Senate The UK Politics discussion

I agree that unions have, and continue to do, many good things. I agree with elevating the wages of those who do hard work but aren't necessarily rewarded by the markets - like cleaners, teachers, nurses, paramedics and shift workers. But inflating the wages of those who don't really work all that difficult jobs (look I'm sure it's got its difficulties being a train conductor, but $80K a year it is not), and protecting redundant jobs is just throwing the power of the union movement behind stupid things. Use the money to train those people into new jobs and then they will be able to better justify their increased pay.

 

DarthPhilosopher - Their £50,000 a year starting salary and 36hr working weeks is about the same as Sydney train drivers get paid. But, policemen - whose jobs can't be done by automation? £23000 in the first year, and more than 36hrs.

So yes, they really earn that salary.

Paul Howes, who left the unions to be a partner at KPMG? Yeah, top shelf bloke that. Got out just before the royal commission found the utter opposite of what he said. GREAT find V2. GREAT research. Amazing.

The rest though - I just hear a bit of an angry and unfortunate soul being all envious and resentful. It's really clear you don't actually give a **** about the poor. You just hate the rich, the middle class, and anyone who earns a salary in a non-blue collar profession. Or doesn't sponge off the state.

It must be utterly exhausting and awful to be so embittered, jealous, angry and envious all the time.

Now, I'm going to change the topic. You should however stay adorably angry and envious and resentful. You should also attack me and my motives further, because you're quite right - nobody has noticed the insecurities you telegraph. Not a soul. You did it, you fooled them all.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/...sadiq-khan-inquiry-foreign-property-ownership

This is a... cautiously good move from Saddiq Khan. Sydney, like London, has seen a significant spike in the cost of housing directly as a result of FDI in the property market. The downsides are the same too - it's pricing domestic home owners out of the market. The ROI on property is simply too strong for a conservative asset class to miss out on ownership, and wealthy investors have deeper pockets. The upside here at least has been that rents have fallen behind in terms of growth vs property prices, though the capacity to claim the cost of acquisition of an asset as a tax loss (negative gearing) drives that. Otherwise the general rise of rents in London looks to be about 4% pa. and that seems on par for the property market there.

The article notes that foreign ownership of private housing is actually quite low as a percentage - meaning that it's a high profile target to pin blame on, but arguably they're a bit of a low hanging fruit if you want to complain. This bit sums up the common problem we both have:

“Like any major world city, the issue in London centres around the fact that there is not enough of the most popular bits of the city to go around. Inner London land rarely comes on to the market, and it only makes sense for people to release land and turn it into residential units if they are going to get a suitable return – which normally means high-end luxury developments.”

Land. They just don't make enough of it.

So long as the analysis done is used to help drive planning and not to fuel xenophobia I would welcome similar moves to this.

 

Yeah, it's a ticklish one. It's only one variable in the London housing crisis but it's definitely real. Foreign buyers may only account for 7% across Greater London but that has to be far higher in zones 1-3. Most of the developments in Deptford that priced me out were Chinese owned and the article quotes 70% for development in Vauxhall.

I can't see how addressing this one variable on its own could make much difference (except to increase tax revenue - but I mean in terms of solving the housing crisis) but if it's part of a broader strategy, all good.

 

I don't feel much motivation to research institutional corruption in Australia in the UK politics thread, but it might comfort you to learn that the quote came from the wiki article that you'd challenged me to read. Did you read it yourself?

Considering I was merely parodying what you said to me, your criticism is quite revealing.

I love the way you speak for me. You, like everyone else on this website (and most people on the internet), have no idea what I do for a living. I feel no need to tell you, either. Let me put you right about as few things though:

I do give a **** about the poor, as I suspect you do too.
I don't just hate the rich.
I am middle class myself, and I'm not ashamed, or self hating.
I'm not jealous of how anyone earns or receives their money.
I don't resent people who don't claim benefits (lol).

With a bit of fine tuning and character development you could tour this material. Might need to work on the self awareness aspect though.

Oh the irony!

You like to talk of the politics of envy, but even Blind Freddy can see which side comes off looking more jealous and self entitled. I applaud your quest for social justice in the trade unionism movement, but it's odd that unions are the targets you choose ahead of corrupt bankers, tax avoiding multinationals, corrupt security/law enforcement/judiciary, 0-hours contract employers, etc. All the people who do the greatest measurable harm to society seem to get more of your respect than those scruffy union bogans who never had to work as hard as you.

You seem to need to feel in control, I wonder is this because in your professional and personal life you are such a dogsbody?

Aww bless your cotton socks.

Maybe you once met a lefty who fits the description you now give every lefty. Perhaps you're still arguing with that beautiful boy/girl who so inspired you, and so rejected you. Or maybe I'm just romanticising your zany bigotry for self knowingly insane sounding comic effect. Who knows?

 

Can't speak for Ender but this applies to me too. There are three reasons why I'm more vocal about unions than bankers.

1. I have more respect for someone who makes no secret of the fact that they're out to benefit themselves regardless of ****ing other people over than those who pursue harmful agenda while claiming to do it for the benefit of others. Bankers, corporations etc. are generally up front about the fact that their goal is to maximise profit without regard for ethics. Union officials shroud themselves in worthiness.
2. Contempt bred by familiarity. I have the misfortune to encounter a lot of trade union officials at work and - with the exception of the odd naive, well-meaning soul - they are an absolute hatful of ****holes.
3. Linked to the above, my work (which I feel no need to keep secret) involves tackling some of the excesses of banking and corporations. I did a lot of the analysis behind the PPI super complaint, last year my work was used to shut down a number of dodgy credit brokers, the recent changes to pre-payment meter tariffs were as a direct result of my work. Right now I'm churning out stuff on letting agency fees and a few of my colleagues are lobbying hard to get the law changed to prevent the worst excesses of those belly-crawling lizards. However, the majority of the people I work with - who are paid to do the same - generally spend all their time behaving like union officials and this sickens me more than any banker or letting agent. Huge amounts of money and resource are wasted on vanity projects, the majority of most people's time is spent pontificating in meetings and obstructing others with absurd objections, often claiming the work done by the competent few as their own when it finally gets done in spite of their attempts to prevent anything being achieved. All this while spouting off about how good and worthy they are. Simply, they are disgusting lizards and the world would be a better place if they were paid to stay at home.

In other news, you often infer emotions that simply aren't there. It's quite an odd thing to do and projection seems a fair conclusion to arrive at.

 

1: You respect people who do honest harm.
2: You're describing confirmation bias for your prejudice.
3: You're describing yourself as awfully worthy.

In other news, you're displaying paranoia and some lacking of, oh, let's call it empathy, shall we? Like communicating emotions is something other people do. Might want to check that Hare list, comrade.

 

More than those who do dishonest harm, yes.

Yep. I'm human. We do things like that.

Not really. I want to make the world a slightly better place and I enjoy solving logical problems. I get paid reasonably well for doing so and have a comfortable life. The point was that I spend much of my working life addressing and trying to prevent harm done by banks and corporations but I'm forced to sit by and watch the harm done by my 'worthy' colleagues. It's very much a personal reason and really only a combination of the first two along with a sense of personal powerlessness.

I wish you could see how thickly laced with irony that statement is.

 

Yeah, so, V2... I know you made comments about risk management earlier. To be clear; I don't do modelling risk. I do risk and compliance. So ensuring that the bank has adequate controls in place to mitigate operational risk, and to ensure ongoing compliance will all laws, regulatory instruments, and industry codes. It also means embedding a risk culture in the business as per the regulator's direction.

Therefore, when there's an incident which breaches the materiality provisions under S912D of the Corporations Act, it's my work that gets it reported to the regulator.

So I guess... if my work involves keeping bank officers accountable to their obligations and working with ASIC, the regulator, to enhance the culture of the organisation... No, you're right. I'm just picking on a movement whose leaders use coercion, blackmail, intimidation, standover tactics, corruption and theft as a way of lining their pockets and ****ing their workers over under the guide of progress, whilst letting banks entirely off the hook.

 

You're blinkered and insane. No need to keep flogging this dead horse.

 

V-2
My question though would be: if you hate bankers, then how do you propose people organize money, financial institutions, and investments, etc?

What is your alternative?

I don't care much for large banks either(even though I have large investments in several) but credit unions(which I also have some savings in) emulate some basic banking functions anyway because that is the most successful way to spread lending, savings, multiply money beyond the physical limitations of it, etc.

So what do you do without a form of banking? Before large banks, precious metals were regarded as an alternative but that was controlled by a smaller elite(monarchies, mercantile trade boards,landed nobility/aristocracies, etc) than any banking system today.

So, what do you do?

 

Back to the idiocy that is Brexit and this is being proposed:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...o-propose-great-repeal-bill-to-unwind-eu-laws

I think Clarke's right, the Brexiteers will freak out over this.

 

Implementing EU law into British law sounds perfectly sensible to me. Parliament will then be able to look at which laws it wants to keep and which it wants to axe at it's own leisure but it means that, at least initially, very little is changing in terms of employment rights, environmental rights, etc...

Repealing the 1972 European communities act is also sensible because it give Parliament a "say" on this whole process. There is of course a danger that the Commons or more likely the Lords will try and hold things up by voting against the repeal, though Theresa has the option of calling a general election should they do this.

TM has also confirmed Article 50 is to be triggered before the end of March 2017 which gives us until Spring 2019 to get out.

So, the broad way forward seems fairly clear now. The only thing we still don't know (and won't for some time) is whether it's EEA or full Brexit. My hunch is that it will be full Brexit and we'll leave the Single Market as well as the EU but we'll see.

 

We now effectively have a starting point but no real idea on what it's going to look like which is a concern.



I do love the way that various news reports have been going on about how the UK economy hasn't been effected by Brexit though. Completely ignoring the fact that we haven't actually done it yet though.

Watch this space come March when we do pull the trigger.

 

Got to love Ken Clarke. He was a bloody good Chancellor and worked really well with Eddie George (then BoE governor). I think he's spot on. Makes absolute sense to incorporate EU law made up to this point - and I'm personally glad to see my concerns about employment & environmental legislation allayed - but the tub-thumping public isn't going to like it. Not half as much as they're going to hate us accepting freedom of movement as a condition of remaining in the EEC, though. I can see May being absolutely hated by everyone except me at the next GE. I don't envy her Scylla & Charybdis position between continuing Japanese investment requiring EEC membership and Europe taking a hard line on FoM but I think she's doing a decent job so far. Hopefully back office negotiation with Germany will yield some kind of spinable compromise.

Next GE is going to be an interesting one. With May probably hated by the left because 'tory scum' and by the right because 'sold us out' and with Corbyn (if he's still there - the knives were out at conference already) being... well, being Corbyn it feels like pretty much anything could happen.

 

Cue Daily Mail headline: TREASON!

 

Well, her negotiations with Scotland seemed to have ended with... 'stop talking about getting special considerations, you're getting absolutely nothing'.

 

No offence mate but that's a stupid question. If I hated bankers (I don't hate all bankers) then I'd still propose to organise people's money through banks. I'm not a nihilist.

Why do you ask?

 

Yes, but you're blinkered and insane.

 

I couldn't tell whether it was you or me who was blinkered and insane, Ender Sai. Maybe both of us. Apparently I'm psychopathic, too, which is nice.

 

Oh right. I'm blinkered and insane; you're displaying paranoia and some lacking of, oh, let's call it empathy, shall we?

 

Yeah, I think that's right. You're the blinkered lunatic, I'm the paranoid psychopath. Maybe we should start a band or something.

 

"Ender & the Unhinged"... I can see that work. What music are you going to play?

 

They'd be an obnoxious drone act like Merzbow.

 

Regarding the mental health of the right wing:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/29/sec..._conservatives_see_a_different_hostile_world/

 

Yep, because American Conservatism accurately describes both our political outlooks.

I think I'd go for nomadic folk metal. Then I could wear my Mongolian war hat and do some throat singing.