Meanwhile in Poland
Discussion
Funkycoldribena said:
You don't need a great understanding of politics and economics to see the damage done to the southern states,the millions and millions wasted on failed/ridiculous projects/propaganda or the installation of puppet governments to name but a few.
Some people work on common sense.
A lot of supposedly intelligent people get scammed every day.
Ah "common sense". In other words, "I don't need data, analysis, or critical reasoning to help me make decisions. I just sit down in the pub and sort it all out. Next up: world peace in one easy step, and enough with all your expert blah already!"Some people work on common sense.
A lot of supposedly intelligent people get scammed every day.
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 8th September 10:40
Breadvan72 said:
Ah "commo sense". In other words, "I don't need data, analysis, or critical reasoning to help me make decisions. I just sit down in the pub and sort it all out. Next up: world peace in one easy step, and enough with all your expert blah already!"
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Guess what? Its done me alright in life so far and plenty of others.https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Some things are so blatantly obvious you don't need a degree, patches on your elbows and a pair of sandals.
I just crack on with life,can spot a scam a mile off and don't feel the need to make reasoned decisions without looking at a graph.
Sometimes taking your head out of your rear and having less of a superiority complex along with making certain things less overly complicated makes everything a lot clearer.
Do you find yourself standing alone a lot at parties?
Edited by Funkycoldribena on Thursday 7th September 17:58
Funkycoldribena said:
Breadvan72 said:
Ah "commo sense". In other words, "I don't need data, analysis, or critical reasoning to help me make decisions. I just sit down in the pub and sort it all out. Next up: world peace in one easy step, and enough with all your expert blah already!"
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Guess what? Its done me alright in life so far and plenty of others.https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Some things are so blatantly obvious you don't need a degree, patches on your elbows and a pair of sandals.
I just crack on with life,can spot a scam a mile off and don't feel the need to make reasoned decisions without looking at a graph.
Sometimes taking your head out of your rear and having less of a superiority complex along with making certain things less overly complicated makes everything a lot clearer.
Do you find yourself standing alone a lot at parties?
We met up with some old friends over the bank hol, one was an old uni senior lecturer I hadn't seen for an age (the thing in common is a specific car marque, not waiving bits of paper to illustrate cleverness). Although everything was all jovial in chatting to his wife, he seemed a tad down. This bright man I was to be told had been called on the 'phone (like many my age do, we get these calls daily - I usually keep them talking if I have time spare, just to waste theirs, or I give them a few seconds warning before I blow my whistle LOUD! Always works. Or sometimes if the radio is on I'll take the phone to it and slowly turn the sound up to full vol. Small things please my small mind.
(hasn't lost me any money yet. I'll come to that.) Funny thing when it's taken to the radio, these scam callers never hang up immediately, I think they get sort of lulled into a false sense of something or other, then shock. Or deafness )I digress.
My highly intelligent, well read, well versed, was very well-paid (just as well!) colleague - this was at the time when I decided to take leave of academia and venture into the 'real' world outside and start my own business.
His tel call was from some odd name Funding group, who after some earlier calls (they never give up) persuaded him to invest £5k (over the phone!
) in shares promising him an instant dividend, which he told me he got. (Of course you did! I didn't have the nerve to ask how little it was LOL. He could not see the wood for the trees!) More calls and he parted with another £5k. Bloody hell! I think at this time he saw my jaw dropping.The odd thing is these people realise they've been so bloody stupid yet then open up their hearts to tell you. Why? I wouldn't tell a soul if I'd been that bloody daft! Why? Common sense would tell me not to! How f. embarrassing for a so-called 'bright' man who can waive much paper around!
So what happened next?
Obviously, now they'd hooked him, it was time for line and sinker.The stakes went high and he told me he got another call and was invited to put in ...£50k!
At last the silly bugger woke up and the penny dropped!
10 grand! Gone! For ever!
Why? He wasn't blessed with common sense. Any. At all. Ever!
Isn't it wicked that you cannot get a degree in common sense? Only ever available to those born with it.
We then got onto other subjects and he started on Brexit... offs! Yes, he voted remain. I just knew it. Funny, him being 'old' as well. LOL.
Life, eh?
It's so f unfair!
Funkycoldribena said:
Breadvan72 said:
Ah "commo sense". In other words, "I don't need data, analysis, or critical reasoning to help me make decisions. I just sit down in the pub and sort it all out. Next up: world peace in one easy step, and enough with all your expert blah already!"
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Guess what? Its done me alright in life so far and plenty of others.https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Some things are so blatantly obvious you don't need a degree, patches on your elbows and a pair of sandals.
I just crack on with life,can spot a scam a mile off and don't feel the need to make reasoned decisions without looking at a graph.
Sometimes taking your head out of your rear and having less of a superiority complex along with making certain things less overly complicated makes everything a lot clearer.
Do you find yourself standing alone a lot at parties?
Edited by Funkycoldribena on Thursday 7th September 17:58
PS: The many here who regard universities as a silly waste of time and space (and not an industry worth large amounts to UK plc) may be heartened to note that the current eminence of UK universities in Global rankings (Oxford and Cambridge ranked World numbers one and two, smacking the puny Harvard down into seventh place, with several other Britiversities in the top end of the rankings) will not likely last long once the significant element of funding that derives directly or indirectly from the EU dries up. Never mind the incalculable cultural value that comes from young Brits being able to go on the Erasmus Programme. After all, that has no hard cash value and so is meaningless, as common sense will surely tell you.
But, hope is at hand ...
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/07/universiti...
But, hope is at hand ...
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/07/universiti...
Breadvan72 said:
PS: The many here who regard universities as a silly waste of time and space (and not an industry worth large amounts to UK plc) may be heartened to note that the current eminence of UK universities in Global rankings (Oxford and Cambridge ranked World numbers one and two, smacking the puny Harvard down into seventh place, with several other Britiversities in the top end of the rankings) will not likely last long once the significant element of funding that derives directly or indirectly from the EU dries up. Never mind the incalculable cultural value that comes from young Brits being able to go on the Erasmus Programme. After all, that has no hard cash value and so is meaningless, as common sense will surely tell you.
But, hope is at hand ...
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/07/universiti...
Come now, you, I and anyone else with a modicum of intelligence know there is a world of difference between a decent Oxford and Cambridge and a degree in media studies from some trumped-up former Polytechnic. Further more, as Dianne Abbott is living and breathing (if not thinking) proof, an Oxbridge education does not intelligence guarantee.But, hope is at hand ...
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/07/universiti...
That said, the sooner the government realise the potential for a proper Oxbridge tech and education corridor - decent road links etc. - the better AFAIK. The potential to raise what, as you say, are already to world-leading clusters into a UK silicon valley is too great to miss.
Breadvan72 said:
You may not realise how effectively you satirise yourself by your posts. I sincerely wish that I could credit you with art in contriving to present as the typical PH bloke in pub simple solver of complex problems, but I fear that it's not art, but nature. I, may, of course, be wrong. I often am. Being wrong, and the ability to realise that you are wrong, along with the ability to change your mind (I won't quote Keynes on that subject at this point, as the quotation is either sufficiently well known, or is easily Googleable) are useful things. Useful too is the recognition that life is not a series of binaries (unless we really are all trapped in a rather rubbish AI simulation). The bloke in pub world view posits that you can either have common sense or that you can be educated, but that you have to choose one. Outside the cloistered world of the pub, however, it is possible to meet people who are educated and have lots of common sense, people who know less than John Snow knows and who have no common sense, and lots of people with varying combos of in between. Few need to consult a flow chart or a data matrix in order to decide whether to have pizza or burgers, but, when making a decision about the next few decades of life in the UK, it might just be that gut instinct, old saws, and half remembered pub rumours are not necessarily the surest guide to decision making.
Tbh,I got bored reading all that,which probably won't surprise you.Can I just point out that I very rarely drink though.
by the holier-than-thou.s2art said:
Sorry, way ahead of you. To state that the UK was 'not viable' is plain silly. Of course it was. The UK was one of the biggest economies in the World. We joined the EEC in 73, just as the 'post war miracle' was coming to an end. The oil crisis in 74 brought everything to a juddering halt. (just as the commonwealth really got going). Please explain why you think Thatcher got in in 79 if you dont think industrial unrest and poor policies from Labour wasnt a major contributor.
Hmmn. Not sure that is entirely correct.The UK went into WWI being owed money from most countries, one way or another. The dreadfully inept management of the economy immediately after the war ensured that there would be no good times for the heroes who were the lucky ones. The only time things looked up was during rearmament, sometimes of countries which joined the Axis.
After WWII we were broke, utterly and entirely. We were in dire straits and the term 'not viable' underrates the situation. There was no money to do anything. We'd hocked the future without plans. When America pulled the plug - I'm not criticising them as it was probably the best thing to happen, although for the wrong reasons - it was apparent that we'd have to go cap in hand to them for the crumbs from their table. Keynes was certainly the wrong type to negotiate with senators as he was an intellectual and it's a wonder he didn't come back empty handed.
We didn't get what we asked for, nowhere near, but we did get a long-term loan, paid off in the Blair administration, so long, long term. It is what stopped us starving. I knew a chap whose job it was to plan to empty schools in order to work in the fields both planting and back in the autumn for the bounty. He said the weather had different ideas and it made planting impossible. There were concerns about riots as it was that bad.
The money helped rebuild infrastructure but the best thing to happen to us was the antagonism between the US and the Russian controlled area. The US needed to rebuild Europe, and they did it superbly, mainly by throwing money at the problem. Marshall Aid, of which the UK was the major beneficiary, ensured we maintained an army presence in Germany, something that we didn't have enough money for otherwise.
Rationing stayed. In fact in got worse straight after the war because we were broke. Or to put it another way, not viable.
Churchill, gods bless him, or at least his advisers/controllers as he'd had a stroke and was not firing on all cylinders, promised a give-away, in direct contrast to the Atlee government which was promising continuation of rationing, and got in. People were fed up with constraint. Oddly enough, rationing continued for a while. Who'd have thought, eh? The money just wasn't there.
We struggled from then on with a boom and bust economy, but there was improvement in finances. When we first applied to join the EU in 1961 we were not in a good financial state. Lots of consumer excitement at new stuff, but sound? Probably not. There was a convenient scapegoat in the bloke from the town with two churches. He didn't like us because we gave him back France. Perhaps he was worried about the UK's ability to continue to pay its way given that we were, by then, importing an awful lot. It was EU democracy that kept us out.
Post war Britain was in a dire state.
In the early 70s we were in a better financial state; but sound? I can't see that. Heath saw entry into the EU as a sort of lifebelt. He didn't expect us to be net contributors all the time. The three-day week was not, as some suggest, as a result of the oil crisis. The UK was run by unions and the French, rather ironically it turned out, called strikes the English disease.
We had strong and sound financial management straight after the war and during the Thatcher years. Mind you we didn't see much benefit from the oil. For the rest of the time we've not been the beneficiaries of any miracle.
Digga said:
danllama said:
What's going on between the EU and Slovenia? I only ask as I have a particular fondness of Slovenia and it would be a shame if the EU ruined it.
Do excuse me, I meant Slovakia. Slovenia has, thus far, toed the line.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants...
dandarez said:
Funkycoldribena said:
Breadvan72 said:
Ah "commo sense". In other words, "I don't need data, analysis, or critical reasoning to help me make decisions. I just sit down in the pub and sort it all out. Next up: world peace in one easy step, and enough with all your expert blah already!"
https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Guess what? Its done me alright in life so far and plenty of others.https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/09/04/university...
Some things are so blatantly obvious you don't need a degree, patches on your elbows and a pair of sandals.
I just crack on with life,can spot a scam a mile off and don't feel the need to make reasoned decisions without looking at a graph.
Sometimes taking your head out of your rear and having less of a superiority complex along with making certain things less overly complicated makes everything a lot clearer.
Do you find yourself standing alone a lot at parties?
We met up with some old friends over the bank hol, one was an old uni senior lecturer I hadn't seen for an age (the thing in common is a specific car marque, not waiving bits of paper to illustrate cleverness). Although everything was all jovial in chatting to his wife, he seemed a tad down. This bright man I was to be told had been called on the 'phone (like many my age do, we get these calls daily - I usually keep them talking if I have time spare, just to waste theirs, or I give them a few seconds warning before I blow my whistle LOUD! Always works. Or sometimes if the radio is on I'll take the phone to it and slowly turn the sound up to full vol. Small things please my small mind.
(hasn't lost me any money yet. I'll come to that.) Funny thing when it's taken to the radio, these scam callers never hang up immediately, I think they get sort of lulled into a false sense of something or other, then shock. Or deafness )I digress.
My highly intelligent, well read, well versed, was very well-paid (just as well!) colleague - this was at the time when I decided to take leave of academia and venture into the 'real' world outside and start my own business.
His tel call was from some odd name Funding group, who after some earlier calls (they never give up) persuaded him to invest £5k (over the phone!
) in shares promising him an instant dividend, which he told me he got. (Of course you did! I didn't have the nerve to ask how little it was LOL. He could not see the wood for the trees!) More calls and he parted with another £5k. Bloody hell! I think at this time he saw my jaw dropping.The odd thing is these people realise they've been so bloody stupid yet then open up their hearts to tell you. Why? I wouldn't tell a soul if I'd been that bloody daft! Why? Common sense would tell me not to! How f. embarrassing for a so-called 'bright' man who can waive much paper around!
So what happened next?
Obviously, now they'd hooked him, it was time for line and sinker.The stakes went high and he told me he got another call and was invited to put in ...£50k!
At last the silly bugger woke up and the penny dropped!
10 grand! Gone! For ever!
Why? He wasn't blessed with common sense. Any. At all. Ever!
Isn't it wicked that you cannot get a degree in common sense? Only ever available to those born with it.
We then got onto other subjects and he started on Brexit... offs! Yes, he voted remain. I just knew it. Funny, him being 'old' as well. LOL.
Life, eh?
It's so f unfair!
Where the problem really lies is that there is a severe lack of reliable evidence in respect to economic policy making.
johnfm said:
What the fvck has this story got to do with evidence based policy making? (Which is Breadvans's point I think - "common sense" -v- "evidence").
Where the problem really lies is that there is a severe lack of reliable evidence in respect to economic policy making.
We've moved on,back to Poland.Where the problem really lies is that there is a severe lack of reliable evidence in respect to economic policy making.
Funkycoldribena said:
johnfm said:
What the fvck has this story got to do with evidence based policy making? (Which is Breadvans's point I think - "common sense" -v- "evidence").
Where the problem really lies is that there is a severe lack of reliable evidence in respect to economic policy making.
We've moved on,back to Poland.Where the problem really lies is that there is a severe lack of reliable evidence in respect to economic policy making.
Every time I drive along the A40 near London and pass the Polish war memorial I am reminded how many WW2 RAF pilots were Polish (also Czechs and others too). Poland also saved Europe's butts from Islam at Vienna on this very day in 1683 (11 September). Germany, Russia and Austria later thanked Poland for this by conquering it and partitioning it, Napoleon later did nothing to help except shag Marie Walewska, and ever since the C18 it has sucked to be Poland, geopolitics wise. It is sad to see Poland fall into the hands of the thugs who currently run its Government (Hungary too, although the charming Nige, true to form, is a fan of the Hungarian guy). Suggestions that the EU should just ignore the rise of quasi-fascist governments in member states are, I suggest, rather unrealistic, and with Russia militarily active in the Baltic region, losing a democracy that sits next to Russia and has a strong military would not be a great idea. Russia is not all that strong in economic or military terms, but that might not matter if it gets there firstest and fastest with the mostest, and a geopolitically important ally is too busy messing about with its institutions and politics to be a reliable ally.
Breadvan72 said:
Every time I drive along the A40 near London and pass the Polish war memorial I am reminded how many WW2 RAF pilots were Polish (also Czechs and others too). Poland also saved Europe's butts from Islam at Vienna on this very day in 1683 (11 September). Germany, Russia and Austria later thanked Poland for this by conquering it and partitioning it, Napoleon later did nothing to help except shag Marie Walewska, and ever since the C18 it has sucked to be Poland, geopolitics wise. It is sad to see Poland fall into the hands of the thugs who currently run its Government (Hungary too, although the charming Nige, true to form, is a fan of the Hungarian guy). Suggestions that the EU should just ignore the rise of quasi-fascist governments in member states are, I suggest, rather unrealistic, and with Russia militarily active in the Baltic region, losing a democracy that sits next to Russia and has a strong military would not be a great idea. Russia is not all that strong in economic or military terms, but that might not matter if it gets there firstest and fastest with the mostest, and a geopolitically important ally is too busy messing about with its institutions and politics to be a reliable ally.
Breadvan72 said:
Every time I drive along the A40 near London and pass the Polish war memorial I am reminded how many WW2 RAF pilots were Polish (also Czechs and others too). Poland also saved Europe's butts from Islam at Vienna on this very day in 1683 (11 September). Germany, Russia and Austria later thanked Poland for this by conquering it and partitioning it, Napoleon later did nothing to help except shag Marie Walewska, and ever since the C18 it has sucked to be Poland, geopolitics wise. It is sad to see Poland fall into the hands of the thugs who currently run its Government (Hungary too, although the charming Nige, true to form, is a fan of the Hungarian guy). Suggestions that the EU should just ignore the rise of quasi-fascist governments in member states are, I suggest, rather unrealistic, and with Russia militarily active in the Baltic region, losing a democracy that sits next to Russia and has a strong military would not be a great idea. Russia is not all that strong in economic or military terms, but that might not matter if it gets there firstest and fastest with the mostest, and a geopolitically important ally is too busy messing about with its institutions and politics to be a reliable ally.
The battle was the Lithuainian Polish empire, not just Poland, around 160 Polish pilots fought, many never returned agreed and they were fighting for their land not only ours, as for thugs, the Polish that I know, are very patriotic and have no great desire to swap dictators after gaining their freedom. They also love their country, most are totally bemused that we let what happens in our occur, however if we wish to pay them, they will accept our money and benefits, I don't blame them.Russia has always done these maneuvers but hey lets forget that, NATO and the EU has taken position in every former soviet satellite country after giving it's verbal promise, fortunate that it was never written down, not to move East, I doubt many folk understand the concept of Mother Russia, the one the politicians ignore when they circle and damn it.
The EU is doing a wonderful impression of an overlord ignoring the people, most of the new entrants into the EU want their independence with a unity of states that benefit themselves not to swap independence for an unelected imposition of what a few want. They still want to have their own sovereignty.
Breadvan72 said:
Every time I drive along the A40 near London and pass the Polish war memorial I am reminded how many WW2 RAF pilots were Polish (also Czechs and others too). Poland also saved Europe's butts from Islam at Vienna on this very day in 1683 (11 September). Germany, Russia and Austria later thanked Poland for this by conquering it and partitioning it, Napoleon later did nothing to help except shag Marie Walewska, and ever since the C18 it has sucked to be Poland, geopolitics wise. It is sad to see Poland fall into the hands of the thugs who currently run its Government (Hungary too, although the charming Nige, true to form, is a fan of the Hungarian guy). Suggestions that the EU should just ignore the rise of quasi-fascist governments in member states are, I suggest, rather unrealistic, and with Russia militarily active in the Baltic region, losing a democracy that sits next to Russia and has a strong military would not be a great idea. Russia is not all that strong in economic or military terms, but that might not matter if it gets there firstest and fastest with the mostest, and a geopolitically important ally is too busy messing about with its institutions and politics to be a reliable ally.
An interesting selection of who you call thugs and facists and who you omit, there. Do you think there might be some relationship between the history of the Eastern states, Merkel's migrants, the EU's response, and the current political landscape over there?
The rather nifty and for a time successful C17 polity that sent troops to rescue Vienna was the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (the armies being a coalition including various European nationalities). I do not recall that polity being described at the time or since as an Empire, and it was the product of politics rather than conquest.
As for the fellow traveller arguments that blame Merkel and so on for the rise of extremist governments in parts of Europe, would you by parity of reasoning blame, say, the Weimar Government for Hitler? Hey, why no go the whole hog along with Hitler himself and blame people who are not, you know, altogether German (despite having lived in Germany for centuries) for anything that goes wrong. After all, they can't be us if they have funny beards and different customs and so on, can they? The one thing that you must never do is blame fascist thugs for being fascist thugs. Oh no! Lots of good people with legit grievances.
Those who seek to justify xenophobia by saying "Well, there wouldn't be all that xenophobia if it wasn't for all the bloomin' foreigners" deserve awards for services to unintended irony, but not for much else.
As for the fellow traveller arguments that blame Merkel and so on for the rise of extremist governments in parts of Europe, would you by parity of reasoning blame, say, the Weimar Government for Hitler? Hey, why no go the whole hog along with Hitler himself and blame people who are not, you know, altogether German (despite having lived in Germany for centuries) for anything that goes wrong. After all, they can't be us if they have funny beards and different customs and so on, can they? The one thing that you must never do is blame fascist thugs for being fascist thugs. Oh no! Lots of good people with legit grievances.
Those who seek to justify xenophobia by saying "Well, there wouldn't be all that xenophobia if it wasn't for all the bloomin' foreigners" deserve awards for services to unintended irony, but not for much else.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 11th September 22:35
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff