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https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1188571579963367424?s=20
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:08 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 18:08 |
ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:Everything's less practical in this hell country Not strictly true as I think the UK has the best wind resources for power generation in the world. Or at least some of the best.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:08 |
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WhatEvil posted:Not strictly true as I think the UK has the best wind resources for power generation in the world. We definitely have a lot of blowhards.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:10 |
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Not So Fast posted:Full results of the Labour candidate selections are out. Labour's institutional misogyny on fine display there as 8 women selected out of 9.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:11 |
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Labour's institutional misogyny on fine display there as 8 women selected out of 9. But including one who defended anti-Semitic tweets, apparently?
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:13 |
Heh, Fallout 76 (Post-apocalyptic MMORPG and bug-riddled Bethesda mess) have just released a "premium package" called Fallout 1st where you pay extra for additional stuff you don't normally get... and it's spawned an in-game class war. https://twitter.com/FreyjaErlings/status/1188549644621615105?s=20
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:14 |
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Vitamin P posted:There's no madness son. The NHS is currently underfunded, if it became the IHS then it would become massively overused. healthcare tourism is a net positive to the UK economy right now do you think economies of scale work against monopolies? I can definitely buy that you would think that
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:26 |
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Jedit posted:But including one who defended anti-Semitic tweets, apparently? Apparently so. I don't know the content though and didn't investigate.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:30 |
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Vitamin P posted:There's no madness son. The NHS is currently underfunded, if it became the IHS then it would become massively overused. And yet the NHS managed for 64 years without bothering with residency checks. I mean they were there theoretically but almost no providers bothered because ultimately the admin (and patient discomfort) was considered to outweigh the costs. You're going to need to provide some very serious evidence to prove that the post-2010 hostile environment in the NHS has even covered its own costs, let alone rooted out a few billion quids worth of medical tourists.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:37 |
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WhatEvil posted:Hell yeah. Thank you. Hierarchy is just alieviating authority from having to justify why it should be obeyed. In theory there are times when previously demonstrated expertise can make that sensible, so people aren't constantly having to prove their competence - in the matter of butts I defer to the buttmaker - but my goodness that's not how most of the world works. Do as I say for the sake of my pride. Disobey and I will destroy you. Guavanaut posted:Destroy the family (by proliferating superior relationships of care from non-biological friend and comrade groups and turning them into acceptable non-hierarchical structures for expression of strength and support.) Agreed. If your family is good to you then I'm very happy for you, but nobody should be forced to stay with abusers. And non-familial relationships are not inherently inferior. In fact they're often better because if you're treated like crap you can end a friendship much more easily than a family relationship thespaceinvader posted:Found family best family. Yeah. My friendships are so much better because I get to choose my friends and they must be kind people (A condition I also impose on myself.) Bobby Deluxe posted:Braggart I don't see you post much, and after that I hope to see you post more. What avatar do you want? Err I wasn't expecting this kind of generosity. Let me think about it Braggart fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Oct 27, 2019 |
# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:40 |
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Not So Fast posted:Full results of the Labour candidate selections are out. I fell asleep watching the football and so missed the Poplar and Limehouse vote, whoops. I'm a little nervous about Apsana - I actually like her a lot personally but she's got some skeletons in her closet from her time with Lutfur, and even though they're mostly a reach it's still the sort of thing that will be used to attack her.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:44 |
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https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1188583659286208517
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:45 |
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WhatEvil posted:Heh, Fallout 76 (Post-apocalyptic MMORPG and bug-riddled Bethesda mess) have just released a "premium package" called Fallout 1st where you pay extra for additional stuff you don't normally get... and it's spawned an in-game class war. https://falloutfirst.com/
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:48 |
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Okay, so the EU's "you can have an extension to the end of January, but the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be renegotiated" is going to gently caress up Labour's plan, right? Can't run on a "we'll negotiate Norway++++ and then have a referendum versus that or remain" if the EU won't move on from Johnson's lovely deal. Or is the EU saying "the WA once passed cannot be renegotiated"? The news stories are a bit vague on that at the moment.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:50 |
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Braggart posted:So Right to Buy, a flagship Thatcher policy and one of the worst in terms of longterm effects on this country, was exacerbated by New Labour's removal of funding which forced councils to sell off their housing stock. That is literally a strategy knowingly used by the Tories to reduce council housing stock*, and all publicly owned assets. Make the council desperate so they sell assets off cheap and your rich pals can swoop in and start cranking up rents. This has had devastating effects on every aspect of UK society, increasing inequality and poverty, ruining lives and creating ghettoes and slum accommodation ruled by evil cunts like Fergus Wilson, who decided to evict Asians from his hundreds of houses because he is racist about curry. It boils my blood that we've never had a break from this poo poo even under a nominally Labour government. New Labour really was somewhere between a Labour government and a Tory one. It did some good things but I swear the overall effect was like giving you your favourite breakfast cereal but pouring liquid poo poo into the bowl instead of milk. And also murdering a million middle easterners on our behalf, but that doesn't fit into my analogy. Oh you wait until the next post where I explain what Poplar HARCA and LBTH have been up to. Also it's good you're in a better place, in all senses of the word, now. Cases like yours are where you realise the true value of a properly run and humane social housing system - and that the reason why Tories absolutely despise such a thing.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:52 |
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Braggart posted:. gently caress hierarchies Good on you mate! Also, as a quick thing, but I think one of the things you are describing (the landlord and the tenant bit) is pretty much straight out of Hegel talking about the whole master/slave duality thing.
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:55 |
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Payndz posted:Okay, so the EU's "you can have an extension to the end of January, but the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be renegotiated" is going to gently caress up Labour's plan, right? Can't run on a "we'll negotiate Norway++++ and then have a referendum versus that or remain" if the EU won't move on from Johnson's lovely deal. Eh it's an internal agreement not to renegotiate which is a little stronger than previous language but they already created a new deal against the odds, if the UK changes government then the EU could change its mind again without causing huge problems (legally speaking). I think it's just a way of them saying they aren't going to do anything until the UK makes the next move. There's also the whole nature of the future agreement to replace the WA which is still 'No deal under tories, some sort of customs arrangement with Labour'
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# ? Oct 27, 2019 23:59 |
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The thing about the NHS is that it works best when everything is funded properly. And by "everything", I mostly mean community services and public health. Fund those properly and costs will go down dramatically across the board.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:00 |
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This poo poo is all very good and normal https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1188589959046975489?s=20
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:03 |
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Regarding NHS charges, there's reports saying that charging overseas visitors for the cost of their care would generate around 250m a year if it worked flawlessly which is about 0.2% of the annual NHS budget. The Tories also introduced a system of direct charges for people receiving certain kinds of treatment upfront rather than entering agreements with their home countries for payment after (midwifery is a major one) which in practice recouped £415,266 in 2018 from NHS Trusts in England. Basically it's pocket change for the institution to make a point about excluding people who aren't 100% obvious white Brits.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:12 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Bow has a bunch of late-70s blocks like these which are actually quite an interesting hybrid construction - the white stripes suggest they're RC slab floors like the pre-war mansions (and this may have been a deliberate stylistic nod), but they're actually a covering over a pre-formed void concrete floor (think of the floor as like a giant breeze block laid on its side) carrying all the utilities and also providing amazingly good thermal and noise insulation, with breeze blocks used for all of the internal load-bearing walls - the bricks are only supporting their own weight up the height of the next floor slab. quote:Also timber-framed buildings have been banned in London since 1666 - there has been literally one timber-framed building built in inner London since then, the recreation of the Globe lol really? The more things change. Tragedy happens involving thing? Ban thing. Although in this case it may have been somewhat effective in reducing the risk of fires. There are better solutions, but those involve investment and planning and it's a lot easier to just ban something. Lego was invented in 1949 as part of efforts to come up with a replacement for ordinary bricks due to the shortages The home of the future! Braggart fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Oct 28, 2019 |
# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:18 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I'm a little nervous about Apsana - I actually like her a lot personally but she's got some skeletons in her closet from her time with Lutfur, and even though they're mostly a reach it's still the sort of thing that will be used to attack her. I was mildly relived to look this up and find it was just the name of a corrupt Mayor, and not some furry fandom that may have involved actual skeletons. Give it ten years for the proper crop of instagram / internet native politicians to start coming through, hoo boy. RE: Peoples Vote. I'd love to say I'm surprised that an organisation theoretically campaigning to stop Brexit was really just trying to harass Corbyn. But I'm really, really not.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:19 |
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Interestingly, Alistair Campbell (who, you may remember, has been a pretty big figure in the People's Vote campaign) is also having a very public go at Rudd (yes, he's Amber's brother). Thread here: https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1188577738455691264?s=21
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:20 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Until 1983 85% of the population of London lived in council housing with a rent set to be less than 10% of the median salary. It's not fantasy, it happened. And what was the quality of that housing stock? What was the annual investment in repairs and renovations, and capital improvement? There's a reason we've been demolishing that stuff. Public funds simply weren't enough to make them... satisfactory. Guavanaut posted:Human nature, for the vast majority of history, was of large amounts of common land. Enclosure wasn't something everyone agreed was a great idea, it was something forced from the top down. It's not some abstract thing either, you can look up the dates of the Acts that Geo. III used to legitimize his theft and the titles of the people he sold to in order to gain political favor. You can look up the dates when other kings and bishops tried similar, and the dates when this silly poo poo was forced upon other places through the bayonet. For the vast majority of human history we've been hunter gatherers, killing each other over land when deemed necessary by one party or the other. The concept of possession is innate to us, as it is to pretty much every complex organism. You can moderate those instincts, but you can never abolish them. If you take away housing as an investment class the focus merely shifts, to cars, to art, to tulips. At least when you have housing people will continually invest in it to improve it. It also creates jobs, which keeps some money flowing around the system. There's only so much after-purchase investment you can do with other assets such as a classic car or painting. Bobby Deluxe posted:Landlord reform is not an absolute. The abolition of landlords can be an admirable end goal, but in the meantime it's possible for Corbyn to cap rents, remove second home incentives that allow landlords to collect homes for pure profit. The ROI on housing is about 5%. A 100k house will average about 5k for the landlord after costs are taken into account. Now you cap rents, and it only brings in 2.5% of market value after costs. A fair amount of landlords will simply take the property off the rental market and sell up for a more lucrative asset class. 2.5% ROI can be had in other ways. Some will keep renting but won't have the cash for capital improvement. You've reduced the rental supply and the quality of the housing stock remains the same and eventually drops. Surely this is not a good situation? Carborundum posted:Let's not have a stupid argument. You're saying it's unrealistic to decommodify housing, but they say exactly the same thing about healthcare in the US and you can just walk into a hospital here and see that it's totally realistic and actually pretty good. Don't double down, just think about it, you have time, no one's coming round to guillotine you for owning a 2 bed semi. People have put their wages and salaries into housing. If you're going to say it's no longer an asset class, you'll need to compensate them for that. About 17 million houses in this country (out of 25 million) are owner-occupied. The average house price is about 230k. Let's say on average people have paid half that in, with half remaining. That's 115k x 17 million. That's almost 2 trillion the government would need to print for its compulsory purchase programme directly to owners, and 2 trillion to the banks or else they'll collapse taking jobs and infrastructure with them. That's a lot to inject into the economy, even if done over a decade or two. Inflation of basic goods is the result. Plus, people will simply shift to another asset class to profit themselves. Yes, those struggling with housing costs will have it easier in that regard, but many and perhaps most people measure themselves relative to others. No-one needs and iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy. They know they don't as well as you are I. And yet they continue to buy, simply for the status boost. Superterranean posted:We'll have to agree to disagree, here. the policy might be unpopular, but governments have succeeded in the long run with policies that were unpopular at introduction before. Can you provide an example of a government programme of taking away something that people owned, that the majority were against, that ended in success? marktheando posted:i'm curious about how you think council housing became a thing? "the threat of violence or imprisonment?" Government bought the land. It built (cheap) housing on it and moved people in. Now there are 17 million owner occupiers, ordinary folk who've put their labour returns into them. You want to de-commodify housing, then you're looking at a bill of about 2 trillion just to them, if we assume only half the value has been paid up. Carborundum posted:Do you ever wonder why you think and say things like this? Imagine growing up in a society where it's a scramble of everyone against everyone else to eat the table scraps of the rich. Where people are just machines for making those rich people even richer and so that they don't complain they're told that what little comfort they do have is under constant threat from the poor, the stranger and the undeserving. That would probably leave you with a pretty bleak view of humanity. Perhaps I have simply lived long enough to see what happens to idealists and their unshakable convictions, and what becomes of the leaders of these movements. We used to scoff at the oldies. We had more information than they ever did. The fire in our bellies burned hotter. We and those who led us would remain ideologically pure and were going to build Utopia. Didn't quite work out that way. You may yet be the ones who will never 'sell out' and thereby go on to achieve your dreams for society. But this pattern has played out before, countless times. The end is a virtual given. I'm just being an Old Guy advising others to moderate their expectations, I guess, and I don't expect anyone to actually pay any heed. Why would you, when we didn't? Guavanaut posted:Half of the land is owned by 1% of the people, getting information on who owns what land is made deliberately obscure. Tax arrangements encourage land speculation, whereas few ordinary people have access to any kind of land other than a small residential patch (their house) and nearby parks (which are increasingly being sold off). Much of that land is functionally worthless, useful only for grouse-shooting and poo poo. Farmland and those who farm are often subsidised by the State, or else they'd collapse. It's really only the land in cities and towns that has functional worth, and 17 million odd ordinary people have put their labour returns into that land. Guavanaut posted:People literally get their homes taken from them by court order for being in the way of whatever runway or motorway state contractors want to build. "the compulsory acquisition and purchase of legal interests in land and property for the public benefit" is an established principle of law and nobody ever advocates for that to be overthrown as long as it's only ever applied to working class people in the way of vanity projects and never to 1000 empty investment vehicles around Grenfell. Compulsory purchase of land for motorways and stuff is in a different league altogether to compulsory purchasing 17 million owner occupied homes with an average value of around 230k. It's akin to removing the egg from a baked cake. Renaissance Robot posted:Nobody's taking your home from you. We want to take it from the bank. I, and 17 million others, have paid the bank money. We'll want that back. 2 trillion can be magicked out of thin air, it's true, but not without some pretty profound effects on the rest of the economy. Anyhoo, off to bed folks, more tomorrow perhaps.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:21 |
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Why has Liberalism started eating itself quite this badly, holy gently caress.Exioce posted:For the vast majority of human history we've been hunter gatherers, killing each other over land when deemed necessary by one party or the other. You don't have the first loving clue how hunter gatherer society functions you truculent sack of heron vomit. Don't come in here with vague statements about human nature unless you are willing to back them up, and certainly not whilst going "oh the barbarism " whilst trying to do as little as possible to change anything. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Oct 28, 2019 |
# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:21 |
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Exioce posted:And what was the quality of that housing stock? What was the annual investment in repairs and renovations, and capital improvement? There's a reason we've been demolishing that stuff. Public funds simply weren't enough to make them... satisfactory. The quality was fine, and the cost of repair and proper maintenance was considerably lower than complete replacement with the exception of early LPS (which tended to be full of asbestos), most of which was demolished in the 90s. The vast, vast majority of that former council housing stock is still in use right now. I'm sitting in one of them typing this right now (and because it's before the removal of Parker-Morris my neighbours aren't being disturbed by the sound of my typing).
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:34 |
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Exioce posted:There's a reason we've been demolishing that stuff. Public funds simply weren't enough to make them... satisfactory. Josef bugman posted:You don't have the first loving clue how hunter gatherer society functions you truculent sack of heron vomit. Don't come in here with vague statements about human nature unless you are willing to back them up, and certainly not whilst going "oh the barbarism " whilst trying to do as little as possible to change anything.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:37 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Oh you wait until the next post where I explain what Poplar HARCA and LBTH have been up to. I expect to be righteously angry as I read it, just like the other parts And thank you. I think writing that helped me process some of it actually. Hooray for personal growth! Josef bugman posted:Good on you mate! Thank you. I have been reading the thread for years and you are one of my favourite posters. When you're not feeling okay you worry that you're not being a kind enough person, even though from an outside viewpoint you clearly are, and I can empathise with that self doubt. It comes from wanting to be a good person so much and trying really hard at it all of the time, which is commendable. I try to do the same. But when you're feeling okay you're a socialist firebrand, excoriating wankers and oppressors in defence of the powerless. You are angry and eloquent and very insightful, and a great addition to the thread Edit: lol case in point above this post quote:Also, as a quick thing, but I think one of the things you are describing (the landlord and the tenant bit) is pretty much straight out of Hegel talking about the whole master/slave duality thing. My ADHD isn't letting me read something as long as a book at the moment, but I'll check Hegel out at some point. Braggart fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Oct 28, 2019 |
# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:39 |
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Braggart, thanks for that good post. A lot of the things you talk about are very familiar in my own life, and I'm glad to see you've found a measure of happiness. I'm in the stage currently where being free from the requirement to seek work has made me far more able to do productive things, and I'm having to firmly resist exhortations from family to immediately start applying for jobs. Like even when the loving DWP say "don't look for work, don't even think about looking for work", I still have family talking about how great it would be to turn my therapeutic activities into miserable wage-grinds. Vitamin P, I see you're heavily stuck into the idea of the budget of a sovereign nation being akin to that of a household. The NHS is not paid for by taxes or national insurance, or any of that shite. There isn't a big bank account labelled NHS that's filled up with tax money. Taxes are literally deleted from the economy. Money for public services is created as simply as lines in a spreadsheet. Underfunding the NHS is an ideological position, not a function of economic reality. In this same thread it has been noted that the welfare state, the NHS, and huge amounts of social housing were funded from a devastated post-war economy. These decisions are taken because of the effects they will have on vested interests, as can be seen from the fact that when it serves the interests of capital, trillions can be injected into the economy with barely a flicker of an effect on inflation.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:42 |
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The UK magiced 475 billion pounds into existence as part of QE and literally nothing happened. Very few people if any are suggesting buying out every house in the country you've literally contrived that as a weird strawman to attack so you don't have to address what people have actually put forward.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:45 |
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The North Atlantic Archipelago, 1666-2019:Braggart posted:There are better solutions, but those involve investment and planning and it's a lot easier to just ban something. Exioce posted:The concept of possession is innate to us, as it is to pretty much every complex organism. You can moderate those instincts, but you can never abolish them. If you take away housing as an investment class the focus merely shifts, to cars, to art, to tulips. At least when you have housing people will continually invest in it to improve it. Exioce posted:The average house price is about 230k. Exioce posted:The ROI on housing is about 5%. A 100k house will average about 5k for the landlord after costs are taken into account. Now you cap rents, and it only brings in 2.5% of market value after costs. A fair amount of landlords will simply take the property off the rental market and sell up for a more lucrative asset class. 2.5% ROI can be had in other ways. Some will keep renting but won't have the cash for capital improvement. You've reduced the rental supply and the quality of the housing stock remains the same and eventually drops. Surely this is not a good situation? Exioce posted:Can you provide an example of a government programme of taking away something that people owned, that the majority were against, that ended in success? Exioce posted:Much of that land is functionally worthless, useful only for grouse-shooting and poo poo. Farmland and those who farm are often subsidised by the State, or else they'd collapse. It's really only the land in cities and towns that has functional worth, and 17 million odd ordinary people have put their labour returns into that land. Braggart posted:Thank you for the reference. I'm not familiar with philosophy or philosophers as I never read any of them, but I've done a lot of thinking and reading of this thread
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:50 |
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Tarnop posted:Braggart, thanks for that good post. A lot of the things you talk about are very familiar in my own life, and I'm glad to see you've found a measure of happiness. I'm in the stage currently where being free from the requirement to seek work has made me far more able to do productive things, and I'm having to firmly resist exhortations from family to immediately start applying for jobs. Like even when the loving DWP say "don't look for work, don't even think about looking for work", I still have family talking about how great it would be to turn my therapeutic activities into miserable wage-grinds. I'm so happy it's of use to you Hold firm, don't let them pressure you and maybe talk to them less if they're gonna pull that crap. What you do is entirely up to you of course. I was hopeful that sharing what I've dealt with and what I've learned could maybe help someone process their own stuff in some small way. There are a lot of lurkers in this thread. Hi lurkers! It's okay to value yourself and to do what's important and healthy for you Braggart fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 28, 2019 |
# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:52 |
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Josef bugman posted:Why has Liberalism started eating itself quite this badly, holy gently caress. Still really love when JB goes into Taking No poo poo mode
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:53 |
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Guavanaut posted:Do not attempt to read Hegel Alright, maybe I'll get someone to summarise Hegel for me in a not-too-boring manner
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:54 |
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Braggart posted:Alright, maybe I'll get someone to summarise Hegel for me in a not-too-boring manner PhilosophyTube! https://youtu.be/OgNt1C72B_4
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:57 |
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Guavanaut posted:The North Atlantic Archipelago, 1666-2019: Honestly I think that's overly flattering to the NAA
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 00:57 |
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Tarnop posted:PhilosophyTube! Cheers, will check that out when I'm able to.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 01:03 |
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goddamnedtwisto posted:And yet the NHS managed for 64 years without bothering with residency checks. I mean they were there theoretically but almost no providers bothered because ultimately the admin (and patient discomfort) was considered to outweigh the costs. You're going to need to provide some very serious evidence to prove that the post-2010 hostile environment in the NHS has even covered its own costs, let alone rooted out a few billion quids worth of medical tourists. The core issue that the idiots blathering on about medical tourism fail to grasp is that for someone with a severe health condition, travelling loving sucks and can even be actually risky. Even more so when you consider most serious health conditions are by nature chronic, and will require multiple appointments over the course of months/years/the rest of your life. Even if all of the medical care was provided free, who can afford the actual travel costs involved? Either you plan to fly in every few days/weeks/months or you uproot yourself and stay in the UK until your treatment is done. The only people who can even consider doing that are the rich, and they can shop around the entire world. Why travel to the UK for free NHS care subject to waiting lists when you can get (arguably) better care cheaper in South East Asia, or flat out better care for truly astronomical sums in the US?
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 01:08 |
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Oh wait! I did learn about a philosopher once! Epicurus in Latin class. I immediately noticed some similarities between his views on the Greek gods and the gods on the Discworld
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 01:09 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 18:08 |
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Just saw the stuff about the Telegraph going up for sale. How about crowdfunding a buyout and turning it into a socialist newspaper on the sly? :fantasy:
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 01:23 |