Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

You have no idea what my political views are so not sure how you can comment on them.
Putin is a thug and as cunning as they come like you say, the man should be in jail, but never the less he is very much on the ball in Syria, even the ex UK army leader is in the press saying the same thing today. He also less imperialistic ideas than the dangerous West, as proven the last 20 years or so.

 

You are right wing with a hint of dictatorship and I claim my five pounds!

 

haha dictatorship, no thanks. i only believe in democracy, the voters should always make decisions. i want nothing more than to be out the EU but the day after the referendum if we vote to remain i will not have any regrets as long as the country voted fairly.
If i was PM then in a nutshell,
Gas/electric/water/transport would all be ran by the state on a none profit basis, everything else up for grabs.
NHS i am not sure as i have no strong views on it, i prefer private health care but obviously do not want people to be left untreated.
Forces/police i would look after well.
Be a lot tougher on crime.
Immigration would be managed and only people let in would be who we need to fill jobs and nothing else.
Benefits would only be paid to people who have contributed and all be means tested apart from the disabled/sick.
We would not be fighting wars unless attacked.
Ban weapons.
Everyone gets a £5 free bet on a Saturday even Rudeboy
If you vote to stay in the EU your shot then deported.


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Funny old Monday on the World stock markets...

After seeing much of their gains from last year wiped out in a single week as the Yen strengthened unintentionally against the US Dollar, Japan’s Nikkei jumped 7 per cent despite the announcement of poor growth numbers as the US Dollar rallied.

European markets opened up, mostly driven by banking stocks rising ahead of ‘Super’ Mario Draghi’s scheduled appearance before the European Parliament. Investor sentiment followed the theory that Draghi would extend the ECB’s Quantitative Easing (QE) programme beyond September and that pushed Credit Suisse up by 8.9 per cent, BNP Paribas up 3 per cent and even beleaguered Deutsche Bank managed 2.4 per cent.

As it turned out, Draghi said nothing much of any great interest but did not rule out further ECB intervention, implying that QE may not be over. Incredibly, he claimed that QE so far has accounted for half of the growth in the Eurozone. I am on the wrong thread for laughing at that notion.

With Wall Street closed today because it is the George Washington Day holiday, the one per cent retreat in the value of the Euro against the US Dollar must be ‘Super’ Mario’s work – what a hero.

 

The Country operates a voluntary tax system, so the richest volunteer to pay the least.
You join a Currency Union that strangles your economy and leaves you powerless to intervene.
The people vote for a left-wing government to try and get back some control and end austerity.
Your European friends ignore your demands and prescribe more austerity.
Your powerless Finance Minister quits and rides off into the sunset on his motorbike...

Yanis Varoufakis has an interesting answer to the question “Are we experiencing the beginning of the end of the EU?” here.

What may turn out to be a prophetic last paragraph there.

Donald Tusk touring Europe before Thursday’s crunch summit: “But the risk of break-up is real because this process is indeed very fragile. Handle with care. What is broken cannot be mended.”

It has been broken for a long time, Donald. Too late now...

 

Is it not rather pointless deporting the dead? You could deport them first and then shoot them. Or you could shoot them before the vote...

 

HSBC also announced that HQ would stay in London though I am not entirely sure how the shareholders view that.

It was the only decision they were going to make and frankly I'm surprised it took so long. The bank stocks are tempting but there might be one more fall to come yet, so it's hard to say.

Over on crazy AIM...

88 Energy surged around 140% after a potentially exciting ice wine find in Alaska.

If anyone can make head or tail of what on earth that means then please do inform me- is it just massive fracking?

 

Just catching up a bit on this thread as have not visited it in a while.

I would agree that this may be the beginning of the end for the EU but I am not sure we should leave and be the ones who receive the most detriment whilst they obstruct our desire to create a new trade environment. Should we leave the need to see us collapse will be huge as should we prosper every population will rise up and demand out. In an effort to survive our exit they will turn on us to a man. Let it unravel naturally and leave in an orderly fashion with everyone else perhaps as we are currently a little more insulated from the worst of the EU due to not using the euro.

I must also agree with Mallafets to a degree over the West's handling of Putin. Now I am no fan of Putin, who is clearly a dictator, but then most people understand democracy as nothing more than a myth anyhow nowadays as it is clearly recognised that whoever controls the information controls the vote. The point with the East West issue is US foreign policy was out of control and has caused huge hardship to common people in lands thousands of miles from them due to manipulating believed national interest badly. Iraq a mess, Libya a mess, Afghanastan a mess, Ukraine a mess and Syria a mess. The issue with the gangster Putin is that he would not naturally seek confrontation with NATO a while back but the policy of isolating Russia is backfiring. The idea was The Soviet Union is dismantled and there is no further cold war or threat to the West, Russia is bruised but accepts ideological defeat, the agreement was that Nato does not infringe upon it by converting former soviet states and so these states although self governing remain a buffer between Russia and Nato. The West however try to bring in these former Soviet states little by little with economically weighted carrots through the EU and militarily through NATO. This is tolerated by Russia as it recognises it does not need a fight, however Ukraine is on it's doorstep and it says you push too far and fights back. When it does so it sees that in Barak Obama the US has a leader who will not fight under any circumstances (how many before him would have missed the opportunity to launch the cruise missles on Assad over the chemical weapons earlier in the civil war)? Now emboldened and enjoying the hero worship at home and ratings rise, Putin gets bolder than could be imagined and brings planes into Syria and bombs the very people the US are arming, still nothing from Obama! Obama is a great man and I would like to make that clear, he is not however a world leader, he would make a great head teacher, a great judge, a great home secretary, a great friend but he is too well intentioned and will get eaten by duplicitous leaders whom he must face off. As much ground will be taken by Russia and China by November as possible whilst the soft lad sits shuffling his papers and hoping he can get out before someone comes in and tidies the mess.

Unfortunately their will be games of brinkmanship to come and Putin is dangerous in those situations but the new president will have to stem the challenge to their authority and not blink first. We will bite our nails as our parents did in the 60's.

 

I thought fracking was closing down at the moment due to the low returns.

 

..............Yes, it does seem to have flattened out? A lot of steam and other crap being pumped-up various rearends?

 

100% this

 

Finally the European Parliament stands up and tells David Cameron to F..k Off!!!

"Don't shoot me; I'm only the piano player"

 

Oh dear - someone clearly doesn't realise that the OED defintion of "bloody minded" is "the population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". I think we're about to vote to leave

"The PM will also meet EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker who said on Tuesday there was no "plan B".
"If I would say now that we have a plan B, this would indicate a kind of willingness of the Commission to envisage seriously that Britain could leave the European Union.
"So I am not entering into the details of a plan B, because we don't have a plan B, we have a plan A. Britain will stay in the European Union as a constructive and active member of the Union," he said."

 

Note. Figures are from 2013, approximate, and used as a guide only. Contributions and rebates vary from year to year. All figures in Euros

The UK contribution to the EU is about 17bn and the rebate (funding) around 6.3bn. Therefore if UK exit from the EU and no change is made to contributions as a direct result of the exit, the EU budget of 117bn will need to be reduced by around 10.7bn. If this reduction is applied pro rata across all remaining members (and for simplicity we'll call it 10%) this equates to a reduction of about 1.3bn for Germany, 1.42bn for France, 1.25bn for Italy, 1.37bn for Spain, 1.62bn for Poland, 0.72bn for Greece, 0.62bn for Portugal, an average 0.5bn for Czech Rep, Romania and Hungary and about 2.5bn spread over the remaining 17 members. I'm sure they can manage that. The admin costs alone are about £8.7bn; surely that could be cut.

Whereas UK would not receive its 6.3bn funding, it could fund itself to the same extent and have 10.7bn "change" to fund how it wants. The cost of imports and export income may increase or decrease, depending on the strength of the pound and the negotiating power of a stand alone UK.

One big downside is the relocation of thousands of jobs away from the UK. HSBC has warned that it could shift 1,000 investment banking jobs from London to Paris if the UK leaves the EU. JP Morgan, the biggest bank in the US which employs 19,000 people in the UK, hinted it could quit Britain if it pulled out of the EU.

In a survey of 700 businesses by the Bertelsmann Foundation, 29% of British and German companies polled said they would either reduce capacities in the UK or relocate altogether in the event of a Brexit.

Businesses in the IT and technology sector are particularly open to upping sticks after a referendum: 41% say they would consider decreasing capacity or relocating. But even in the less mobile manufacturing sector, 26% of respondents said they would consider leaving Britain. Only 13% believed a Brexit could increase national employment levels.

As I have mentioned before (and I see Bluesky agrees) - why be the first to leave a sinking ship and have all the remaining members resenting us?

I don't like the idea of jumping into the unknown. I think people would be voting with their eyes shut if they vote out, and may well regret it later. I believe that the Eurozone will be much stronger than an isolated UK and will quite happily continue with the cause without us. However, if it does crumble, I believe it would be better for us if it crumbles with us helping in any attempt to save it, and we just help in the decision process to scrap it altogether or re-design it and its membership. If it crumbles due to our exit, I can't see that helping relations at all. That could make us vulnerable defensively.

Another thought though is that, given Greece was being funded to the tune of in excess of 3 times its contribution, why did Germany etc bend over backwards to keep them in/

 

Because it's a sinking ship

 

Precisely Bustino. But why be the first to leap and be resented by every other member?

 

If the European ship really is sinking, I'd rather my country's behaviour didn't cast me in the role of rat. Besides, I don't believe it is sinking, it's just listing somewhat and in need of adjustment to restore an even keel. When a community is in crisis the sensible thing to do is to pull together, not try to pull things apart. Coincidentally, that's also the honorable thing to do.

 

You're forgetting that we don't do honour - we just pretend we do...

 

You actually commented on that bit )

 

The EU is certainly sinking and can't even begin any kind of recovery without it being a superstate all in one fit. Who wants to live in a Euro superstate? not me for sure.
My grandparents and parents helped build the UK to be what it is since WW2, why do I want to share it with other corrupt states.
Honorable would be getting out.