Bashar

MOTION: I move that we all ignore any and all points Happ makes ever. Whether we argue with him or not, he's only going to cite the "leftist bias" again to cover up for the fact he has no answers or has no intention of arguing by any recognised criteria, so we might as well save ourself the irritation and let him spout his sewage without wasting our time on the keyboards. There are plenty others on here who make for good debate without having to concern ourselves with Happ's drek. Jonathan Ford, johnnyboy and Van Dammer have provided good arguments for their perspectives in the past, even if I didn't agree with them; don't know if they're right-wing or consider themselves such, but it'd be like listening to their gentle chimes rather than Happ's irritating clanging.

 

All those in favour?

Yes. He's been given ample opportunity to engage in a civilised discussion, but he's now made it explicitly clear he's uninterested in engaging in discussion and there's diminishing returns in any laughs he provides. It's time to move on. He's been an interesting subject though.

Or else allow capitalism to create food deserts and latchkey children, as well manipulate everyone's minds with advertising. The idea that's 'no it's nothing to do with that, five a day coordinators are the problem!' is absolute batshit insanity. As is the idea that we throw just about everybody in jail, rendering them economically inactive for the period inside prison and much more likely to be dependent on the state otherwise.

Surely, taking your insanity to its logical conclusion entails forced abortion and sterilisation?

instead of paying people to do everything for them besides wipe the kids arses........jail the parents and take the kids into care.

:laugh: :laugh:

Who said anything about cutting social work?

You implied it here:

the council might be reduced to simply emptying the bins and keeping the streets clean, and as we know, stuff like that isn't what people care about at all.

I don't accept that 5 a day co-ordinators etc are responsible for reducing crime.

Well you wouldn't. But poor nutrition and criminality have been shown to be linked in scientific studies.

If prisons are a waste of money it is because of the amount that is spent on luxuries for the prisoners. Make them into proper prisons again and you will not only save money but they might actually be a deterrent to anyone that spends time inside and to some that have not and do not want to.

Cliched, empty-headed nonsense. The perks are there to encourage good behaviour and to pacify the prisoners because it is ultimately the most cost effective and safest way to run a prison. As I said before, even the southern states in the USA are beginning to move away from this kind of stupid rhetoric, because in practice it is very, very expensive to implement. If your idea is so good, why doesn't the Tory-led coalition implement these policies? I'll tell you why, it's 'cos it's bollocks!

Probably yes. But if you cut all the social work and all that 'lefty shite', the chickens come home to roost soon enough and you get higher crime rates; which would lead to more people being put in prison except the Conservatives now believe (not completely without justification) that prison is a waste of money. People will care about that stuff soon enough. The fact of the matter is though that even the southern states in the USA are starting to realise that throwing increasing amounts of people into prison for increasingly long stretches isn't really very economic.

And as for LGBT coordinators - people who identify with being 'LGBT' pay taxes as well. In most cases they don't have children, so they are not particularly burdensome on the state and a couple of outreach coordinators is not going to change that.

(the Guardian's) original intentions as an organ to represent the urban British working class completely abandoned.

You've been corrected on this before:

The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by a group of non-conformist businessmen headed by John Edward Taylor,[15] who took advantage of the closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, the paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo protesters. Taylor had been hostile to the radical reformers, writing, "(T)hey have appealed not to the reason but the passions and the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow-countrymen, from whose ill-requited industry they extort for themselves the means of a plentiful and comfortable existence. 'They do not toil, neither do they spin,' but they live better than those that do.[16] And when the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the mill-owners' champions had the upper hand.[17]

 

The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper.[18]

 

The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures".[19]

 

The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian "the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners".[20] The Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labour's claims. Of the 1832 Ten Hours Bill the paper doubted whether in view of the foreign competition "the passing of a law positively enacting a gradual destruction of the cotton manufacture in this kingdom would be a much less rational procedure."[21] The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators - "... if an accommodation can be effected the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. They live on strife ..."[22]

 

The Manchester Guardian was hostile to the Unionist cause in the American Civil War, writing on the news that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, "Of his rule, we can never speak except as a series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty..."[23]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian

I'm not against immigrants learning English or in clearing some of the abuse the student visa system, but as you suggest he's just posturing because there's an election on. Telling immigrants to learn English and then cutting ESOL funding makes very little sense.

Indeed, one could argue that it is free-market capitalism that has dried up the dock work that was the lifeblood of the city, the knock-on effect of which is the poverty and unemployment that we see in The Wire.

I don't see how you can seperate the capitalism that took the work away from the capitalism that created the jobs in the first place.

Well......although you are probably silly enough to say that capitalism has always existed, there clearly are phases. A lot of people see the neoliberal era beginning with Reagan and Thatcher, with more of a state capitalist viewpoint in the 30 years before that. General prosperity increased much more the USA in the 60s and 70s than in the 80s, 90s and 00s. And given that you have previously stated that you don't really believe in consumer tat driven or indeed debt driven growth, I do not see how you can be particularly sympathetic to the neoliberal era.

Private Schools are generally pretty good at getting students through examinations, much more than that I'm not sure about. At the danger of playing into Happ's hands, if you're paying

It's a TV programme. How it is interpreted is up to the person watching it. I find it hard to see how it could be read as a vindication of leftist ideas, however. Baltimore's been run by the Democrats since time immemorial. Clay Davis is a democrat.

Jesus. Please stop seeing everything as black and white, repubs vs dems, labour/tory left vs right. How can you be this thick?

 

Yes you can interpret TV shows any way you like, but if you're happy that drug addicts (even when you've been shown the full tragedy of their back story/mental health problems/societal problems/upbringing/surrounding/life chances) are left to die in the gutter unless they're lucky enough to pull themselves out of it, then a. you've completely missed the point that the programme makers were trying to convey and b. you're a fucking psychopath.

Quite. But also, Bubbles only ultimately gets clean through state intervention - he is 'sectioned' because he is a suicide risk; though admittedly he stays clean with the help of a 'big society' Narcotics Anonymous. Nonetheless, the point of the whole thing is that he has to 'cause' the death of Sherrod and attempt suicide before he can get the help he needs, and even then this is only because Jay Landsmen shows compassion and doesn't charge him with the death. He didn't have some magical libertarian epiphany.

I had an Assisted Place (ie the Government paid the fees, cheers Maggie ) at an independent school - I didn't like it much really, it was probably good for me for the first five years but I'd probably have been better off at a different sixth-form; but if I had left, my bro Jamie may not have got in. When I joined in 1990, fees were around

What I don't understand is your avatar. Did you not get that programme at all? Or is it intended as a tribute to the system that keeps Bubbles in the gutter selling t-shirts for a couple of dollars?

I did "get" the programme. In the UK, bubbles would have never got clean. He'd have been kept subsidised on various benefits, and never would have hit rock bottom, which in the show was what caused him to get clean and end the last episode running up the stairs to join his sister and nephew for dinner.

Wow. Just wow. The Wire is a critique of capitalism. But then David Simon could come here and point out that you didn't get it and it would make no difference.

You really don't know what to make of me do you. I'm glad I get to cost people like you your jobs.

I think at least a few of us knew exactly what to make of you, but it's always nice to be proved right.

I'm still petty enough to point out that criminal libel was abolished on 12 January 2010 by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. And even if that were not the case, balance of probabilities wouldn't have applied in a criminal matter.

Barclays Bank PLC isn't a private business - it is a public limited company.

It's not run for the good of the public in general is what I mean. It's run for the benefit of it's owners and shareholders. It is not a public service, and people need to get over the idea that banks are public services.

 

A functioning banking system is a more or less essential part of a capitalist economy. They may not be a "public service" in the way that, for example, the NHS is. It doesn't change the fact that they have a social responsibility that goes above and beyond the profit motive.

Have the banks ever agreed to this, or is it just something that's been taken for granted?

Yes the banks have agreed to this. You are a complete moron.

Barclays Bank PLC isn't a private business - it is a public limited company.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12663730

 

I know lots of people are against banking bonuses but banks like Barclays and HSBC surely there is no recourse considering the money is entirely their own to do with as the please, they're turning a profit, I don't see the problem. I see a problem with RBS giving bonuses as that is legitimately government bail out money.

 

I'm aware there's an anti-success strain that permeates a lot of members here but surely earned money is yours to do with as you please. Nobody forces you to use Barclays and HSBC after all.

 

Straw man. Nobody's "anti-success", that's just knee-jerk rhetoric that comes out whenever someone suggests that businesses should face up their responsibilities to society (and anyone who says businesses are outside society is talking shit).

 

I haven't seen anyone on here advocate against bonuses for Barclays or HSBC executives, and I don't imagine for one minute anyone on here would, largely because most people who've posted on here so far (barring the most blatant exception) haven't displayed a lack of critical understanding worthy of Jade Goody. I certainly don't advocate it, and in fact I'd say if anything, the HSBC and Barclays lot probably deserve theirs just for keeping their banks largely untouched by the recent collapse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0120106870.html

Barclays may not have accepted UK bail-out money, but they indirectly benefitted from the UK bail-out money and, almost certainly with the co-operation of our government, accepted help from the USA. There is an argument to be made against these bonuses, as well as the appointing of investment bankers like Bob Diamond to head up retail banks, as much as anything for the sort of behaviour they will likely encourage in the future.

So, in your scenario, Northern Rock would have gone under, taking with it the life savings and mortgages of hundred of thousands of people. How exactly do you see the rest of this scenario playing out? What happens next?

No, because the country wouldn't have been in the same state it was in at that point if I was in charge. Obviously it's a moot point anyway. At that time Labour were right to bail out the banks. But they were also responsible for placing the country in the position where the banks had to be saved in order to prevent meltdown.

 

Do you not think it would be a positive thing for people to wake up and stop entrusting all their wealth to banks without even a moments thought about it?

Well possibly. That said, although there is definitely an argument to be made that it became too easy to borrow money - small/medium businesses do need to be able to borrow money to start and grow.

What is the point of having a government and a large, expensive public sector, when one private sector business going bust could destroy the country?

 

Why do we allow the banks to have so much power?

If the bank bail-out hadn't happened, every bank would have been in serious trouble - not just the ones who were bailed out.

Really? Yesterday you put up a link about HSBC thinking about moving their domicile to Hong Kong due to an increase in regulation and acted like it would be the end of civilisation if they left. And now you're wondering why we allow the banks to have so much power? Really?

If private businesses going bust would destroy the country, maybe the country isn't on very firm foundations to start with.

That's right - it isn't. What are you proposing exactly?

The point is that the use of the word 'benefits' is misleading and employed to eliberately mislead. Yes, the DWP's expenditure was the amount you say - but the use of the word 'benefits' in this context serves only to twist the debate. This is why people like Happ Hazzard start getting messed up ideas so easily. The state pension is money that has to be paid from government expenditure, but I think quite a lot of pensioners would resent it being called a 'benefit'.

Take it down.

What makes you the judge of what a fair quotation is?

the benefits bill is actually more than the total income tax take

I can find articles where you got this from, which is a slight improvement I suppose - but it's still quite misleading. The total welfare bill last year was around

Especially when we already spend more on benefits than we get in tax revenue.

Er.........the financial sector's total tax contribution of

Who do you think pays the majority of tax in this country?

 

Financial sector contributes about 40% of all tax revenue as best I can tell.

:laugh: :laugh:

Let's hope so. Because no banks = no welfare state.

 

This is somewhat of an exaggeration.

Can't see why. Because taxing average citizens over 50% isn't a viable option.

 

How do you get to the conclusion that the loss of tax revenue from the banks would necessitate 'taxing average citizens over 50%'?

How else are you going to keep the welfare state running without revenue from the financial sector?

How much revenue do you think comes from the financial sector?

Let's hope so. Because no banks = no welfare state.

 

This is somewhat of an exaggeration.

Can't see why. Because taxing average citizens over 50% isn't a viable option.

How do you get to the conclusion that the loss of tax revenue from the banks would necessitate 'taxing average citizens over 50%'?