President Trump

cheekybids said:
It worked for the majority but they don’t count.

Have a look at Norway & see what they did with less oil than the uk.

Also why can Nationalism not work alongside capitalism. It’s ok to socialise bank losses but not nationalise state assets?
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There’s that mentality!

Look at the what and how of Norway, and their people, and get back to me on how it applies to the situation the UK has created for itself.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
If you consider police, fire and the military as “industries,” then I can only suggest we will never see eye to eye. Exactly what “product” are we buying and where do we go to “buy” it?

I’m absolutely not a laissez-faire, or unfettered, capitalist. However, I think all “industries” should work in the public good, be it through providing a quality good or service at a fair price or being restricted in their pursuit of profit by the need to balance it with the public good.

However, having grown up in England during a period of rampant nationalization, I’m struggling to find a time when it was both lauded and priced such that it wasn’t an industry hemorrhaging taxpayer money.

Do I think we should remove the (excess) profit motive from some endeavors? Yes, with medicine being a primary one. However, should a private company be allowed to recoup their investment in R&D? Absolutely…but from where? The public purse for the greater good, or should those people requiring the drug be forced to cover it? These are societal problems with which we wrestle today.

The view from abroad is that many of England's problems are self-inflicted by a nanny state mentality and (now) generations who believe it owes them something. Good luck with that!
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That's quite the last paragraph coming from an (adopted) American!!
Might be a bit of truth to it but not sure anyone in the UK is quite ready to be lectured about what's gone wrong from someone from your neck of the woods.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
There’s that mentality!

Look at the what and how of Norway, and their people, and get back to me on how it applies to the situation the UK has created for itself.
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Imagine you sold your house 35 years ago, made a nice profit & decided to go into rented & live off the profit & now after paying rent, you’ve got no money left & now you’re in debt, the rental is a shit hole, the landlord puts the rent up & refuses to fix it up. That’s the uk.

Only it wasn’t a house, it was

• British Rail
• British Petroleum
• British Airways
• British Leyland
• British Shipbuilders
• British Steel
• British Gas
• Electricity industry
• Water authorities
• Telecommunications (Post Office → BT)
• National Bus Company
• National Freight Corporation

Then there’s all the public buildings that need renting back.


There’s more that I can’t remember then compare with Norway sovereign wealth fund £1.6trillion.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
If you consider police, fire and the military as “industries,” then I can only suggest we will never see eye to eye. Exactly what “product” are we buying and where do we go to “buy” it?

I’m absolutely not a laissez-faire, or unfettered, capitalist. However, I think all “industries” should work in the public good, be it through providing a quality good or service at a fair price or being restricted in their pursuit of profit by the need to balance it with the public good.

However, having grown up in England during a period of rampant nationalization, I’m struggling to find a time when it was both lauded and priced such that it wasn’t an industry hemorrhaging taxpayer money.

Do I think we should remove the (excess) profit motive from some endeavors? Yes, with medicine being a primary one. However, should a private company be allowed to recoup their investment in R&D? Absolutely…but from where? The public purse for the greater good, or should those people requiring the drug be forced to cover it? These are societal problems with which we wrestle today.

The view from abroad is that many of England's problems are self-inflicted by a nanny state mentality and (now) generations who believe it owes them something. Good luck with that!
Click to expand...

Interestingly the UK has a higher percentage of people who are self-employed and/or in micro-businesses than the US. This doesn't suggest to me a country whose primary problem is one of people who think the world owes them a living. The percentage of people dependent solely on benefits is however higher than the US but not at a level that can explain our woes. Given the massive changes in employment patterns since the 70s the majority of British people have just adapted, primarily because they've had to. Do some people take advantage of our welfare system? A small percentage yes, but the nanny state thing is really a construct designed to push an agenda that minimises the states ability to interfer with unfettered profiteering. Unless of course things go pear shaped at which point the state is very handy for a bailout.

Personally I think the reason there's an increasing appetite for nationalisation (including from people who wouldn't previously entertain it) is simply because people no longer see large companies as behaving reasonably or responsibly. Civilisations often go tits up when the elites push it too far and take the piss out of ordinary people a bit too much. We're potentially heading there. Even though you, and I, are not in favour of laissez-faire capitalism it'd actually be better than what we currently have at the moment which is rigged rather than truly free markets. A sort of head's I win tails you lose form of capitalism. The issue is that there's lots of research now to suggest that truly free markets are theoretical rather than practical constructs. They always end up distorted. At which point you have to ask the question who do we prefer to rig or control the markets? Most of the companies running our national infrastructure have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of being trusted.
 
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ChicagoBlue said:
If you consider police, fire and the military as “industries,” then I can only suggest we will never see eye to eye. Exactly what “product” are we buying and where do we go to “buy” it?

I’m absolutely not a laissez-faire, or unfettered, capitalist. However, I think all “industries” should work in the public good, be it through providing a quality good or service at a fair price or being restricted in their pursuit of profit by the need to balance it with the public good.

However, having grown up in England during a period of rampant nationalization, I’m struggling to find a time when it was both lauded and priced such that it wasn’t an industry hemorrhaging taxpayer money.

Do I think we should remove the (excess) profit motive from some endeavors? Yes, with medicine being a primary one. However, should a private company be allowed to recoup their investment in R&D? Absolutely…but from where? The public purse for the greater good, or should those people requiring the drug be forced to cover it? These are societal problems with which we wrestle today.

The view from abroad is that many of England's problems are self-inflicted by a nanny state mentality and (now) generations who believe it owes them something. Good luck with that!
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You need to look at the cycle of money & how it’s distributed. The taxpayer money that went into pay wages was returned through spending. After privatisation it’s removed from circulation in the uk economy. Then you can look at how much costs have now gone up & that’s more money taken from the uk economy.
 
threespires said:
Interestingly the UK has a higher percentage of people who are self-employed and/or in micro-businesses than the US. This doesn't suggest to me a country whose primary problem is one of people who think the world owes them a living. The percentage of people dependent solely on benefits is however higher than the US but not at a level that can explain our woes. Given the massive changes in employment patterns since the 70s the majority of British people have just adapted, primarily because they've had to. Do some people take advantage of our welfare system? A small percentage yes, but the nanny state thing is really a construct designed to push an agenda that minimises the states ability to interfer with unfettered profiteering. Unless of course things go pear shaped at which point the state is very handy for a bailout.

Personally I think the reason there's an increasing appetite for nationalisation (including from people who wouldn't previously entertain it) is simply because people no longer see large companies as behaving reasonably or responsibly. Civilisations often go tits up when the elites push it too far and take the piss out of ordinary people a bit too much. We're potentially heading there. Even though you, and I, are not in favour of laissez-faire capitalism it'd actually be better than what we currently have at the moment which is rigged rather than truly free markets. A sort of head's I win tails you lose form of capitalism. The issue is that there's lots of research now to suggest that truly free markets are theoretical rather than practical constructs. They always end up distorted. At which point you have to ask the question who do we prefer to rig or control the markets? Most of the companies running our national infrastructure have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of being trusted.
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The modern accretion of wealth by the wealthy is self-defeating. AI may exaggerate it. If it causes unemployment in manufacturing, there may be no-one left with enough money to buy the things made by AI.
 
flook said:
It's Greenland his precioussssssss he wantssss it he doessssss
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certainly does, he's appointed a special envoy to Greenland, which unsurprisingly has annoyed Denmark.

The new envoy (Louisiana governor) says his role is a "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US".

Someone's told him that Emperor is a good title, haven't they?
 
It’s all so depressing. Whatever federal law members of his administration might violate, you know he will use his pardon power on the way out the door to absolve them of any accountability. When you can effectively do whatever you want with no consequences, the outcome will be suffering for others, especially if you are as stupid or craven or blindly, loyally-deluded (or all three) as those who go to work for him must be. Slightly thankfully, his bottom-of-the-barrel personnel selections (no one with any kind of moral center will work for him this time round) mean rampant incompetence in execution. But the only possible recrimination I see in the end can happen at the ballot box, if it even does. Another three years of this. It’s just horrible.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
By ‘work’ presumably you mean ‘work better than in private hands’. The answer to that question is yes.

Do you think that the provision of fire safety, the police or the military should be in private hands? Because unless your answer is ‘yes’ then you do support state ownership of certain industries. Which means you must accept some industries work better in state hands.
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Anything classed as critical national infrastructure (CNI) should be in public hands in my opinion. Who in their right mind wants nuclear power controlled by the Chinese, or water controlled by the French?

CNI should be state owned and controlled.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
It’s all so depressing. Whatever federal law members of his administration might violate, you know he will use his pardon power on the way out the door to absolve them of any accountability. When you can effectively do whatever you want with no consequences, the outcome will be suffering for others, especially if you are as stupid or craven or blindly, loyally-deluded (or all three) as those who go to work for him must be. Slightly thankfully, his bottom-of-the-barrel personnel selections (no one with any kind of moral center will work for him this time round) mean rampant incompetence in execution. But the only possible recrimination I see in the end can happen at the ballot box, if it even does. Another three years of this. It’s just horrible.
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Those midterms are so important. If they happen and happen fairly that is. Look at the absolute shitshow he's managed to create in barely a year, imagine 3 more years! If he's allowed to continue unfettered its hard to imagine what state your country and on a larger scale the world will be in. It wont be pretty that's for sure. Worrying times.
 
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