Snap General Election?

[Derek Smith]

robemcdonald said:

Genuine question: do you really think that the countries economic situation can be solved,by taking from the people that have the least in the first place?

I read the anecdote about the scrounging family member that was put down to envy and laughed off. It's a valid question though. When you see your brother in law do you in anyway envy his lifestyle? I would imagine not. He may have sky tv etc, but it must be a pretty miserable existence.

I know people that live in council accommodation and get various benefits, but they work, have kids and raise them in a decent fashion, you know add to society. I choose to believe this is how the majority of people on such benefits are. To punish one feckless drug dealer you will punish a hundred decent folk. Sometimes they talk about the new car they are getting (a Nissan note, second hand) or about the holidays they are planning and for a split second think "that's my taxes paying for that", but then realise that with either a few different decisions or change of luck it could be me in the same situation.

We all recieve benefits from the state in one way or another. If we proceed down the route of cutting them it's only a matter of time before it catches up to us.

I used to frequently drive through a council estate that was described by one of the right wing comic newspapers as the worst in England/UK. There were 'problems' but to suggest more than anywhere else was a nonsense. I knew a PC who policed Norfolk, King's Lynn to be exact, and his shift had about twice the number of assaults on police as we had.

So on early turn I'd do my weekly visit first thing to each remote police 'box'. I'd go past the bus stops at around 6am to see queues at them of people, mainly youngsters, off to work. Wasters, eh?

I took a teenager injured in a fight, maybe mugging, in the town centre back to his address in this estate and I was surprised to find that I recognised his mother from the school run. Hubby had cleared off and she'd had to go from Rottingdean to the council estate. I always think of her, maintaining standards with a nice little garden out front and clean and tidy inside whenever they used 'single mother' and 'council estate' pejoratively. She had two jobs.

There are those who milk the system. There are those who, through no fault of their own, depend on the scrapings from the government table. If we stop giving meagre amounts to those in need then perhaps we should also stop funding railways, roads, the arms industry, natural gas, the Chinese and French nuclear industries.

[Derek Smith]

FiF said:

Snopes has investigated that and determined that association is false. Godwin's law invoked.


http://www.snopes.com/snowflake-nazi-term-holocaus...

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. If people think the term, which says more about the person mumbling it on forums that those it is directed at, has a connection to the death camps then suggesting that there is no evidence to support it is not relevant.

[sidicks]

Derek Smith said:

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. If people think the term, which says more about the person mumbling it on forums that those it is directed at, has a connection to the death camps then suggesting that there is no evidence to support it is not relevant.

eh, even if they ARE wrong?

[98elise]

FiF said:

kurt535 said:

nyxster said:

kurt535 said:

Calm down. deep breath. What's your day job?

I'm just making a point. Watch any discussion with special snowflakes (see the Harvard Shrieking girl video as an example) and this is exactly the sort of hysterical tantrum you get when you trigger them.

If you or i do it then it looks ridiculous, young millenial political activist do it she gets hired by the Guardian.

Really dislike the term snowflake whatever your political view point due to its association with the death camp crematoriums.

Snopes has investigated that and determined that association is false. Godwin's law invoked.


http://www.snopes.com/snowflake-nazi-term-holocaus...

Oh the irony.

People wrongly offended by a term for people easlily offended

[sidicks]

98elise said:

Oh the irony.

People wrongly offended by a term for people easlily offended

[Oakey]

I always thought it's origins came from Fight Club, seems the author thinks so too

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fight-club-w...

[Likes Fast Cars]

I always thought of it as the heat is getting too much for you, don't be a snowflake (too delicate) or you'll melt (as in if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen).

[Smollet]

Likes Fast Cars said:

I always thought of it as the heat is getting too much for you, don't be a snowflake (too delicate) or you'll melt (as in if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen).

That seems a logical explanation therefore it won't have anything to do why some think it's to do with the Nazis.

[anonymous-user]

sidicks said:

Derek Smith said:

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. If people think the term, which says more about the person mumbling it on forums that those it is directed at, has a connection to the death camps then suggesting that there is no evidence to support it is not relevant.

eh, even if they ARE wrong?

Precisely.

[NRS]

Eddie Strohacker said:

Deary me.

I would say it is just a describing word rather than a insult in this case. JK is clearly completely out of touch with simple economics - if you (in this case Labour) spend all your money in the good times, then when the bad times come you will go into debt and after a certain point it is very difficult to reduce that debt due to a reduced income, it taking time to cut costs and increased interest repayments.

I'm not a hardcore Tory, and do agree with having socialism in our system, but when it comes to it then it needs to be affordable now. Otherwise you are just spending your children's money on yourself now, as they will have to pay it back but don't get much benefit of the spending as it was in the past. To be that is more immoral than cutting spending/ having a reasonable tax level now.

[anonymous-user]

AMG Merc said:

Smollet said:

AMG Merc said:

Well put. It would also help, although seems impossible to do so, to address people who take but have not given to the NHS, the obese, smokers and drinkers.

The tax revenue paid by smokers and drinkers more than covers their cost to the NHS

Hmmm, often quoted but I doubt it. But even if true surely not the best situation to just accept.

Define "just accept"

Are you proposing the UK government bans the sale of cigarettes and alcohol?

[anonymous-user]

dimots said:

Garvin said:

dimots said:

I am suggesting that in an endogenous economy that is fast losing its relevance in global terms we have been left with no out from our debt. The Tories claim to know what they're doing, but they can't know....it's a con...there is no economic certainty.

Let's focus on making the country we want...not on economics that are largely irrelevant.

That really is little englander think. Are you seriously suggesting that the UK has no external influences on its economy and can just set up its own 'bubble' to exist in, detach itself from the rules that exist in the wider world and then do what it likes?

Well, sadly yes I think I am suggesting that. Not because I agree with it ideologically but because that is the best option for the UK in the current situation.

Sit tight, look inwards and get our affairs in order until the big changes that are happening have played out.

Trump and the USA are taking the same approach. Tactical withdrawal from globalism, to be followed by a period of renegotiation.

Can you really see any other option that isn't a long drawn out grind to eventual failure?

Staggeringly naïve and unrealistic view on how the UK and world works.

[anonymous-user]

Jazzy Jag said:

Garvin said:

Why doesn't Greece just withdraw from the EU and Euro and do it then?

I suspect that the EU would insist that all the Greek debt be repaid on leaving, which Greece is never going to be able to do.

Hotel California....

When a country (or individual) goes bankrupt, the debt holders can only look to gain assets from the bankrupt, if there are no assets they lose everything.

The only way the EU would be able to claw back any debt if a default occurred is to seize assets of the state, i.e. have a war with Greece and occupy it. That isn't going to happen. The EU is currently seizing Greek assets by stealth, they have already accepted Greece is bankrupt and are furiously taking what they can before the penny drops and the Greek people revolt en mass.

When the Greek people wake up to their reality, the debt holders will have to take on the burden of that debt when Greece defaults, that means Germany, as the private debt the banks used to hold has now been transferred onto the EU governments (the tax payers).

The Greece crisis has all been about transferring private debt to government debt, to save the banks. The needs of the Greek people has been the last thing to be considered. The problem for Greece is that it will be incredibly painful for them to cut loose and start again, but that's the only way they will ever recover. If they don't they are doomed to perpetual stagnation and falling standards of living.

Bankruptcy exists for very good reasons, its a way to start again and give the bankrupt, and the economy as a whole, a new chance. That's why in the USA the bankruptcy laws are designed around getting the bankrupt back on their feet and is not designed to be a punishment for taking a risk that didn't work.

[AMG Merc]

kurt535 said:

Really dislike the term snowflake whatever your political view point due to its association with the death camp crematoriums.

Ridiculous and incorrect association there kurt535. So if I now "associate" a "Kazoonka" as referring to all petrolheads with ginger hair who drive BMWs, from this point on no one can use the word without potential insult.

[PurpleMoonlight]

What has Greece got to do with the impending UK election?

[Sylvaforever]

I'm sure jk or Kurt will be along in a moment to enlighten us.

[anonymous-user]

PurpleMoonlight said:

What has Greece got to do with the impending UK election?

It may have some influence on how people view the EU project and therefor who they back in this election. Other than that, not a lot.

Are you going to exercise your vote in this one?

[PurpleMoonlight]

jsf said:

It may have some influence on how people view the EU project and therefor who they back in this election. Other than that, not a lot.

Are you going to exercise your vote in this one?

The decision to leave the EU has already been made has it not?

Unlikely.

[anonymous-user]

PurpleMoonlight said:

jsf said:

It may have some influence on how people view the EU project and therefor who they back in this election. Other than that, not a lot.

Are you going to exercise your vote in this one?

The decision to leave the EU has already been made has it not?

Unlikely.

The people voted for that in the referendum, there is a lot that could change between now and us actually leaving though, and the nature of what leaving actually means is still not decided.

You are unlikely to vote, amazing.

[Fastdruid]

Stickyfinger said:

Greece has basically borrowed to finance the German economy.....

Worse than that. Greece has borrowed from Germany to buy German goods and then the Germans have made a grab for the valuables when they defaulted. So now they have no money, half the stuff they did used to make money from has been taken by the Germans (so little chance of recovery there) and yet they owe more and more every year while austerity gets worse and worse.