Ronnie

Well, OK. Why should I, who don't even have a damn mortgage, be paying additional VAT and suffering cuts to the public services I use in order to pay for a gigantic bailout of some spectacularly irresponsible banks?

Poor people also played their part. It was the whole notion of taking on more debt than one could afford that caused the ship to founder.

I thoroughly agree that the banks lent irresponsibly (a colleague's boyfriend once introduced himself to me with a handshake and a comment of "Come see me for a mortgage mate, I'll sort you out, yeah?" without knowing anything about me), but without people choosing to take on unsustainable amounts of debt that wouldn't have mattered.

Let's not argue about the rich, middling, and poor. There are people from all three of those categories who borrowed far beyond their means, just as there were greedy cretins prepared to offer out unpayable debt as long as they thought that they could resell it to someone else.

Why not, at the very least, take every single penny of profit they make until their debt to the country is repaid

This, however, I agree with. I would also have left those who took on too much debt to weather the storm, instead of punishing people who were prudent (those who save and, in particular, those who live off returns to their savings) by dropping interest rates to such absurdly low levels.

Why are people so hung up on banks and such like. Banks are owned by and run by rich people. Rich people are generally the sons and daughters of rich parents. The only genuine way to redistribute wealth is a 100% inheritance tax.

Do you think people would be prepared to pay a 100% inheritance tax?

 

It's human nature for parents to want to pass their wealth onto their children. You can't legislate against human nature, not that much anyway. If you do so more than people think is reasonable, then people are just going to flout the law.

Well, maybe not 100%, but it's not as though there isn't precedent for extremely rich people to give away the bulk of their wealth. The richest people in America seem to, in general, be extremely generous. Warren Buffett, for example, rejects the absurdity of people becoming billionaires without having earned that status, and has famously pledged all save a pittance of his fortune to philanthropy. Ditto Bill and Melinda Gates. There are Carnegie libraries all over the country. Rockefeller donated $75m to the University of Chicago alone.

No, I don't expect that most people would be happy to give away nearly everything, nor would I be happy to think that something I'd earmarked for my son would never reach him, but I understand Kenny's point; it would stop X getting unmerited wealth that Y wouldn't. (Until the parents smarten up and set up trust funds or hand over their money before dying, anyway.)

You don't think there are people starving in the UK today?

I didn't say that. I said 'except for the scandalously poor', which was acknowledgment of those in that dreadful position (about which I happen to agree that it's our responsibility to eliminate -- and before you twist that sentence, let's be clear that I'm referring to eliminating the situation that someone can be starving, not eliminating the people themselves).

I made a very careful point about income percentiles. I stick by that. If you compare the people in the, say, third to twentieth lowest percentiles, I'm sure that you'd see a great majority of starving folk from a century ago, truly on the breadline. For comparison's sake I would think that a good chunk of my family fall in that range nowadays, and they're far from starving. (They might only get the one holiday a year compared to my several, but they're all, at the least, pleasantly plump, as are their several children. Many of them have cars, they're certainly not lacking for TVs, consoles, jewellery, new clothing, SKY and so forth.)

It simply doesn't compare with times past, and my post was written to address that point. Your post gave the impression of a worsening; I wanted to correct that. Yes, the rich have become richer, but so too have most strata of the poorer. It's not the same magnitude at all, I agree, but it doesn't change the fact that I think that the generic poor Victorian would consider the lives of all except our very poorest to be paradisal. Rather than acknowledge that, you wrote a comment that could have been read as though the poor are actually in a worse situation now than before, to the profit of the wealthy, which simply isn't the case.

Indeed it was. The gap between the rich & the poor has grown by a fair margin since the era you speak of.

Our richer are many times wealthier than their peers of yesteryear, certainly. It's not the same order of magnitude, but so are our poorer. The rich are relatively even richer that they were before.

It's absolute terms you should be looking at, though. We simply don't have the proliferation of people who are desperately poor as there were in previous times. Except for our scandalously poor people (and we still see destitute folk, unfortunately), many of our poorest have lives beyond the dreams of people in the same income percentiles of the past. Your post makes it seem as though the caricature of the fat capitalist gorges himself even more whilst other people are still at risk of starving, which is simply not the case.

Ponzi schemes FTW

Essentially that's what it is, yep. And people are still advocating it!

You may think that disincentivising poor people not to have children will help reduce the tax burden but the more the make up of the population shifts from young to old the more the ratio of pensioners to non-pensioners will beeven higher than it is now. State Pensions are a huge part of the welfare state and all we'd be doing is increasing the burden of workers to pay for an ever growing pensioner population. We're just storing up further problems for ourselves.

Though it's forward looking, I always find that a myopic argument.

If we argue that there need to be four workers to cover one retiree's pension and so we need to make sure that we add workers to the tax-paying stock, what happens decades down the line? Once those people are retired, they will also require four workers to cover their contributions too. In other words, we need to add more and more people to the workforce. And we'll need four workers for every one of them later too. We're talking exponential growth over generations, with all that that entails for resources of food, water, space and so forth.

Is there not also some tribes out there who tie rope or something around the head of young kids to alter the shape of the skull? or did I dream that?

No, you got that from the eminent scientific journal "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).

Heh.

It still takes place in some parts of the world, though the Wikipedia article on artificial cranial deformation neglects to say by whom.

Judging by the post Neil made in the UKFF announcements thread, it must have been because Loki posted the area where he lived.

Boydy already had 'Kidderminster' in his profile, which is a bit silly considering he really needs to be unidentifiable.

Loki posted the street name. It's probably not so bad considering that it was already mentioned in the article, but considering Boydy's panicked reaction to everything at the time, I can't see what the point of posting it was, if not to stir up a feeling in Boydy of the net closing in on him for a resultant laugh.

The crowd was on fire for Siddle's hat-trick!

There's a White Paper about to come out which will reform our school systems.

On the agenda is a proposal to deduct marks from GCSE results for poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

My inner snob is highly relieved, because I abhor the piss-poor writing that I noticed in some of my own (undergraduate) students.

But my reflective side isn't so sure. I see appalling English all around me in the office. Even when the English is largely OK the punctuation isn't good. Words aren't used correctly ("the solution is comprised of ... "), the writing doesn't flow.

I was at an awards ceremony the other night where one host (an academic) used the expression "in terms of" at least nine times when introducing the winner and four runners-up. (I counted seven in the final two minutes, after I'd disdainfully registered that she'd thrown it around nonsensically on several prior occasions, including monstrosities such as "She was the first female president in history in terms of the Royal Society of Engineering.")

And I wouldn't trust most markers to be able to determine what's correct in all cases. I recall one professor correcting my use of the past subjunctive in a hypothetical construction ("If it were ...") to the preterite ("If it was ..."). I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to put him straight, but a kid who has submitted an exam paper wouldn't.

So though I would wish to welcome the proposals, I can't help but think that it's hypocritical to dump on the kids, as though they're the ones bringing down previously high standards. Especially when the headline in the article that I read about the proposals is this:

You might not be Labour loyal but most of your views are very pro Labour from what ive read on here.

That's possibly the most insulting thing anyone on this forum has ever said to me

I think you could probably prefix what Van Dammer meant with "Old", in which case he's right, isn't he? I would think that that was his intention anyway.

What shocking news. Simply the wrong place at the wrong time going about his day, and it cost the poor guy his life. Such a tragic waste

I'm really happy. I bought a T-Mobile Pulse a couple of months ago. It's built on Android and came with a Sat-Nav application and all the various paraphenalia for mounting it in the car.

I get 600 texts, 300 minutes, unlimited internet and the Sat-Nav all for

she's my best friend, we love each other, but that's it, it's hardly squirm worthy to find someone of the opposite sex who you just click with without feeling any type of awkward about it.

But why go on about it, as though you're love struck?

You're far from the only person who has a very close friend without any sexual overtones. I have, of both sexes, but if I reference them in a forum post I'm not going to fawn over them and underline a million times how we're platonic and nothing more.

Surely you can see how it comes across?

I'd be more likely to believe that a good percentage of students who are arsing around on pretend University courses are the ones taking a holiday at others expense.

Absolutely, that'll brook no argument from me. To be honest, I was actually going to write into my post something about "twenty-one years of schooling and a few decades of holidaying being a good return for a little over forty-three years of working under forty hours a week". I didn't include it because of the idea of being unfair to those to whom that paragraph didn't apply.

In the same vein, I should've phrased my reply to reflect the truth, that my way of looking at it is biased by my entourage, which doesn't include people who do heavy work. My view is discoloured by office people who are up in arms about being forced to work longer. You could be quite right about those whose work is detrimental to their health.

Maybe the solution is to do some form of qualified pension scheme. My uncle was in the army and certainly wasn't expected to work until he was sixty-five before clocking his army pension. Maybe there should be something along similar lines: If you've spent twenty years in a heavy job you're entitled to retire at 65, if you've had a much more comfortable work life you've got to wait an extra eight years, or something like that.

Anyway, turning the tables: Given that you wouldn't wish to increase the retirement age, Harry, and that there won't be enough workers to pay contributions to cover the retirees' pensions, what would you do? Follow past plans and encourage people to have a million children each, easing the way in the short term by providing more taxpayers but exacerbating it in the future when they retire and require four workers apiece? Tax the workers even more so that only two are required to cover a retiree's cost? I presume increasing immigration wouldn't be one of your proposals.

It's simple: Pensions costs far too much, and will be unsustainable as we head into the future, without some form of drastic action, be that increasing the tax burden, reducing the pension, or delaying the point at which one can claim it.

I don't understand at all people's resistance to changing the retirement age to reflect demographic changes.

The pension system wasn't instituted to guarantee people several decades of leisure. When it was instituted under Lloyd George many people would be dead too young to claim any of it, and, of those old and poor enough to be entitled to it, most would be dead within two years. (Sorry, I can't remember which book it was in. I've just had a leaf through a couple of likely suspects and can't find those stats.)

We now have a situation where people are physically "younger" than their same-age predecessors. Our 60-year-olds aren't worn down, hobbling, bent-backed. They're not statistically likely to die before they get to their mid-sixties. They're perfectly capable of working.

And that's not even factoring in dependency ratios. State pensions are funded by working-age tax-payers, four of which are required to pay into the system to fund one person taking out. 2005's figures showed that this ratio was 0.27, so coverable, But the increase in life expectancy means that this will likely rise to 0.45 by 2035; there will be only two people paying in to the system per retiree, which means that taxes will have to be further increased on those people of working age to cover the cost.

It's simply not sustainable to have such a large proportion of the population on a several-decade long holiday, paid for by those who do work. Given that our sixty-year-olds are in far better condition than those of the 1930s and expected to live past their eighties, I don't see what's so unfair about saying that they'll be expected to work longer before the government hands them their pension.

I don't get how people can complain, other than for selfish reasons. I fully expect to be working into my seventies and, given that that will come about purely because I'm expected to have a longer, healthier life than my forebears of a century ago, see no ethical problem with it whatsoever, much as I'd like to get a holiday at others' expense.

Proven by whom, hmm? Made an awful lots of assumptions there didn't you? The one about not knowing how to shit without being taught was particularly amusing, especially given that and pissing are some of the very first things a baby will do in its life

Without wanting to be overly crude, his example was a bit more than just the mechanics of laying a cable.

He added "like a normal person", which I presume means doing it in privacy, rather than on the floor of wherever they're living in front of whomever.

What I can't understand, and i'm hoping some smart sod on here can enlighten me, is if we had to give the banks the above mentioned sum from the public fund to help them correct their own errors, why aren't they paying it back from their profits?

No idea. If I lent a tonne of money to a desperate friend, then found myself cash-strapped whilst he was making tonnes and still owed me, I'd damn sure expect him to pay it back from his newfound wealth.

As an aside: I think that Barclays never took a penny of public money, and so they're free to do as they want without us feeling quite so aggrieved as with the other banks.

and NI to increase just to cover some of the mess.

I don't know about that. The Tories were frothing at the mouth about Labour's intended "tax on jobs", and made a point of saying repeatedly that the country's top businessmen had stated that any increase in NI would cause harm.

Something I've been wondering about big bonuses. If Mr Banker gets

Take the tinfoil off, you spastic.

He might come across as having forgotten to pay his brain bill, but I'll say that he's at least not so ignorant as to casually throw around such a spiteful word. I seem to recall you getting taken to task about this a couple of years ago too, which doesn't say much for your intelligence either.

I have tried many times to watch the iron sheik ones but cant, as he says the same things and whilst im sure others find it entertaining i cant listen to him swear for 2 hrs!

I was coming in here to post that his original interview with Dan "Maloney" Mirade of the "Maloney" (= Millennium) Wresting Federation is my favourite shoot as far as entertainment value is concerned.

It's three hours' long, which is the downside, as the first hour is biographical stuff. But as you progress deeper into it you come across several Jekyll & Hyde moments, before this all became Sheiky trademark and said to order. There's a story about telling the locker-room that Wendi Richter was a lesbian because she didn't want to sleep with him ("I'm da mos' handsome good-lookin' man in da vorld, an' you no wanna have sex wid me?! You hafta be lassbian!"); an anecdote about leaving Moolah stranded on the New Jersey turnpike because she complained about smoking "medicine" in the car; the infamous original excerpt on Brian Blair, which led to his new-found popularity.

If you know where the stretch of the interview where all this stuff comes out is, then it has great re-watching (and -listening) value. And there really isn't all that much bad language: Just the one F-bomb, as far as I can remember. (Edit: Of course there's more than that! I meant one swear word outside the infamous passage about humbling Brian Blair.)

******

As for other interviews: Lex Luger's really surprised me at how humble he seemed to be. It came across that he knew he didn't have an awful lot of talent, and was lucky that he had so much success.

Cornette did one with Percy Pringle/Paul Bearer/Bill Moody (I'm not sure which name was being used to sell it) which was great to listen to, since there were anecdotes and a lot of laughs.

I also enjoyed the Outlaws' shoot, which surprised me, since I hated them when they were in WWE. Billy Gunn really grew on me, especially with his frankness on things. "What do I think about steroids? I love 'em!" It needs underlining that it was the Outlaws that made that interview: RF was disastrous on it, not knowing what his own questions related to when asked for clarification, asking them about "When did you find out that Shawn wasn't going to be at Over The Edge?", when the PPV concerned was No Way Out Of Texas, and so on.

The Outsiders' Torch Talk shoot was really good, as is pretty much every interview they've ever conducted.

^^ And to see that fucking sig several times whilst scrolling. It's a shame that people may be compelled to switch off sigs for apprehension that the people wandering past see a skinhead shooting the finger, just because one person doesn't have the foresight to think that it might not be universally suitable.

Ronnie made an amazing avatar for the Unfunny award, but no-one will see it because Joe_the_Lion has gone all sadface.

Hrmph. That's not funny, even if he thinks it is.

You could always give it to the chap who came second

I don't think there's any need to rush to get it in this year. Also, I agree cunt is a bit harsh, but something to that effect.

 

"Git of the Year"?

The "Wish You Weren't Here" Award.

Like that people can vote for someone that they find irritating but who wouldn't otherwise be counted as a dolt or a white-noise poster.

I'm used to "verbal = verbal abuse" but even in that case it looks strange. (Full-on verbal-abuse language.)

It was more the idea that there's a literal sense in there (verbal language is distinct from sign language, smoke signals, writing and printing etc) which immediately jumped out at me, so made him (to my eyes) look daft. He could have said simply "abusive language" and it would've looked clearer.

Mind you, the whole post made me laugh, not just the one bit I cited: The complaining about the language in the RATM song whilst advocating a song which has a similar issue, the anger in his non-sensical retaliation ("you idiot!"), the argument that a bitch is a female dog (as though that's what's meant in the lyrics), straight into an admission that actually it is cursing, before the clumsy "full-on verbal language" and a closing "fucking moron!" It sums him up (and why he's running away with this award in spite of some solid competition) in a nutshell, and I wish I'd been paying more attention during the year, because there are bound to be countless examples of this sort of thing that I've missed.

Maybe it'd be good to have a look at why the eventual winners won when all is said and done, posting some excerpts of their efforts, in the same way that a Hollywood awards ceremony has a short montage of the candidate acting etc.

My vote's already been thrown away, but I'm not going to complain about CWMP's commanding lead. Not when there's stuff like this, which shows just how stupid he can be:

I got halfway into your blog and got to the this bit;

 

if it wasn

But it's fine to do it to Scientology?

I don't find it to be the same thing just because we know for sure about Scientology's origins. It doesn't have the generations of adherents that the established religions have.

I'm not religious in the slightest, but I can see how someone born into a Catholic family in a Christian country, where the great majority of the country has genuinely believed in that particular religion for all of that country's recorded history can also see some form of reality in it.

I don't, on the other hand, see that sort of pedigree with Scientology. By that choice that they make they may as well claim that the earth is flat.

That's why I think that someone like Duane can be dismissed on sight when opining outside of a religion thread, since he's shown for sure that his judgement is inept. I'd say the same of someone who claims to be a Jedi. But when one is born into an established religion, I don't think it's fair at all to throw nothing but the insult "You belong to X" at them all the time. In the context of a religion thread, that would be fine; I think that they should be pilloried.

You don't see a difference? I'm probably not being as eloquent as I ought to be, but it seems pretty obvious to me.