Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[Lancebloke]

Figgy

I really have a limited view of this kind of thing, but from discussions I have heard I don't think so.

The cost of living squeeze will continue for a couple of years and it will obviously hit the poorest the hardest as is always the case.

There doesn't seem to be anything that would cause a significant downturn on the scale of 2008 or some of the more severe examples in the 70s or 30s etc.

Except maybe an escalation of the current conflict, but the economy is probably the last thing to worry about then!

[halfwise]

Before the Ukrainian war a friend of mine in finance also said that current market corrections would be nothing to worry about because the fundamentals of the economy were strong. I'll be meeting him for lunch tomorrow, but he probably will be along the lines of what Lance just said. I've seen one article that says the stock markets are largely detached from Ukraine, but that was a bit more than a week ago and I don't think it's true anymore. All I can do it parrot comments from people who actually know what they are talking about!

[Mrs Figg]

well that seems reassuring. I am worried about the food price thing considering Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe.

[Lancebloke]

The food price has been mainly driven up by the cost of 9ther things that goes in to producing and packaging it, not the availability of food.

It can all change quickly though. We have highly paid economists whose job it is to understand these things and they get it wrong all of the time.

I cant see anything that would suggest a massive recession though. Price squeeze, but not recession.

[halfwise]

I didn't know Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe! Makes sense now that I think about it: large, flat, adjacent.

[Mrs Figg]

yep Halfy its a massive country, largely agricultural. They also produce most of our cooking oils as well.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Car crash from Boris, particularly the opening, get son better ground over Ukraine but then he's hopeless and feckless and devoid of ideas throught out the living crisis bit, Tory cuts, refusal to have windfall tax on energy companies after they announced more recording breaking billion pound profits which tripling the costs to consumers, and on partygate of course. Just awful }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Highlights (or lowlights) incase you don't have time for the entire car crash.
And well done Susanna Reid, who would have thought a breakfast tv presenter would start morphing into one of our better political interviewers?}}

[azriel]

The bloke is a waffling buffoon. He is a puppet being pulled by too many strings. I bet after that interview he went backstage a fecking FLEW for his press secretary and whoever else snuggles up to him. He looked furious didnt he ? I bet he thought Suzanna would succumb under his college boy charm. What a kick up the crutch he got ! I never trusted him and never will. Behind our sight he is a devious back stabbing self-centred cold hearted piece of fish. I bet hes got a right temper. He wants things to go his way but, in a dictatorial sense, IE hes a fecking nut job. the sooner him and his 7 dwarves are long gone the better. Better still I think a term in prison would do him a proper eye opener. Feisty little thing isnt she

[Pettytyrant101]

{ She isn't the most insightful or knowledgable political interviewer Ive ever seen but she is dogged in the pursuit of her answers, and that goes a long way.
But Boris is just so ill-prepared, what amazes me is he agreed to this interview in the first place. he has a track record of running from interviews - such as at the general election when he was scheduled along with Labours leader to do Andrew Marr. Labour did then Boris pulled out at last minute after he saw the grilling Labour got.
I'm inclined to think Boris' inherent sexism and boys club mentally convinced him 'it was just a girl' this time, and not a proper political interviewer either, she wasnt even at Oxford or in the debating society so how could she pose a challenge?- seems he expected lots of easy soft ball questions. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

[halfwise]

Funny, in comparison to American politicians Boris doesn't seem so bad. At least he was coherent, he did try to address the questions instead of instantly barrelling off into idealogical talking points; I'd say by our lights he wasn't a train wreck at all. But that probably says more about the level of our politicians than about yours.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Pop over to the Freedom thread and watch the Sturgeon interview for how a skilled politician handles these interviews. And hers is on an actual news channel with a journalist not on a breakfast show with a presenter, and its a hostile pro-union channel at that. }}

[Mrs Figg]

Love the way Johnson brags about it being he who started the bus pass thing as a reply to a woman who travels about on buses all day to save on fuel at home. The man is as insensitive and thick as a brick.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ And to top it all off he didnt! It wasnt anything to do with his scheme at all. Its just another blatant lie.

'As a 77-year-old the pensioner cited on Good Morning Britain would have qualified for the bus pass with or without Mr Johnson's intervention.'- The Independent }}

[Mrs Figg]

he is such a lying toad.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The Tories have simply no comprehension of hardship through lack of money. Their latest advice to the working poor in the cost of living crisis? To cut back on shopping bills by buying stores own brand and economy goods at the supermarket! Like the poor dont know that and havent been living on economy goods forever! }}

[halfwise]

My favorite pieces of advice:

"Get a Job" - as if the poor aren't already working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet.

"Get an education" - how are you to do that when working 2 or 3 jobs?

"I work hard for my money, why don't they?" - see above. The lack of realization of the privilege that goes with many jobs is breathtaking. No, the rich do NOT work harder.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well looks like the broad headline from the results of the English local government elections is that the Tories did badly and Labour did better. But the Tories didnt do so badly its an instant serious threat to Boris yet, and Labour didnt do well enough to look like a government in waiting.

With all the Tory scandals and corruption, the disaster the economy is in and the lack of resources from government to do anything about it Labour should have landslid this if they were really on track to win any future election. I could even see Boris considering a snap election.
My gut instinct is Starmer doesn't click with the working class- ditch him put Rayner in charge- she will get you bad headlines as well as good as she can be coarse and blunt, but she is authentic which Starmer never feels like he is.

Scottish votes get counted today and tonight and probably into tomorrow- takes a while with all the island councils.
Northern Ireland's result should be interesting with Sein Fein predicted to win for the first time ever.}}

[Mrs Figg]

"Rayer is coarse and blunt" that's because she is from my old home town. Ashton under Lyne. Its a shit hole now but it used to be an old fashioned Northern industrial town when I was growing up. I left as soon as I could. It was so ugly I think that is why I appreciate aesthetic beauty so much as an adult.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Scottish results- the SNP somehow continue to defy conventional wisdom and somehow increased their vote again after 11 years in power.
Tories took a kicking losing all the gains they made under Ruth Davidson and slipping back into third behind labour. Douglas Ross the Scottish Tory leader is toast, just a matter of time now- he went against Boris and called for him to resign after partygate, then u-turned on that and backed Boris andnow's he's back to blaming the result on Boris, but is still backing him! So now he's got no friends in the party left and he's taken a hammering at the polls.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ As predicted Sinn Fein won the Assembly vote in NI, making them the largest party and giving NI a Sinn Fein First Minister for the first time ever.
Looking at the voting there its clear the Unionist vote split with the DUP taking a deserved beating in the polls, but if you had all the unionist votes together they still are the largest block just in Stormont.

For me though the best result in NI was the Alliance Party- as thats the best symbol of hope and peace in this election- they more than doubled their seats and got a good vote share too. Whats so good about that is that they are neither catholic nor Protestant but more akin to just a normal political party- that so many in NI, especially younger voters who have never known the troubles seem to be rejecting either of the religious based parties rooted in the Troubles. And that seems a very encouraging sign for the future to me. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Sneaking on at work again! Hope these encryption brackets are strong.

Been sat here reading responses in America to the horrifying school shooting, again.

America, how can I put this, you are fucking sick in the head.

You are so far down a dystopian nightmare rabbit hole people are seriously putting forward arming teachers, armed security in schools and more scanners and detectors- as the solution.

This is not normal. In other civilised countries our children dont go to schools like prisons, parents dont fear their children will go to school and never come home, teachers are not armed with deadly weaponry. Its a fucking school! What has gone wrong with you people?

And as to those responses- well lets take a very typical Republican one from typical Republican moron Ted Cruz, who has blamed this obscene tragedy on three main things- absent fathers, declining church attendance, and social media and video games.

So lets take these- absent fathers- so single mothers are to blame obviously as well as having conotations of being a race whistle. Problem here of course is that the reason divorce rates are higher than in the past, the reason more women can raise a child without the father is usually because the father was a bit of a bastard and she got well out of it, all the hard won rights women have gained allowing them in the present day to not have to rely on a male to be the bread winner and provider. And this is true in every western country. Yet only Amercia has children being massacred in their schools as an outcome.
The logical conslusion therefore is there is no connection between amount of children raised in single parent households and gun crime, as America is unique in having the levels of gun crime it does but about the same as any other western country in numbers of single parent families as a percentage of the population. Its a weak anbd pathetic excuse.

Declining church attendance- this is the most stupid of all- that fewer people believing in a nonexistant faiery tale somehow is making gun crime worse- odd when most european countries now show in census that fewer than half the population believe in any sort of supernatural superbeings, and yet again it hasnt led to mass shootings, thats only in America. Imaginary gods dont come into this, just as all those 'thoughts and prayers' offered by Republicans to every previous mass shooting has had absolutely zero effect on anaything. Thats what happens when you rely on imaginary beings to solve your problems for you. For fucks sake America, grow the fuck up.

The last pathetic excuse- social media and video games can again be simply batted aside as all over the globe bar a few tolitarian bits of it, we all have the same social media and video games - and no doubt Cruz is thinking of games like GTA here, a game desigined, invented and created in Scotland, in Dundee to be more precise, and we arent running about mass shooting each other. Why not? Because after the one time it did happen, Dunblane,we created very strict rules on access to guns and strict controls over their use and storage when someone does have them. As a result no such gun shoootings since.

Americans can try to find excuses for this where they like but the only real reaosan is the obvious one- America is awash with guns and little to no sensible, sane or workable gun control laws.

The differecne between america and all the other civilised nations who dont have regular mass shootings is gun control and access to guns. Nothing else. Thats the only real difference. everything else, the socital concerns, the death of mass religion delusion, the rise of sical media and video games are all prelevant in every other nation, but only america is in this dystopian hell over guns.

This really is a simple choice America- do you value the right to own a deadly weapon higher than the right to life of your own children?

whats crazy is so far the answer is 'we value our gun rights higher.' Thats America's problem right there. And why America as a nation is clearly and obviously mentally ill. }}

[Mrs Figg]

There is no excuse for selling military grade automatic assault rifles. None.

[azriel]

Hallelujah, There speaketh the word !

Sorry but, Man was given a brain, he evolved to develop choice, intelligence, common sense, learning and, mistakes,
He's taking his time.......