost everything it was the welfare which allowed them to keep going, without it they would have been fucked. So he owes everything to the welfare, not everything they've ever had has come from welfare.

Exactly. He explained it himself. I can't see how people can view it otherwise, unless they're being willfully obtuse. That's exactly how I want the welfare state to function; to act as insurance, a buffer, for when people fall on hard times and need a bit of help getting on their feet.

I wouldn't be suprised if it's the workrate perverts who are keeping the rag going now because I honestly can't see casual fans putting up with Fin's moaning for very long.

I can see PS as being the tool by which casual fans become molesters, actually. It's an easy way to give a casual fan a little bit more knowledge than their peers and a window into a world that no-one else sees. If their group of friends chat casually about wrestling then one of them can easily gain a little bit of status by revealing these things that the others don't and parrotting the opinions of the specialists.

This is pretty much what happened to me. Cripes, I remember having moved abroad and writing a letter to a friend (who was the very embodiment of a purely casual fan) to tell him of the impending demise of the WWF because the two writers who scripted all of the WWF's success had escaped to WCW. Absolute garbage, of course, but I was repeating the PS line (or, more likely, the Wrestling Post's).

He responded to the two people baiting him in this thread, continuing the discussion. I think that's what he's referring to.

Gotcha. I missed all of that stuff, so didn't have a clue. Cheers, Rockers.

Ah brilliant! Cheers Ronnie. I'd love it even more if I were one of them

You know, I've still got a shout-out owing. I might finally cash it in, if you fancy some verbal

Yeah cheers Ronnie I appreciate your advice.

Good man. Keep your head down.

Im sorry for my part in this I should of just ignored them.

Ignored who, Boydy? If you mean neil and Rick then you're still missing the point that the moderation team here has gone above and beyond the call of duty to help you. You can see it in this thread; two people made a comment about you, and now they're gone for 60 days. Chris B tried to explain this to you in the F4W board and you called him a dumbfuck for it.

You need to do yourself a favour and take a step back. How many other forums would do that? Look at what people have said about you on F4W today. Is anybody there there suspending posters for it or linking to articles about it? Nope.

And here's a sensible piece of advice for you: Change your username when you go to different forums. It's too easy for people to recognise you. That would be how it was so easy for agentgig on F4W to realise who you are. You make it too easy for people.

I think it was Shit Poster and Family Guy PMSL. I'm sure the forum will survive somehow.

Yep. Woyzeck corroborated it in Paid. I didn't see what they said but can guess

Sort of on topic: Boydy regrets telling neil, Rick and Tim Glancy (from The Board) to fuck off and has decided it should've been other people. "Yeah I feel bad now cos I should of said a big fuck you to RM123 and dsriggs instead." Oh well, "act in haste, repent at leisure", Boydy.

This bit is quite funny from Happ. I didn't know he had it in him.

I can't believe anyone would stoop so low as to abuse their shoutout privileges to settle scores on the UKFF. Shame on you Boydy.

For anyone that missed Happ's shout-out, here it is.