The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

The internet has leaders - they're the people whose services you're buying, or the people who are selling your information to advertisers.

I don't equate capitalism with the concept of leaders. 

Okay. Um.

I also don't equate anarchy with purchasing services from the small group of people powerful enough to sell it, under terms I can either accept or go without.

Guess you missed this:

I agree that the internet is not a perfect anarchy (I don't believe there's any such beast) but it is an excellent example of how an anarchic system can work without the meddlesome, predatory and restrictive mechanisms of government.

[Dandontdare]

Hey Sharky I'm (genuinely) interested in your views on End User Agreements - you often mention that X or Y cannot do something without you having signed a contract - the internet usually requires you to click I AGREE after a huge spiel of small print which nobody reads - but you've signed a contract, so that's fair game?

There are consumer laws to protect us - if I agree to T&Cs which are blatantly unjust because I haven't read the small print, a court can override them - would you say this a good thing, or a controlling state interfering in my willingly signed contract without authority?

[TordelBack]

No more cash in hand work.

I sympathise greatly with the problem of all earning, holding and spending being transparent - I've spent the last 5 or 6 years having my every income and outgoing scrutinised and tutted over by my mortgage bank every 4 months or so, with the threat of my payments being increased in line with my 'disposable income', and it has been not a little nightmarish. Trying to create little secret pools of cash for days out and stuff for the kids through all sorts of bizarre transactions and exchanges has been a big part of my life. However, cash-in-hand work is where so much tax evasion and dodgy practices start that I'm not sure I can ever really support it.

For example, a big issue where I'm working at the moment is lads working the night shift for cash-in-hand.  This sounds like a great perk (side from over a grand of untaxed earnings) but because they aren't on the books they can exceed their safe working hours: so you have plant operators on busy city streets that have worked 20 hours a day for 4 or 5 days, with only a couple of hours kip in their cars between 0500 and 0730. No record of the sub-contractor employing them, no problem.

[The Legendary Shark]

Hey Sharky I'm (genuinely) interested in your views on End User Agreements - you often mention that X or Y cannot do something without you having signed a contract - the internet usually requires you to click I AGREE after a huge spiel of small print which nobody reads - but you've signed a contract, so that's fair game?

There are consumer laws to protect us - if I agree to T&Cs which are blatantly unjust because I haven't read the small print, a court can override them - would you say this a good thing, or a controlling state interfering in my willingly signed contract without authority?

In my view, all you're doing is clicking acceptance of an agreement, not signing a contract. An agreement has far less force than a contract.

The way it was explained to me:

If you and I make an agreement to go for a walk tomorrow, then all we've done is make a loose arrangement. If, when the time to go for a walk comes and it's raining, or I have a sore leg, or I've changed my mind, either of us can cancel the agreement with no reprisals.

If, on the other hand, we have both signed a contract to go for a walk together despite the weather and I cry off because it's raining or I've changed my mind, you have recourse to the courts for breach of contract. If I've hurt my leg in the interim and use this as a reason to cry off, you probably won't have recourse to the courts for breach of contract because it's a reasonable excuse for breach.

When I click on "agree" to those voluminous EUAs, I do so with the expectation that the contents are reasonable. You'll also note that they are generally replete with phrases like "may lead to," "possibly require" and "could mean" - these phrases generally mean something like "if you do Thing A and we don't like that, we'll sue you for it if you agree to be sued."

This is true of many things. Mobile 'phone contracts, council tax bills and such are generally not contracts but agreements. You can break the mobile 'phone agreement if you want but all they'll do is cut you off. They'll then try to trick you into "going to court" - which it isn't, it's attending a voluntary administrative hearing which, by agreeing to attend, you've agreed to abide by. This trick is also widely used by debt collectors, which is why they're so easy to get rid of - as I know from personal experience.

That's how I understand it, anyway.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, I bet you can guess my position on cash-in-hand work, Tordels!

[Jim_Campbell]

Mildly surprised that no one's linked to this before...

Four decades of year-on-year fall in UK death rates reversed by Tories.

Yup. A greater proportion of the population have been dying every year since 2011 than the 1960s. Do you think it's the cuts to benefits? Social care? The NHS? All of the above? Some remarkable coincidence that can be hand-waved away?

Amazing that the Health Secretary can point to hospital mortality statistics and say, authoritatively*: "it's the weekend staffing levels" and yet when confronted with numbers like these, the government's response is "it's too complicated to identify a cause."

Cheers

Jim

*Except that the actual authors of the reports cited explicitly stated that this conclusion could not be drawn from their work. Ho hum...

[The Legendary Shark]

My view on the above is this: due to the way current monetary systems are set up, around 35% to 40% of all "money" spent goes into the banking system. That's private and public spending. Over a third of everything spent is effectively wasted. That means less resources all 'round going into heating, housing, healthy food, medicines, hospitals etc. It's a wonder the death toll isn't higher.

[Jim_Campbell]

My view on the above is this: due to the way current monetary systems are set up, around 35% to 40% of all "money" spent goes into the banking system. That's private and public spending. Over a third of everything spent is effectively wasted. That means less resources all 'round going into heating, housing, healthy food, medicines, hospitals etc. It's a wonder the death toll isn't higher.

And all that only started in 2011, did it? Give it a rest.

[The Legendary Shark]

Don't be daft. It's a steadily worsening situation, exacerbated by the 2008 "financial crisis."

[Jim_Campbell]

Don't be daft. It's a steadily worsening situation, exacerbated by the 2008 "financial crisis."

Except that it's not a steadily worsening situation, as you'd know if you'd read the article. This is the reversal of forty-year trend of falling death rates that happens to coincide with a government coming to power that has proceeded to savage the budgets for benefit claimants, disability support, social care and the NHS. Absent a pandemic, a succession of incredibly cold winters, or a major war, one is left looking for other explanations for the reversal of the trend, and it's hard not to make a connection with the Conservatives systematic removal of safety nets for the most vulnerable in society under the twin mantras of 'fairness' and 'austerity'.

[IndigoPrime]

Looking rocky for the EU. I'm not sure what Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic have to gain by digging in. If the UK leaves, their people here are even more screwed. (The suggestion appears to be that this solution might be palatable if it's restricted specifically to the UK.) Absurd that Brexit is now looking likely over such a nothing issue that costs naff-all. Also depressing that other figures are being lobbed around regarding the EU 'costs' to the UK, ignoring faming subsidy, EU rebates, and that a non-EU UK would have to pay for access to the market it quits.

And I wish people would stop going on about sodding Norway. The UK won't rejoin EFTA, and it would be in a much worse position than today if it did. ARGH.

In more positive news, Apple CEO Tim Cook fights for privacy. Nice to see lots of other tech leaders backing him, such as, er, hang on, um... oh.

[Old Tankie]

The UK will not vote to leave the EU.

[The Legendary Shark]

Except that it's not a steadily worsening situation, as you'd know if you'd read the article. This is the reversal of forty-year trend of falling death rates that happens to coincide with a government coming to power that has proceeded to savage the budgets for benefit claimants, disability support, social care and the NHS. Absent a pandemic, a succession of incredibly cold winters, or a major war, one is left looking for other explanations for the reversal of the trend, and it's hard not to make a connection with the Conservatives systematic removal of safety nets for the most vulnerable in society under the twin mantras of 'fairness' and 'austerity'.

I decided to have a look at the figures myself.

Firstly, the "provisional" figures quoted in the article aren't available for download yet so I can't comment on them.

The article claims, "Death rates in England and Wales have been steadily falling since the 1970s but this trend has been reversed since 2011."

In 1970 there were 655,385 UK deaths, which equates to 1.18% of the UK population.
In 1975  there were 660,690 deaths - 1.17% of the population.
In 1980, 659,632 deaths - 1.17%
In 1985, 668,611 deaths - 1.18%
In 1990, 639,836 deaths - 1.12%
In 1995, 640,154 deaths - 1.10%
In 2000, 609,229 deaths - 1.04%
In 2005, 581,811 deaths - 0.97%
In 2010, 560,538 deaths - 0.90%
In 2011, 551,153 deaths - 0.87%
In 2012, 567,974 deaths - 0.89%
In 2013, 576,458 deaths - 0.90%
In 2014, 570,341 deaths - 0.88%

Even if the figure of 528,340 deaths for 2015 given in the article is correct, it's lower than all the UK figures mentioned above. I suspect, therefore, it may just be the figure for England and Wales, which seems to be generally around 70,000 lower than the Whole UK total. This would make it around 598,340 - the highest since 2003 (610,871 - 1.03%) - which would be around 0.91% of the population, at a quesstimate.

The article then goes on to compare the present state with the 60s and the end of the Second World War.

1960 - 603,328 deaths - 1.16%
1962 - 636,051 deaths - 1.20%
1964 - 611,130 deaths - 1.14%
1966 - 643,754 deaths - 1.18%
1968 - 655,998 deaths - 1.19%

As to the end of WWII:

1944 - 573,570 deaths - 1.17%
1945 - 567,027 deaths - 1.15%
1946 - 573,361 deaths - 1.16%
1947 - 600,728 deaths - 1.21%
1948 - 546,002 deaths - 1.09%
1949 - 589,876 deaths - 1.17%

And just for a bit of historical comparison:

1857 - 481,721 deaths - 2.16%
1866 - 572,037 deaths - 2.35%
1881 - 564,260 deaths - 1.90%
1900 - 695,867 deaths - 1.97%
1914 - 611,970 deaths - 1.47%
1920 - 555,326 deaths - 1.31%
1930 - 536,860 deaths - 1.17%


The first time the ratio dropped below 1% was in 2004.

I think that article might just be a little bit of scaremongering - which I initially fell for - as death rates have been pretty stable for a long time.

[TordelBack]

I haven't crunched any numbers here, but surely those figures lack a vital piece of information: demographics. Your current population is far older than it was only a few decades ago, so you would expect far more deaths: that the death rate has remained roughly constant despite an ageing population probably represents a significant improvement.

[Jim_Campbell]

I'd expect the Office for National Statistics, whose numbers these are, to be more proficient at statistical adjustments than I am.

Cheers

Jim