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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Silly McSilly Face said:
And so it begins....budget deficit over £15 billion more than anticipated. It took the last Labour government until 2004 to rack up an excessive deficit. It's taken this lot a year.
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Crazy that we're borrowing £415m per day just to keep the country running and there's an outcry anyone hints at cutting anything. We've been living well beyond our means for years, it's not sustainable - I think within the next 5-10 years we see a big depression like the 1930's come about because of it.
 
P.D. said:
Crazy that we're borrowing £415m per day just to keep the country running and there's an outcry anyone hints at cutting anything. We've been living well beyond our means for years, it's not sustainable - I think within the next 5-10 years we see a big depression like the 1930's come about because of it.
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I think we paid out £4.3bn in March just in interest on the national debt.
 
P.D. said:
Crazy that we're borrowing £415m per day just to keep the country running and there's an outcry anyone hints at cutting anything. We've been living well beyond our means for years, it's not sustainable - I think within the next 5-10 years we see a big depression like the 1930's come about because of it.
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I think the world is now. I went to a lecture at the University of Saskatoon and the head of the Uni gave a speech about the chickens coming home to roost for the world sooner rather than later. We are seeing in recent years how close we are to the edge in reality, energy, food and water crisis on the horizon in real terms.
 
P.D. said:
Crazy that we're borrowing £415m per day just to keep the country running and there's an outcry anyone hints at cutting anything. We've been living well beyond our means for years, it's not sustainable - I think within the next 5-10 years we see a big depression like the 1930's come about because of it.
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Or just tax the rich and big business for a change
 
Gutter Boy said:
Or just tax the rich and big business for a change
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Why is this even a thing? Like we don't already tax the rich. Aside from the 45% rate of income tax, you've got all manner of effective wealth taxes, including inheritance tax, land taxes, capital gains tax, the list goes on. And what happens when you really go after more with the rich? And I'm not even talking about this fake news stereotype of the illuminati. Take Gary Lineker. A guy that spouts off left wing liberal politics all over social media.....well he still got lawyered up and pulled HMRC's pants down in court when they tried to come after him....
 
Grays_1890 said:
I think the world is now. I went to a lecture at the University of Saskatoon and the head of the Uni gave a speech about the chickens coming home to roost for the world sooner rather than later. We are seeing in recent years how close we are to the edge in reality, energy, food and water crisis on the horizon in real terms.
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Food will be the first one to impact the global north at a level that really registers, in my opinion. We've had breadbasket failures in recent years, but if there was to be multiple breadbasket failures simultaneous the brick will hit the wind turbine. And it will happen at some point. We are only three meals.....
 
Rorschach said:
Agree. And then rejoin the single market ;) .
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Rejoining the single market would be a ridiculous decision. Aside from the fact that we only do c. 40% of trade with countries that are part of the single market (and therefore forgoing an independent trade policy for the relatively minor friction reductions over the current EU trade deal do not make sense for the UK), you're effectively making yourself obliged to follow EU law and regulation but from the outside, with no influence on its design or application.

Brexit is a binary choice for me. Only hard brexit or full fat EU membership make sense to me.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Rejoining the single market would be a ridiculous decision. Aside from the fact that we only do c. 40% of trade with countries that are part of the single market (and therefore forgoing an independent trade policy for the relatively minor friction reductions over the current EU trade deal do not make sense for the UK), you're effectively making yourself obliged to follow EU law and regulation but from the outside, with no influence on its design or application.

Brexit is a binary choice for me. Only hard brexit or full fat EU membership make sense to me.
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Full fat EU membership then.
 
Rorschach said:
Food will be the first one to impact the global north at a level that really registers, in my opinion. We've had breadbasket failures in recent years, but if there was to be multiple breadbasket failures simultaneous the brick will hit the wind turbine. And it will happen at some point. We are only three meals.....
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Energy security has been the first thing to impact the global north. The stark reality of who we have been reliant on for our fossil fuel supply and how inadequate renewables still are at powering current consumption levels has truly been laid bare. France in the corner smoking a cigar having told the green lobby to do one and invested heavily in nuclear in the 70s/80s
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Energy security has been the first thing to impact the global north. The stark reality of who we have been reliant on for our fossil fuel supply and how inadequate renewables still are at powering current consumption levels has truly been laid bare. France in the corner smoking a cigar having told the green lobby to do one and invested heavily in nuclear in the 70s/80s
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It hasn't in the terms I mean. Yes there have been long-running blackouts as a result of, say, increased storm activity for example, but these are localised and while inconvenient are temporary. Countrywide, months-long rolling blackouts would be something on the scale I am thinking of, and that hasn't happened nor is likely to in the near future. Global-scale food shortages though are a lot more likely in the near term, unfortunately. The worsening climate increases the probability of this so every year henceforth is a roll of the dice, so to speak.

As for nuclear, existing nuclear makes sense to keep going as long as possible but new nuclear makes no financial sense from all the analysis I see. But that's a whole other discussion for another time.
 
Rorschach said:
It hasn't in the terms I mean. Yes there have been long-running blackouts as a result of, say, increased storm activity for example, but these are localised and while inconvenient are temporary. Countrywide, months-long rolling blackouts would be something on the scale I am thinking of, and that hasn't happened nor is likely to in the near future. Global-scale food shortages though are a lot more likely in the near term, unfortunately. The worsening climate increases the probability of this so every year henceforth is a roll of the dice, so to speak.

As for nuclear, existing nuclear makes sense to keep going as long as possible but new nuclear makes no financial sense from all the analysis I see. But that's a whole other discussion for another time.
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I'm not sure how it doesn't make financial sense. Our energy costs are comparatively high and are beginning to be a bit of a "cost of doing business" in the UK, that's because we've largely ended the domestic end-to-end fossil mining to supply and as I've stated, a lot of investment has been put into solar, wind and hydro but these are costly compared to the power output and the power output isn't enough in and of itself to power current demand. Nuclear is an expensive upfront investment but would decrease energy prices significantly, cut emissions and increase confidence
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I'm not sure how it doesn't make financial sense. Our energy costs are comparatively high and are beginning to be a bit of a "cost of doing business" in the UK, that's because we've largely ended the domestic end-to-end fossil mining to supply and as I've stated, a lot of investment has been put into solar, wind and hydro but these are costly compared to the power output and the power output isn't enough in and of itself to power current demand. Nuclear is an expensive upfront investment but would decrease energy prices significantly, cut emissions and increase confidence
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Renewables are the cheapest form of power. New nuclear is about 2-4 times the price of renewables now (more for SMRs) and only heading in one direction. Also renewables can be deployed in a fraction of the time it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running, and time is of the essence for the climate now. Anything being built now won't stand a chance in the market by the time it comes online. Nuclear is just too expensive to deploy and will have huge problems operating in a warming world (see France's reactors in the '22 heatwave).
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Why is this even a thing? Like we don't already tax the rich. Aside from the 45% rate of income tax, you've got all manner of effective wealth taxes, including inheritance tax, land taxes, capital gains tax, the list goes on. And what happens when you really go after more with the rich? And I'm not even talking about this fake news stereotype of the illuminati. Take Gary Lineker. A guy that spouts off left wing liberal politics all over social media.....well he still got lawyered up and pulled HMRC's pants down in court when they tried to come after him....
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Tax capital gain at the same rate as income tax (18% to 40%) and clamp down on the use of trust funds to reduce income tax avoidance for starters.
 
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