Kenny McBride

The spending cuts are necessary to balance the books, I don't see how people can still be against them, it's blindingly obvious, but then I find myself expecting a bit more from people then I probably should. Public services are bloated and inefficient and need cutting as they bring nothing in and private companies just can't support it.

 

The current national debt is less than the value of our banking "investments." The deficit is on the large side, but still manageable.

 

I would stress that I support a balanced budget. In fact, I support running a small surplus to be set aside/prudently invested to be used for genuine Keynesian balancing measures when the economy takes another downturn then, as that investment grows, I'd like to see the growth used to fund gradual tax cuts starting from the bottom up. But that's beside the point. The point is that the scale of the cuts is unnecessary and is almost entirely ideologically driven.

The scale of Labour's spending was unnecessary and was almost entirely ideologically driven. They achieved nothing other than creating a level of dependency never seen before in Britain.

I'm not arguing in favour of Labour policies. The PFI drive was one of the most recklessly irresponsible things any government has ever done. The Tories, though, seek to punish the poor for the crimes of the very, very rich. That is not just irresponsible. It is grotesque and evil.

The spending cuts are necessary to balance the books, I don't see how people can still be against them, it's blindingly obvious, but then I find myself expecting a bit more from people then I probably should. Public services are bloated and inefficient and need cutting as they bring nothing in and private companies just can't support it.

The current national debt is less than the value of our banking "investments." The deficit is on the large side, but still manageable.

I would stress that I support a balanced budget. In fact, I support running a small surplus to be set aside/prudently invested to be used for genuine Keynesian balancing measures when the economy takes another downturn then, as that investment grows, I'd like to see the growth used to fund gradual tax cuts starting from the bottom up. But that's beside the point. The point is that the scale of the cuts is unnecessary and is almost entirely ideologically driven.

The heavy industry that employed their parents and grandparents is gone forever, systematically destroyed by the last Tory government.

 

Agree with much of what you wrote except the above. The Tories put a bullet in it, doesn't mean they didn't inherit a sick dog.

Yeah, but I would always rather look for a way to cure my dog rather than put it down at the first sign of trouble, especially if the dog's survival might mean that millions of others wouldn't be turned into sick, starving dogs themselves.

I was discussing this with a medical student friend the other day in regard to the problem of heart disease and, in a slightly different conversation, teen and pre-teen sexual activity. She was trying to work out why even though the diet and other physical factors were largely similar, people in poorer areas tended not to do as well as people in richer areas. It's really simple. Those people in the poorer areas have been brought up believing that the world is impossibly slanted against them. Whether it's the police or the dole office or the housing people or central government or whoever, people believe that it doesn't matter what they do, no-one's ever going to help them out of their situation, so why would they trust the doctors or the teachers? There are precious few jobs, particularly since their sink schools didn't help them too much either, so the best they can do is play the system for all the money and the best house they can get, have a kid in the hopes of finding some sort of stability and happiness in that, then settle down and watch the clock until the heart attack hits them at 50. Telling people to "get on their bikes" is all well and good, but when the education system leaves many of the top pupils barely literate (this is not an exaggeration - I'll rant about that some other time), what hope do the lowest of the low have? The heavy industry that employed their parents and grandparents is gone forever, systematically destroyed by the last Tory government. For many, that means that we're into a second or third generation of people who have no jobs, no prospects and no belief that there is any possibility of change. When you pile the benefits trap on top of that, you're looking at a situation that is far more complex than some people would like to make out.

Also, please stop the eugenics talk. Throw in a workhouse or two and Loki isn't so far from the truth when he talks about labour camps.

The government has plans to set fixed-term parliaments, so that issue should be solved relatively soon. Beyond that, yeah, I'd just have eligible to register and make a decision at the time. You would theoretically be able to say that if I guy has behaved well so far and is eligible for parole next year, he's OK to vote, but a guy who is eligible for parole at the same time but who tried to stab a guard last month is not.

He didn't save his money very well then did he? He was on a fair whack in WCW i'd have imagined?

Mind you, a manager at a store is hardly minimum wage either is it?

 

Compared to Flair, who would you rather be at this point in their respective lives? He'll get himself a decent salary that pays the bills, probably a pension too so he actually gets to retire one day.

 

Flair will wrestle til the day he dies because he can't afford not to. He'll never know when to stop. He'll carry on til he's dead and he drops.

 

He overdid it, doll.

According to Meltzer, this is pretty much a myth. Flair has millions put away in retirement accounts. The divorces and whatnot have only meant he has to keep working to keep living the kind of lifestyle he enjoys, and to continue to feed his mammoth ego.

If they're going to be out before the next election then yes. If not, then no. That much should be considered part of the transition back into normal life - you're going back into the world, so you'd better be ready to engage with it, understand the issues and be prepared to contribute.

So what do you think we should do? What should Britain be producing? (if we don't want to compete in financial services, and don't want to go back to manufacturing).

Manufacturing is not out of range. We have/had a number of pretty successful car plants around the country, there was that steelworks in Sheffield that the Tories refused to give a loan to, and there are still a couple of functioning shipyards on the Clyde. We can't focus on mass production stuff any more because places like India can run sweatshops that will do it all at a hundredth of the price. Skilled labour we can do. Higher technology we can do. Focus on high tech, high quality and high complexity - that's where we can have a competitive edge over less developed countries.

And I didn't say we shouldn't be competitive on financial services. I just don't think it should be at the expense of everything and everyone else. Our tax rates are already low and we have all the infrastructure in place. Support the infrastructure by all means. Support the industry and the players too, if necessary. Just don't do it when it's so utterly unnecessary and ends up benefitting no-one except a bunch of psychopathic corporations, their shareholders and their top 10% of earners. We can do well competing with the USA, Germany, Japan and other economic powers. Competing with the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein just doesn't seem like a realistic way forward to me.

Yep, we'd still have a super-strong manufacturing base in this country if everyone got third world wages. Fucking unions...

Britain already has amongst the lowest rates of corporation tax in the EU. The drop to 24% is impending. We also have one of the lowest rates of income tax of the major European economies. The "competitive edge" argument gets more and more meaningless. If these companies needed a greater edge, they'd already have moved to Bulgaria or somewhere like that. They don't, because Britain provides a country with the skilled workers, the international links, the lingua franca of the world and a lot more besides, before you even get to thinking about our impressively low tax rates. If every other major country was carrying out a similar plan, the "competitive edge" argument might hold water, but it's us and Switzerland. That's it. Not even the USA, home of extremist capitalism, is doing something like this.

No country or city is ever ensured as being the centre of anything regardless of history. It's easier than ever today to do business anywhere in the world.

 

We as a country need to start making things again.

I agree, as it happens. I just think that as things stand, the "we have to let them do what they like or they'll leave us with nothing" is a really spurious argument. What are we - the fucking battered wife nation?

I just think it's utterly, utterly immoral. There's no good reason for it. Britain is always going to be a major financial centre because it's always been one. The FTSE isn't just going to stop being one of the biggest stock markets in the world because France and Germany up their game. The language, for a start, gives us a massive advantage. It's all well and good to say that lowering taxes encourages businesses to locate here, but the whole point of the Laffer Curve is that if you tax at 0%, you get zero income from it. The job creation powers of these financial institutions, nor the tax paid by their employees comes close to countering the impact this will have. And that's not to mention the thoroughly obscene fact that we'll end up taking tax out of other countries and creating a precedent that this sort of behaviour is OK.

 

It was bad enough that we bailed these bastards out. Now we're bribing them just to exist.

 

Simply not true and a bit of a myopic view. Clearly and overwhelmingly, the only major financial powerhouses that impress like they'll remain on the horizon are the United States and China. Us, France and Germany will eventually because distant second-tier players.

 

Your closing paragraph, however, is bang on the money.

I disagree. It may shrink somewhat (and almost certainly would if we didn't bribe the financial industry with promises of legalised corruption and theft and glorious rewards for incompetence), but if there weren't other factors at play, the DAX, Nikkei and Hang Seng would have become much bigger players by now. And anyway, if we're not getting any tax revenue out of them, why worry if the FTSE's influence and status diminish?

I just think it's utterly, utterly immoral. There's no good reason for it. Britain is always going to be a major financial centre because it's always been one. The FTSE isn't just going to stop being one of the biggest stock markets in the world because France and Germany up their game. The language, for a start, gives us a massive advantage. It's all well and good to say that lowering taxes encourages businesses to locate here, but the whole point of the Laffer Curve is that if you tax at 0%, you get zero income from it. The job creation powers of these financial institutions, nor the tax paid by their employees comes close to countering the impact this will have. And that's not to mention the thoroughly obscene fact that we'll end up taking tax out of other countries and creating a precedent that this sort of behaviour is OK.

It was bad enough that we bailed these bastards out. Now we're bribing them just to exist.

No. It's insane. It's plumbing the very depths of sucking the capitalist monster off for no reward other than the taste of its poisonous spunk settling in your stomach and the overwhelming sense of shame and self-loathing. Switzerland has stayed off the map in a lot of ways because it's always been neutral and independent and everything. Wee countries like the Cayman Islands get away with being tax havens because having banks and shell companies and whatnot based there is their only meaningful industry. A country like this starts becoming a tax haven and we start a race to the bottom. As the article notes, we're not just stealing money from ourselves, but damaging the tax base of every other country in the world. It's vile and insane in equal measure.

Sounds like build-up to the War Games at the Great American Bash '89. It's ages since I watched the show, but I'm sure there was some angle that played into the match involving someone coming in hurt because of a massive gang attack. That sounds like it. I'd guess it was from Saturday Night either that weekend or the week before.

Complicity? That's a strong word.

But accurate.

 

That depends entirely on your view of Israel and its position in the world. It's the only functioning democracy in the region. It's under constant threat from terrorists within its own borders. More than one of its near neighbours see its destruction as a primary foreign policy goal. I don't necessarily agree with all its policies as they relate to the Palestinians, but a major Arab nation that recognises it as a valid sovereign nation with a right to exist and which seeks peace with it (rather than more pointless conflict as it had in the past) is surely better than the alternative?

 

Let me stress that I'm not saying that Mubarak is a good guy, or even that he's "our bastard" so we should protect him. I'm just saying that the whole region is a lot more complex than a lot of people would like to think. There is horrible shit going on on all sides, whether it's Egypt abusing its own citizens or Israelis settling on Palestinian land or the Palestinians bombing fuck out of Israel or whatever else. We should either go in and "impose our will" on them all or, more sensibly, we should stand well back and only give them support when 1. they ask for it; and 2. it's advancing a genuinely just cause. For example, now that Mubarak has said there will be elections soon, I'd be more than happy to send whatever help they need to make that happen in the easiest and best way possible.

Wow, interesting interpretation. I'm guessing by your tone that we're on completely opposite sides regarding the Israel-Palestine situation, so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm of the opinion that Egypt are absolutely complicit in the inhumane and immoral blockade of the Gaza strip.

 

Of course it's a very complex situation, but I don't see how anyone interested in human rights can defend Egypt's actions re Gaza. It just goes to show the weakness of Israel's only functioning democracy in the region, that they need to be propped up by a repressive dictatorship. They may be the only democracy, but they clearly aren't acting in the best interests of the region as a whole.

First of all, I was only mentioning a small handful of issues that have been ongoing for a long time and are amongst the biggest stumbling blocks to progress in the "peace process." And besides, I read a few pretty interesting things recently that changed my view on the whole situation somewhat. I'll see if I can track them down again when I get a chance but, for example, did you know that there's a five star hotel and restuarant in Gaza City that has no problems whatsoever in obtaining the best of everything for its clientele (predominantly Western journalists, who presumably wouldn't then be biased in any way), despite the "immoral and inhumane" blockade? I've never been there so I don't know, and given my views on the Irish situation, I can certainly sympathise with anyone who feels their country is being occupied illegally and immorally, but I think it's a far more complicated issue than "evil Jews trying to starve out the justified Palestinians." The way you're talking, it's as if the Palestinians are all acting like Gandhi. They're not. Plenty of them are attacking Israel at pretty regular intervals and their government then rewards them by giving cash to their families. If Sinn Fein openly did that for members of the Real IRA, you'd be up in arms.

I want to stress as well that I'm not saying we should defend Israel at all costs or that I think they're whiter than white (so to speak), but we can't act like they're not in a hugely dangerous and difficult position and don't deserve a measure of sympathy for trying to defend themselves as best they can.

Complicity? That's a strong word.

But accurate.

That depends entirely on your view of Israel and its position in the world. It's the only functioning democracy in the region. It's under constant threat from terrorists within its own borders. More than one of its near neighbours see its destruction as a primary foreign policy goal. I don't necessarily agree with all its policies as they relate to the Palestinians, but a major Arab nation that recognises it as a valid sovereign nation with a right to exist and which seeks peace with it (rather than more pointless conflict as it had in the past) is surely better than the alternative?

Let me stress that I'm not saying that Mubarak is a good guy, or even that he's "our bastard" so we should protect him. I'm just saying that the whole region is a lot more complex than a lot of people would like to think. There is horrible shit going on on all sides, whether it's Egypt abusing its own citizens or Israelis settling on Palestinian land or the Palestinians bombing fuck out of Israel or whatever else. We should either go in and "impose our will" on them all or, more sensibly, we should stand well back and only give them support when 1. they ask for it; and 2. it's advancing a genuinely just cause. For example, now that Mubarak has said there will be elections soon, I'd be more than happy to send whatever help they need to make that happen in the easiest and best way possible.

The difference in US response to the events in Tunisia, and the events in Egypt, is exactly the reason the Arabs hate the West so much. How hypocritical to applaud the overthrow of one dictator and then caution against the next because he happens to be strategically important. The peoples in these countries aren't stupid, they watch the news and read the internet, and that sort of duplicity is not going down well in Egypt right now.

 

It may be politically a safe bet to have Mubarak there, but that's a short termist strategy. It's much better to have a proper functioning democracy in the long term. One of the key reasons that Europe's influence exploded across the world in the era pre-industrial revolution was the acceptance through democracy that it's ok to allow people to say what they think, and have actual dissent and debate within a political system That's a philosophical overhaul that the Arab nations (and China) will have to go through eventually, and now is as good a time as any for North Africa.

Hypocrisy is what drives international politics, though. Saddam Hussein commits genocide and we're protesting an illegal war. There's genocide in Darfur and we're insisting that international law MANDATES that we get involved. I'd never argue against democracy anywhere. I'd just like to see a bit of consistency of our own deeply cherished principles. If democracy is the way forward for EVERYONE, then let's get into North Korea, Saudi Arabia and China and shake that shit up. If not, let's keep our noses out of, say, Tunisia's business.

Travel insurance almost always covers you if the Foreign Office advice is not to travel.

Complicity? That's a strong word. Egypt is the only player in the whole region to accept Israel's right to exist and is one of very few Arab countries that has made any efforts towards genuine peace in the region. I have no great suspicion that free elections will lead to extremists in government, but I also don't generally believe that we have any right to tell another sovereign nation how to govern itself. If positive changes come, great. I'll be as happy as anyone else. Until then, we'd be wise to stay neutral and just hope and pray that it works out for the best.

Why should we interfere? We interfered in Iraq to depose a genocidal psychopath and that was illegal and wrong. Egypt is far from perfect but it's at peace with Israel and willing to deal positively with the west. How would it be if Mubarak called for Cameron to resign over the fees protests? Fair elections would be nice, but it's a dangerous game to start interfering with the internal politics of other countries. A change in Egypt's leadership could cause a shitload more problems than it solves.

Steiners/Eliminators is fun too. It's late '95. Not sure of the exact date.

I just had the misfortune of watching Dirk Gently on BBC4. I wish I'd spent the time castrating myself with a chainsaw instead. Fuck me, it was awful. There's simply no excuse for how utterly, utterly wrong it was in every possible way.

On the other hand, I watched Desperate Fishwives last night. I may be biased as they're all mates of mine from uni, but I think it's well worth a look. It's a pilot and I think there are some kink to work out for a full series but it's still got some vey funny moments. Check it out on iPlayer.

I'd like to see far fewer people going to university and far, far more being done IN university. I did an English degree and was the ONLY person in one tutorial who knew the difference between a noun and a verb. I'm not joking. That was the moment I lost all faith in a university education. If that's the standard, what meaning does it have? I mean really, that's stuff I learned in primary three. The drive to get more and more people into higher education hasn't increased the overall level of educational attainment in the country. It's just lowered the bar for everyone.

If there are plenty of jobs available in patdfb's area, he should get off his lazy arse and get one of them. He's fit to sit and post on here all day, so it's perfectly possible that he can get a job sitting at a computer somewhere adding something to our economy. Honestly, he makes me sick. My taxes are paying for his ILLLEGAL drugs and his workshy lifestyle.