General Election - December 12th, 2019

[SWP's back]

Employment and wage data looks ok folks.

That’s good at least whilst everything else falls apart.

 

[Len Rum]

Employment and wage data looks ok

Great being in the EU.

 

[blue cigar]

I wonder if it is humanly possible to be more wrong than the above? I truly doubt it.

If we are to leave the EU and not in a BRINO, then it is absolutely imperative that we have an economy as open and inviting to external investment as is conceivably possible. An environment where we can be as efficient as possible and as competitive as possible.

Because if we do not do that, and we have to compete for investment and for business outside the comfy trading environment within the EU, we are really truly completely and utterly fucked.

In the open market, who would buy goods which are more expensive than others, for the same quality level? Who would choose to invest in the UK in order to export into Europe, as opposed to just investing in Europe? We would be fucked.

And then look at Labour's proposed policies. For example, unilaterally raising corporation tax, limiting exec pay, strengthening workers rights, increasing labour costs, decreasing employment flexibility, abolishing zero hours contracts, relaxing controls over industrial action. I could go on.

Now you can if you like debate the merits or otherwise if these proposals. But what is absolutely clear is that you could not draw up a better set of proposals if your objective was to fuck the UK over, utterly and completely.

If we were to leave the EU - properly leave - under a Corbyn government, this country would be destroyed. We'd be significantly impoverished, FOREVER!

Jesus, do you think this clown actually believes what he writes!

 

[Len Rum]

No, I'm a Remainer.
But if we did have to leave on a hard Brexit (which looks very unlikely now thankfully) we could not possibly at the same time introduce a bunch of left wing policies. It would see us all worse off, out of work and basically completely screwed, faster than you could say Jack Robinson.

In other words because the Brexit Tories have fcuked the joint up only they can now run it.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Jesus, do you think this clown actually believes what he writes!

Go ahead, critique it.

And let's see who the clown is, eh.

Give it your best shot.

 

[Rascal]

I've been interested in the idea of an automation led post-scarcity economy for a while but I still struggle seeing how we can achieve such a thing without a worldwide Government. This is one of the reasons that I voted Remain - I feel that ultimately it will lead me to my preferred societal model. When nation states compete for human and natural resources then an equitable share cannot happen. With a single state, with a single benefits system, tax rate, transport policy and healthcare system then a vast majority of the crony capitalism disappears.

A reason I didn't vote in the referendum, I see value in a fully federal Europe which sadly never got anywhere near the ballot paper. A single state with a system of regional assemblies and an elected President would be ideal.

I have not worked out how to do that multi quote thingy yet.

 

[Rascal]

One of my issues with both capitalism and to a smaller extent other systems, is that they both value the individual as a product of their labour. This is a mindset that so many people are trapped in and I find it extremely hard to discuss things with people on the theoretical basis that the value of labour and the value of a human are not tied as its pretty much underpins our entire society across almost all political shades.

Immigration is probably a good way of looking at this. A "points based" system literally values the importance of somebody based on their economic output to the country and there's something extremely distasteful and possibly bordering on evil when you reduce the complexity of a value of a person down to this.

.

Absolutely, people being viewed as units of production is something I find abhorrent.

The irony is that people rail against those with large families, asking why they should pay for them with their taxes etc. The children of those families are not seen as future units of production.

It really is a huge contradiction in the thought process behind these two positions.

 

[Rascal]

I wonder if it is humanly possible to be more wrong than the above? I truly doubt it.

If we are to leave the EU and not in a BRINO, then it is absolutely imperative that we have an economy as open and inviting to external investment as is conceivably possible. An environment where we can be as efficient as possible and as competitive as possible.

Because if we do not do that, and we have to compete for investment and for business outside the comfy trading environment within the EU, we are really truly completely and utterly fucked.

In the open market, who would buy goods which are more expensive than others, for the same quality level? Who would choose to invest in the UK in order to export into Europe, as opposed to just investing in Europe? We would be fucked.

And then look at Labour's proposed policies. For example, unilaterally raising corporation tax, limiting exec pay, strengthening workers rights, increasing labour costs, decreasing employment flexibility, abolishing zero hours contracts, relaxing controls over industrial action. I could go on.

Now you can if you like debate the merits or otherwise if these proposals. But what is absolutely clear is that you could not draw up a better set of proposals if your objective was to fuck the UK over, utterly and completely.

If we were to leave the EU - properly leave - under a Corbyn government, this country would be destroyed. We'd be significantly impoverished, FOREVER!

We look at it from totally different ends of the spectrum. So it is no surprise you think I am wrong.

The truth is probably somewhere nearer the middle.

 

[Damocles]

A reason I didn't vote in the referendum, I see value in a fully federal Europe which sadly never got anywhere near the ballot paper. A single state with a system of regional assemblies and an elected President would be ideal.

I have not worked out how to do that multi quote thingy yet.

No but Brexit aside, I still see the future of Europe as federated.

I think it comes down to the very nature of Government itself. A Government in order to function has to be more powerful than the most powerful citizen that it governs; in modern terms that would be corporations. As global mutlinationals keep expanding in both scope and influence then the only real way to keep achieving this is by federating into large member blocs.

On a purely theoretical/philosophical level, do we really even need a UK Government? Why? Economically and socially the UK isn't a distinct entity from Germany or France, or at least any more distinct than Scotland and England are, or Liverpool and Manchester. Governments exist to serve the interests of its people and I believe that myself and a Frenchman have similar cultural upbringings and similar economic interests. Us voting together makes sense. We were raised in extremely similar societies and hold vaguely the same beliefs.

Why do myself and a working class man in Paris have separation of our interests but me and Jacob Rees Mogg have a unification of our interests? Is the thing that we call "Frenchness" or "Britishness" that distinct from each other in order to make JRM a more suitable person to declare as "the same as me" than the French guy? I don't think so, at least in 2019.

Federalised blocs across widespread groups of people is the only logical outcome to the politics of the day. A European bloc, an Arabian bloc, an Indian bloc, a Sino-Japanese-Korean bloc, a North African bloc, a Sub-Saharan Africa bloc, a South American bloc and a North American bloc. Now there's 8 "countries" in the world and I'd argue that serving as sub-blocs of a world government with increasingly smaller general assemblies based on population suits perfectly. But we've SO MANY challenges to overcome for this to be achieved - hell, even using technology to track the amount of people in each area would cause uproar.

However, if I see an opportunity to vote for something that I think will greater cooperation leading to the creation of one of these blocs then I'll usually go for it. My politics are split between the philosophical and the rational. I have politics for how I want the world to be, and politics for how I think the world is and I tend to think that that's probably the best way to go about politics.

 

[Damocles]

Absolutely, people being viewed as units of production is something I find abhorrent.

The irony is that people rail against those with large families, asking why they should pay for them with their taxes etc. The children of those families are not seen as future units of production.

It really is a huge contradiction in the thought process behind these two positions.

Healthcare is the one that has always irritated me, especially the American view of it.

People need to work in order to make society better but if somebody gets sick then collective/socialised payment for their treatment in order to make them productive citizens again is somehow morally reprehensible. And let's not even talk about attitudes to disability and employment.

A little while back I had a pop at someone on here and suggested that one of my big bug bears in the world is that I don't think most people have a consistent and considered political framework that they've thought about but instead seem to pick a few different issues, pick a side then always go with the Party that picked their side the most. The hypocritical contradictions of the Western liberal capitalist mindset is one of those ones that make it very obvious. My disdain for them doesn't equal my disdain for the "SJW identitarian" movements which I believe to be a particularly abhorrent form of distilled "capitalist struggle politics" but it's certainly up there at times.