The Political Thread

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Greece is asking Germany to settle debts ran up by previous governments but which the current government considers unreasonable.

Yeah, and I certainly agree that a proportion of the debt should be written off. I don't think that's got anything to do with the Nazis, though, but more the moral responsibility of lenders to ensure borrowers can afford to repay the debts they incur.

[ZenArcade]

Perhaps if our own uber wealthy paid their fair share of taxes we wouldn't be in the leaky boat we presently find ourselves afloat and rudderless in and frenziedly bailing out.

This is a problem of social elites let alone not shouldering their part of the burden, but victimising and vilifying the weakest in our several societies in order to shift the finger of blame away from where it rightly should be pointed.

At the minimum there needs to be a new social contract drawn up both here and across the Western World, if this does not happen we will have 1788 all over again. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

The debts don't exist.

[ZenArcade]

Anything exists as long a both parties to the issue believe so. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Not really. We could both believe Elvis is hiding out in a double-decker bus on the Moon but that don't make it so.
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The "elites" want us to believe that what they're lending us is real just like Paul Daniels wants us to believe he can saw Debbie Magee in half and then put her back together.
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It's all just smoke and mirrors - but the tragedy here is this particular trick (pulling "money" out of a hat) is literally and currently killing people.

[ZenArcade]

 :lol:oh Shark! I didn't mean in the sense of solid, earthy perception, more in the sense of intangible intellectual constructs. Money and debt is sufficiently nebulous a thing that any snake oil merchant (read for that Banker, hedge fund manager etc) can bullshit a large majority of the populace around to his/her way of thinking very easily. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

True, Z - but becoming less true every day as more and more people realise the pyramid scheme we've all been drawn into.

[Hawkmumbler]

pyramid scheme

Illuminate confirmed.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh.

[Jim_Campbell]

Tories entertainingly wrong-footed by Labour's announcement on non-dom tax this morning. Having used 'fairness' as a mantra for beggaring the poorest and most vulnerable in society, hearing them trying to argue it's not fair that very rich people living in this country should pay all their tax in this country exposes their hypocrisy in a hugely amusing fashion. Tory Education Secretary Nicky Morgan managed to get herself hilariously off-message on Radio 4 this morning by pursuing the fairness issue to its logical conclusion.

Or rather, seeing the logical conclusion looming large like a metaphorical cliff edge she then deployed deflection, evasion, hand-waving and outright flannel with an audible sense of panic.

Brilliant.

(Non-dom tax status is calculated to be worth at least £90K/pa in tax savings to those registered, and there are at least 100,000 of them, so properly closing the loophole (which I'm not convinced is what Labour are actually proposing) would be a minimum £9bn bonus to the Treasury.)

Cheers

Jim

[Steve Green]

It would be if video hadn't just surfaced of Ed Balls saying that abolishing non-dom status would cost the economy.

https://amp.twimg.com/v/7cb7f0ad-0fbc-4481-9837-987c3dc593fb

[Jim_Campbell]

Ed Balls is a fucking idiot.

Cheers

Jim

[Spikes]

The dream team of Joey Essex (I kid you not..), and Nigel Farage hit my home town today on the election trail....

It's the end times, people. 

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Obviously, Ed Balls is right and pursuing non-doms will end up costing the treasury money rather than making any, but as a piece of "fuck the rich" populism it's quite a good policy.

[ZenArcade]

Ach, to be fair he was 'mis-quoted'....still a fucking ganch (idiot) mind you. z