What's May up to? General election 08/06/2017

[L00b]

The human element has gone and the markets are driven by the Love of Money.

It's a fair bit beyond that I'm afraid: it's been decades at the very least, since the price of shares actually reflected the true value of the company to which they attach.

 

I daresay most of their value is borne from trading activity, rather than the tangible (and even intangible) assets which they are supposed to embody.

 

That equilibrium (of sorts) can only persist, so long as trust endures between all the trading parties. Once one party blinks and calls its chips, domino effect and curtains.

 

Same problem in 1929, same problem in 2008...and still it persists.

 

My (wishful thinking) solution to the (at the time, mid-2007, looming-) 2008 crisis was to declare a global bankrupcy and reboot, with heaps of statutory caps and systems introduced about the valuation of shares, rebased on audited accounts at time t-plunge. Most people laughed (unsurprisingly).

 

They didn't laugh much post-2008, and they'd laugh still less now if they had any inkling of how close to a new bust the cycle currently is

[Hairyloon]

But all economic activity which contributes to the value of the economy overall has value which ultimately feeds through to jobs.

 

No it doesn't. Some of it does, but a great deal of it does nothing more than make rich people richer, push up the price of housing and cost of living and make rich people richer.

It is a positive feedback mechanism: the more money you have, the easier it is to make more. The less you have, the more expensive life generally is.

 

Einstein did an excellent talk on the subject, but I can never seem to put my hand on it.

 

---------- Post added 20-04-2017 at 16:19 ----------

 

I invest in shares, and my pension fund, am I a bad person?

 

No, but do you know or care what your pension fund invests in?

I'm expecting not: most people don't.

I don't mean to criticise them for it, but that is my point: people used to invest in companies and become shareholders and as shareholders take an interest in what the company is doing.

Most companies are now mostly owned by investment companies and their only interest is in making money: people are too far divorced from the decisions of the companies.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Hairyloon

[Mister M]

What, capping the benefit to two children unless subsequent children are conceived during a rape?

 

Where did Davidson say she supports women having to discuss private matters with staff at the DWP?

 

I think you are misrepresenting her stance on an issue always likely to provoke hostility. If tax credits are to be capped at two children how would you enforce it?

 

It's fine if you don't think there should be a cap. That is the easy answer though. It would be easy for her to say that herself. But what if she agrees there should be a cap, barring children resulting from rape and other exceptional circumstances? How can you describe and enforce such a policy without angering someone? I'd wager, not easily.

 

I think you've misrepresented what I've said. I didn't say that the woman had to prove to staff at the DWP that she's been raped. She would have to prove to officials at third party organisations that she had endured rape.

Furthermore, how do you suppose claims would be verified when made by a woman who had never accessed support or had disclosed anyone about being raped?

Nevertheless - given the punitive culture of the DWP where all too frequently, vulnerable disabled people are being lied to, badmouthed and treated shoddily - I would not want to give the DWP any opportunity to blunder in and hurt anymore vulnerable people than it has.

[MamboNo5]

I think you've misrepresented what I've said. I didn't say that the woman had to prove to staff at the DWP that she's been raped. She would have to prove to officials at third party organisations that she had endured rape.

Furthermore, how do you suppose claims would be verified when made by a woman who had never accessed support or had disclosed anyone about being raped?

Nevertheless - given the punitive culture of the DWP where all too frequently, vulnerable disabled people are being lied to, badmouthed and treated shoddily - I would not want to give the DWP any opportunity to blunder in and hurt anymore vulnerable people than it has.

 

Can open, worms everywhere.

 

How would you describe and enforce a cap, with those exceptions, if not having the cap in the first place isn't the answer?

 

I'd wager, not easily. As Davidson discovered.

 

Further discussion would be off the thread topic so let's agree to disagree.

[L00b]

Saw this, had to share the LOLs

[Anna B]

[quote=Hairyloon;1164254

 

I am puzzled why Benn did not step up when Corbyn fumbled the Brexit ball. If he'd made the speech that Corbyn failed to make and challenged properly instead of his abortive chicken coup, then he might've been PM by now.

 

As it is, he's destroyed the party and shown himself to be an utter pillock.

______________________________________________________________________________

 

They think they'll not win the next election no matter who is in charge. They were hoping to put someone like Chukka Ummuna in post 2020.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Anna B

[Jacktari]

More an admonishment not to carry on insulting me. Threats are an entirely different matter...

 

Are you just repeating on here what you have heard your dad says, or what you have heard on the telly?

 

For a wealthy capitalist, business tycoon and land owner, you seem to have no credibility whatsoever.

Come clean and let us know what school you go to.

[Anna B]

Tell me why you want to take even more of their money then? Is the enormous amount that you already have no longer sufficient for you? And is being a capitalist and a landowner so terrible as to be automatically included on the list for your venom?

 

0.05% (Robin Hood tax) alone would bring in more than £200 Billion.

 

0.05% is a very small increase. The seriously rich wouldn't even miss it.

 

But I'd just be happy if they paid 30% on ALL their wealth, like everyone else. As long as it was on ALL of it. That means not hiding it away in tax havens, and using fancy tax avoidance schemes.

[Litotes]

I'd be happy to pay an extra 1% on income tax if there was transparency that that money would got 1/3 to education, 1/3 to NHS and 1/3 to the police.

 

But not one of the parties has the backbones to propose that.

[Hairyloon]

They think they'll not win the next election no matter who is in charge...

They are probably right. But back then, they had not made such a complete and total arse of themselves and could easily* have been in the running.

 

{*assuming that they are not quite as utterly b---- useless as they have appeared to be. They surely cannot be that bad: most of them manage to dress themselves and accomplish other feats of similar complexity}

 

---------- Post added 20-04-2017 at 20:17 ----------

 

0.05% (Robin Hood tax) alone would bring in more than £200 Billion.

 

0.05% is a very small increase. The seriously rich wouldn't even miss it.

 

They don't need to miss it, it is the principle of the thing: it is important to them that they earn more and pay less tax than their chums do.

 

A thought occurred to me earlier: some, if not many of the problems from the city are due to the fact that trades are happening so fast as to be almost meaningless in the real world.

How about introducing a Robin Hood tax on trades that happen faster than 1000 times per second, and perhaps double it to 0.1%?

 

I confess those numbers are out of the air: it may want to be 100 trades/second or it could be 100,000 and if it is an optional tax, then perhaps it could go even higher; I really couldn't begin to guess.