That’s it in a nutshell Labane.
She’s a disastrous character.
And the other side of that is how ridiculous the GOP is, that Trump emerged.
330 million people and those two bozos were offered up.
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On another thread, you correctly state that wealth inequality is a major issue.
Not only is it a major issue, it is the major issue of our time.
Yet you consistently shill for a candidate that is attempting to implement an extreme form of wealth redistribution in favour of the richest, and vilified the one candidate, Bernie Sanders, who had a programme that pledged to tackle that inequality.
This simply doesn’t tally.
The easiest lies to swallow are the really big ones, it appears.
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Class division in Germany and the Scandinavian countries has never been an issue like it has in the UK.
Employers and workers have always seen each other as enemies in the UK. That’s not the case to nearly the same extent in Germany and Scandinavia, which has enabled a much more inclusive and consensus-led approach to business decisions to be fostered as opposed to the autocratic style of leadership that has traditionally existed in the UK.
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Wealth inequality is a problem, but not the major economic problem of our times. The major problem is the destruction of traditional jobs (industry, retail, etc) and failure of the political and education system to prepare people (unemployed and young people entering the workforce) for the jobs that are needed in today’s economy, rather than the economy of 20 years ago. Companies in the US struggle to fill positions as the required skill sets are not there, even though there are 95M not in the workforce, a large percentage of whom could and should be working.
I don’t like Sanders because of his anti-business rhetoric, which extends beyond large corporations to anyone in the top 1 - 2%. Small business is the employment lifeblood of a capitalist economy, a household income of say $200K in the US is in the top 2%. If these people are a problem, the people who employ much more than large corporations (90% of US companies employ less than 20 people) then you can only conclude Sanders is a deluded nutcase.
Yeah, Germany operates its class division on a larger scale instead, like say, against all of Greece.
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This is a function of lack of EU banking and financial integration.
More integration, not less, would help to solve such things.
It’s a function of a basic lack of solidarity on behalf of the powerful in Europe. You know, that thing that Europe was supposed to be all about.
I agree, but it’s also a function of what I said.
Trades and technical skills are highly valued and encouraged in Germany.
Their education system is set up specifically to funnel the sorts that do badly in school here into trades.
They are an enormous exporter, first or second in the world, euro or not. All high value goods and services.
There’s the model of success in the EU. And those ridiculous cunts in the UK voted for magic beans.
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I wouldn’t quite put it on a par with the African famines sid.
This is brilliant, a load of thick oirish apes and yes men riddled with insecurity peddling their “for the eu to survive, Britain must fail” eu propaganda 
you couldn’t make it up
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The decline of industry and retail is to a large extent a function of wealth inequality. Small businesses cannot hope to survive if the working and middle classes see their real incomes decline. The more the game is rigged in favour of those at the top and the more wealth that is taken out of the economy and lies unproductive, the more that effect is accentuated. Demand is what drives small business and wealth inequality destroys demand.
From 1966 to 2011, the bottom 90% of Americans saw their income increase by $59 adjusted for inflation while the top 10% saw their incomes increase by an average $116,071 adjusted for inflation. That’s an ocean of demand destroyed right there.
For all its faults, Ireland is actually a very good example of how state investment in third level education has prepared young people to adapt to changing work environments and high skill professions. Multi-nationals wouldn’t come here if there wasn’t a highly-educated workforce and the state is key in providing it.
Sanders is the victim of rhetoric over small business, not the purveyor of it. He supported the 2010 Small Business Act which invested 30 billion dollars in small business. His policies on education were squarely aimed at addressing skills shortages and his stance on keeping net neutrality is pro-small business. Trump wants to tear up net neutrality. That’s anti-small-business. Trump’s immigration policies are disastrous for small business.
Trump only cares about big business. Obama actually took small business seriously and appointed qualified people to engage with it. Trump appointed Vince McMahon’s wife.
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Hacked, the book about Levenson inquiry, is a fair insight into the poisonous nature of much of the media in Britain. It would make you sick to your stomach what they were getting up to. And no consequences whatsoever seemingly for the protagonists
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Trump is even less short sighted than that Sid, he is not even pro big business so much as he is pro current business.
Untold: The Daniel Morgan murder is a brilliant podcast that touches on the Leveson enquiry and its links to corrupt cops etc
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Just had a look at it there. Sounds excellent. Will have a listen. Cheers for tip
[quote=“Sidney, post:2573, topic:19239, full:true”]
From 1966 to 2011, the bottom 90% of Americans saw their income increase by $59 adjusted for inflation while the top 10% saw their incomes increase by an average $116,071 adjusted for inflation. That’s an ocean of demand destroyed right there.
For all its faults, Ireland is actually a very good example of how state investment in third level education has prepared young people to adapt to changing work environments and high skill professions. Multi-nationals wouldn’t come here if there wasn’t a highly-educated workforce and the state is key in providing it.
Sanders is the victim of rhetoric over small business, not the purveyor of it. He supported the 2010 Small Business Act which invested 30 billion dollars in small business. His policies on education were squarely aimed at addressing skills shortages and his stance on keeping net neutrality is pro-small business. Trump wants to tear up net neutrality. That’s anti-small-business. Trump’s immigration policies are disastrous for small business.[/quote]
Why do you think income for the bottom 90% has stagnated over the past several decades? First of all only approximately half of that number are in the work force, the other half are dependent on the government. The biggest reason is that the decent paying jobs have gone as manufacturing and services were outsourced. Other than HRC being a horrible candidate, that’s the second reason Trump was elected, as he is the first presidential candidate to really make that issue a main plank of his campaign. Outsourcing didn’t just impact employment with large corporations, lots of small businesses were involved in supporting larger business, sub contracting, etc.
Are you having a laugh about Obama helping small business? Visit the US and talk to some small business owners, and ask them what they think of Obama. All they have seen under Obama is high costs in the form of onerous regulations. The cost per employee for small business to comply with federal and local regulations is almost $12K per employee, and a whopping $35K for manufacturing companies with less than 50 companies (the average for all businesses is $20K so there’s a huge penalty on small businesses).
The fundamental issue however is the tax system which encourages multinationals to offshore and retain their profits in tax havens, while burdening small businesses who have no such option. Reforming the tax system isn’t easy however as both parties are in the pockets of the MNCs, and anyone thinking otherwise is deluded. Trump at least has a shot at getting it done as he understands how business operates, unlike Obama and Sanders in particular who never worked a day of his life in the private sector.
I agree with you on Ireland.
What would go into making up that cost? PRSI or equivalent? Seems ridiculous
Mainly because the tax system has been continually rebalanced to favour the richest. When the top tax rate is 70%, a cut for the richest one could possibly argue that a cut might promote some economic growth, when it’s 40%, a cut won’t have the desired effect, it only eats away at the state’s coffers and destroys public services. When the onion has been peeled back so much as already has, it only creates disaster.
In fact the Congressional Research Service found no correlation at all between tax cuts and economic growth.
[quote]The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate
and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in
the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The
top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.[/quote]
The Bush tax cuts were a total disaster. They were pro-cyclical, in direct opposition to Keynesian economic orthodoxy. They ballooned the US debt and ate into the US’s tax receipts.
Reagan financed his tax cuts with debt. He tripled the US’s debt as a result.
Kansas’s supply-side experiment has been a disaster.
The 95 million “labour force non-participation rate” figure is one that’s regularly thrown around by Trump supporters deliberately trying to confuse it with the unemployment rate and is preposterous. 44 million are retired. 10,000 people a day are retiring in the US. 15 million are disabled. 13 million are taking care of a family member. 16 million are in college or other training.
The figure that Trump is bandying around as 95 million is actually 1.7 million, ie. those genuinely unemployed who aren’t included in the statistics.
All definitions of unemployment were back to where they were in 2006 as Obama left office. 15 million more jobs since 2010. That’s an excellent performance by any standards and any president who has done that after the worst recession in 80 years has certainly been good for small business.
Regulations are there to protect both workers and the environment. Every business owner in the world would like to do away with every regulation they can. That doesn’t mean they should, because business has to have responsibility towards society, otherwise you end up with a total free for all and a total race to the bottom.
Trump won’t persuade multi-nationals to come back to the US. They’ll do two things - increase executive pay and engage in massive stock buyback. US corporate profits are at near record highs and they aren’t going to do anything to jeopardise that out of the goodness of their hearts. Bush II tried a corporate tax holiday as well and it was a disaster. This one will be too.
Trump’s experience in the private sector is a mixture of exploitation, outright crookery and bumbling incompetence. Mixed with his inability to understand how government works, that’s not a recipe for success.
The NHS is under cyber terror attack.