General News Thread

[st albans fox]

27 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

 

These are all factual arguments, but another fact remains that every other candidate has more flaws (politically and/or personally) than he does, imo. 

Different conversation 

They’re mp’s so can stand 

he can’t 

[Lionator]

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

How did the last mayor of London get on as pm? 😜

 

(we have had a brown pm btw- he wasn’t elected though) 

It’s a lot easier for a right wing Indian heritage Hindu billionaire than a centrist Pakistani heritage Muslim son of a London bus driver haha

[leicsmac]

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Different conversation 

They’re mp’s so can stand 

he can’t 

This is true. 

 

May the powers that govern the universe help us, because it really seems like we can't help ourselves. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

 

These are all factual arguments, but another fact remains that every other candidate has more flaws (politically and/or personally) than he does, imo. 

Pfft, you can use facts to prove anything!

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Pfft, you can use facts to prove anything!

Welcome to the "post truth world"! 

[Trav Le Bleu]

18 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Welcome to the "post truth world"! 

Ain't that the truth?!

 

Ironically.

[Lionator]

 

Talking of post truth worlds

[leicsmac]

10 hours ago, Lionator said:

 

Talking of post truth worlds

This stuff belongs on a comedy show, not a situation where people like this are making decisions that affect all life on this earth. 

[leicsmac]

Also, some of the stuff that Palantir is coming out with right now is flat out scary. 

 

That they have any power at all, much less as much is they have, is a serious problem. 

[CornwallFox]

Saw some statistics around taxation of earned income and was surprised. And I'd expect others would be too as it's certainly not the narrative being pushed. 

 

2029-2024 was the fastest increase ever in taxation of earned income.

Sunak reduced this at the end through NI changes which actually meant it dropped down to be the lowest tax take from earnings for many decades years. While it has risen slightly under labour, starmar has the second lowest level of taxation of earned income since Harold Wilson.

[Robo61]

22 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Saw some statistics around taxation of earned income and was surprised. And I'd expect others would be too as it's certainly not the narrative being pushed. 

 

2029-2024 was the fastest increase ever in taxation of earned income.

Sunak reduced this at the end through NI changes which actually meant it dropped down to be the lowest tax take from earnings for many decades years. While it has risen slightly under labour, starmar has the second lowest level of taxation of earned income since Harold Wilson.

You might want to amend that first dates,  pretty sure you are not looking into the future

[Innovindil]

1 hour ago, CornwallFox said:

Saw some statistics around taxation of earned income and was surprised. And I'd expect others would be too as it's certainly not the narrative being pushed. 

 

2029-2024 was the fastest increase ever in taxation of earned income.

Sunak reduced this at the end through NI changes which actually meant it dropped down to be the lowest tax take from earnings for many decades years. While it has risen slightly under labour, starmar has the second lowest level of taxation of earned income since Harold Wilson.

Tbf the "narrative" is that the overall taxes based on the entire economy are at their highest since World War 2. Which is absolutely true. 

 

It's a bit like celebrating the unemployment rate coming down. 11000 fewer people in work... Lowest job vacancies in 5 years... Devil is in the detail. 

 

[CornwallFox]

4 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Tbf the "narrative" is that the overall taxes based on the entire economy are at their highest since World War 2. Which is absolutely true. 

 

It's a bit like celebrating the unemployment rate coming down. 11000 fewer people in work... Lowest job vacancies in 5 years... Devil is in the detail. 

 

I'm not arguing that one way or other. You may well be right. But there's definitely an online narrative around earned taxation and starmar that doesn't currently hold true - though I take the point @Robo61 has made that it may look different by the end of the parliament with incoming changes. 

There's positives and negatives as the economy is a complicated beast. I've focused on one measure and an not extrapolating to the wider economy in what I wrote. 

[Innovindil]

29 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

I'm not arguing that one way or other. You may well be right. But there's definitely an online narrative around earned taxation and starmar that doesn't currently hold true - though I take the point @Robo61 has made that it may look different by the end of the parliament with incoming changes. 

There's positives and negatives as the economy is a complicated beast. I've focused on one measure and an not extrapolating to the wider economy in what I wrote. 

The trouble with taking data in a vacuum is that one piece of it can mislead. Here's an example:

 

Taxes on workers in Britain rose at the fastest rate among the world’s richest economies last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

Holy cow. That sounds bad! 

 

However, here another:

 

Despite the rapid increase, the measure of tax on work in Britain, at 32.4%, remained below the OECD average of 35.1%. It ranged from 0% in Colombia to 52.5% in Belgium.

 

Phew. We're saved!

 

Neither point taken on their own makes the slightest bit of difference. 

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

34 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

I'm not arguing that one way or other. You may well be right. But there's definitely an online narrative around earned taxation and starmar that doesn't currently hold true - though I take the point @Robo61 has made that it may look different by the end of the parliament with incoming changes. 

There's positives and negatives as the economy is a complicated beast. I've focused on one measure and an not extrapolating to the wider economy in what I wrote. 

 

2 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

The trouble with taking data in a vacuum is that one piece of it can mislead. Here's an example:

 

Taxes on workers in Britain rose at the fastest rate among the world’s richest economies last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

Holy cow. That sounds bad! 

 

However, here another:

 

Despite the rapid increase, the measure of tax on work in Britain, at 32.4%, remained below the OECD average of 35.1%. It ranged from 0% in Colombia to 52.5% in Belgium.

 

Phew. We're saved!

 

Neither point taken on their own makes the slightest bit of difference. 

 

 

 

 

And this is why statistical analysis needs to be more taught in schools. 

 

There's a lot of misinterpreting of data - some wilful, some not - that then appears to drive both voting and policy decisions. 

[CornwallFox]

11 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

The trouble with taking data in a vacuum is that one piece of it can mislead. Here's an example:

 

Taxes on workers in Britain rose at the fastest rate among the world’s richest economies last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

Holy cow. That sounds bad! 

 

However, here another:

 

Despite the rapid increase, the measure of tax on work in Britain, at 32.4%, remained below the OECD average of 35.1%. It ranged from 0% in Colombia to 52.5% in Belgium.

 

Phew. We're saved!

 

Neither point taken on their own makes the slightest bit of difference. 

 

 

 

 

I'm well aware of that, hence me not making any wider point from what I said. The single point I was making it that in the narrow confines of employed taxation, reality doesn't really fit with what people think. No wider point or extrapolations are being made. 

[Jattdogg]

14 hours ago, Lionator said:

 

Talking of post truth worlds

Those math skills..... Two ways of calculating????  LMFAO....wow!

 

 

[Sampson]

”Education” and ”should be taught in schools” feel like a very long term solution though. The population is old and getting older, the median average aged voter started school at the end of the 1970s. A good proportion of the voting public were in school in the 1950s.
 

Even if you started teaching things in school tomorrow it’s take half a century to properly influence voter habits and god knows what the AI slop-ified world looks like then. There’s a half decent chance that by then AI has mapped and understood human brain chemistry and AI can do things to get humans to make decisions without the human knowing they’re being programmed to make that decision with 99% success rate. 

Edited 23 April by Sampson

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, Sampson said:

”Education” and ”should be taught in schools” feel like a very long term solution though. The population is old and getting older, the median average aged voter started school at the end of the 1970s. A good proportion of the voting public were in school in the 1950s.
 

Even if you started teaching things in school tomorrow it’s take half a century to properly influence voter habits and god knows what the AI slop-ified world looks like then. There’s a half decent chance that by then AI has mapped and understood human brain chemistry and AI can do things to get humans to make decisions without the human knowing they’re being programmed to make that decision with 99% success rate. 

And therein lies a problem, yes. 

 

The advance of tech in general and of social media and AI in particular have taken an issue that people since Plato have struggled with, and multiplied both the issue and the consequences by an order of magnitude or more.

[kenny]

2 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

Saw some statistics around taxation of earned income and was surprised. And I'd expect others would be too as it's certainly not the narrative being pushed. 

 

2029-2024 was the fastest increase ever in taxation of earned income.

Sunak reduced this at the end through NI changes which actually meant it dropped down to be the lowest tax take from earnings for many decades years. While it has risen slightly under labour, starmar has the second lowest level of taxation of earned income since Harold Wilson.

Can you share the stats?

[Spiritwalker]

38 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

Those math skills..... Two ways of calculating????  LMFAO....wow!

 

 

That’s what I used to tell my maths teacher when I got my sums wrong.

[The Guvnor]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

This stuff belongs on a comedy show, not a situation where people like this are making decisions that affect all life on this earth. 

You did watch The deputy PM on mastermind ?

Now that was comedy 🤣

[Alf Bentley]

17 hours ago, Lionator said:

 

Talking of post truth worlds

 

Quite apart from the extraordinary maths, RFK Jr looks like he needs to be consuming either a lot more meds or a lot fewer meds himself.

 

The bloke is the colour of a beetroot - a beetroot with blood pressure of 782/564 - or the colour of a leg of gammon injected with several litres of blood. 

He doesn't sound like a well man, either. Now where's that Deathlist thread gone? 

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

You did watch The deputy PM on mastermind ?

Now that was comedy 🤣

Remind me, is the result of the deputy PMs intellect (or lack thereof) policy decisions based on antivax sentiment, climate change ignorance and runaway nationalism that is taking lives as we speak?

 

Until then, I'm not really sure this is a comparison with any kind of point. 

Edited 23 April by leicsmac

[leicsmac]

And now for something a bit lighter:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjwz8we1zzo

 

Whoops.