When will indyref2 happen?

[Boo Khaki]

2 hours ago, strichener said:

And every one of those countries has a suicide rate higher than the UK

Suicide Rates per 100,000 persons (Latest available from OECD)

• Switzerland - 12.2
• Iceland - 11.8
• Denmark - 11.3
• Norway - 10.8
• Canada - 10.5
• Finland - 15.8
• Netherlands (Holland) - 10.5
• Sweden - 12.3

UK - 7.5

Maybe they ain't as happy as they say.

Going off tangent completely, but there are factors in play here other than just happiness with quality of life. A few of those countries have exceptionally high private firearm ownership by comparison with the UK, which is going to bump up suicide simply because of convenience. Scandi and northern countries also have environmental and climate factors which don't affect more southerly nations, most of the UK included.

Yes, obviously people kill themselves because they're unhappy, but just because a country has a higher suicide rate doesn't mean the majority of it's population are not, on the whole, much more satisfied with life than their counterparts in a nation with a lower rate.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Boo Khaki

[ayrmad]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

That's why it is absolutely crucial to take a balanced view and IMO you are not doing that.

You appear to be the one that's unwilling to countenance short term pain for long term gain.

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I have no idea what tax advantages Greggs has over its competitors. They will presumably have more purchasing power because they are bigger. That's business though.

As are all the issues you've been pointing out.

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People no longer eating shite from Greggs would certainly count as a drastic event but I have already stated that I have only used them as an example.

I've heard all these arguments in 1998 when employers paying a quid or less an hour were shouting from the rooftops about how a NMW of £3.60 an hour would cause 1000's upon 1000's of jobs to be lost, they were wrong then and they're wrong now.

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Small companies have one huge advantage over big companies. They have flexibility and you should never underestimate that. A small company can decide virtually overnight to change their product offerings or whatever. Large companies like Greggs cannot do that quickly. Inertia can be the main risk of a large business. Like turning a tanker in the Forth. That is the reason why some of the biggest companies made their names from one or two man bands in their garages.

That's business.

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Facebook has remained pretty much unchanged from the initial principle designed and written by a few guys in their bedrooms. There have been no major product innovations since. Google's primary product was the same. The same story is seen with IBM, Apple, Ebay, Amazon, Motorola, Wikipedia, Twitter, Nokia, and thousands upon thousands of others. All the major innovations were done when these companies were small with relatively little coming once they became big.These large behemoths are extremely vulnerable to takeovers, mergers and most of all to the next small player in his garage. Always has been the case, always will be. I am old enough to have seen these types of companies come, grow seemingly out of control and then fade away.

You're having a laugh.

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Now having set the scene I can give you another example.  Let's take Waterstones as an example. They came in a couple of decades ago in a blaze of glory sweeping all before them. At one point very recently they were considered unstoppable. Then a shock came. As it always does. The internet arrived bringing Amazon with it. Waterstones have been unable to react quickly enough because of their huge size and the sheer scale involved in moving book sales online and are in big trouble. Add in a minimum wage of say £9 per hour and this might kill them off. Fair enough you may say, but that's thousands of people on the dole. Who has benefitted from the £9 per hour wage? You need to be very careful about bringing in policies such as this. Small booksellers can switch to an online business literally overnight, close their expensive shops and convert to mail order with minimal loss of staff. Waterstones has shareholders to answer to. The small bookshop doesn't and can possibly take a hit for a short time to change course. Waterstones have to make more profit than the previous year or senior board members can lose their jobs. This impacts on how much flexibility they can have. Again small businesses don't have this problem.

Who cares, that's life, evolve or die.

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That is an example of how a shock can affect one business considerably more than another in exactly the same sector.

Again, who cares, perhaps we should have stopped all these innovations that apparently haven't happened and just kept VHS video recorders and wind up mobiles so folk could just stay in the same low level job for life.

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The situation is far more complicated than you are making out and you need to be VERY careful. This is what New Labour realised in the 1990s. You have to ditch the idealistic lefty "moral high ground" grabbing bullshit and start demonstrating that you understand the delicate balance of the financial ecosystem before anyone will vote for your views. That's all I am saying.

I'm not asking anyone to vote for me or my views and I was voting Tory(Reynard and myself against the rest on here) until I converted to YES, I certainly can't remember the Conservatives campaigning on an idealistic lefty "moral high ground" grabbing bullshit manifesto in my adult lifetime.

Edited April 19, 2017 by ayrmad

[Baxter Parp]

Aye, and next you'll be telling me Carlsberg is probably the best beer in the world. Seriously, spend some time there and you'll quickly see how meaningless that report is. Would you be happy living in a town the size of St Andrews which doesn't have a single place to go and watch the football on TV? Where a thirty year old two carriage train stops by every hour in a country with no bus alternative? Where you can't get a coffee between 3pm on Saturday and 10am on Monday?

Yeah, thanks. You can't extrapolate your experience to an entire country and its people.

[strichener]

56 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Going off tangent completely, but there are factors in play here other than just happiness with quality of life. A few of those countries have exceptionally high private firearm ownership by comparison with the UK, which is going to bump up suicide simply because of convenience. Scandi and northern countries also have environmental and climate factors which don't affect more southerly nations, most of the UK included.

Yes, obviously people kill themselves because they're unhappy, but just because a country has a higher suicide rate doesn't mean the majority of it's population are not, on the whole, much more satisfied with life than their counterparts in a nation with a lower rate.

I am not going to disagree with you but the post I responded to attempted to portray all these countries as happy places.  It may be that  whatever the specific organisation used to measure "happiness" was biased towards countries that have high taxation for all I know.  However, if there are more happy people in these countries than in the UK then there are obviously a higher proportion that are more unhappy in these countries than the UK based on an assumption that happy people don't tend to kill themselves intentionally.

Edited April 19, 2017 by strichener

[pandarilla]

I am not going to disagree with you but the post I responded to attempted to portray all these countries as happy places.  It may be that  whatever the specific organisation used to measure "happiness" was biased towards countries that have high taxation for all I know.  However, if there are more happy people in these countries than in the UK then there are obviously a higher proportion that are more unhappy in these countries than the UK based on an assumption that happy people don't tend to kill themselves intentionally.

A huge amount of the happiness stuff is to do with the nature of society. We have a very isolated, almost broken society. The neoliberal model is a lonely one - with everyone in it for themselves - pitted against their neighbors. It's pretty horrible.

[Granny Danger]

3 hours ago, oaksoft said:

If we shut down all those businesses half of the UK would be out of work overnight. Brilliant.

No wonder the hard left are called the looney left.

So you're saying that half of those employed in the U.K. are not paid a decent wage by their empoyer(s)?  I'm glad you're recognising this; pity you're not prepared to condemn it as any decent person would.

At least I can sleep soundly at night knowing that I don't contribute to this shocking situation.

[pandarilla]

Seriously bud. What part of the country do you live in because I don't recognise ANY of this.
In which part of the country are neighbours pitted against neighbours????
We may have our problems but this is a great country to live in.
 

I wasn't meaning literal neighbours, I'm generalising. The competitive nature of the system we live under is bad for any sense of social cohesion.

[pandarilla]

I wasn't meaning literal neighbours, I'm generalising. The competitive nature of the system we live under is bad for any sense of social cohesion.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/03/comment.mentalhealth

[DiegoDiego]

15 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

Yeah, thanks. You can't extrapolate your experience to an entire country and its people.

What on earth are you wittering on about? I'm pretty sure they didn't make up special opening hours and train timetables just for me. Away back to Wikipedia with you.

[Baxter Parp]

18 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

What on earth are you wittering on about? I'm pretty sure they didn't make up special opening hours and train timetables just for me. Away back to Wikipedia with you.

Some people might like that, dimwit.

[Am Featha Taigh Nan Clach]

I wasn't meaning literal neighbours, I'm generalising. The competitive nature of the system we live under is bad for any sense of social cohesion.

The vast majority of people I know have a job they don't mind, 40 hr or less working week and earn a reasonable wage that allows them to live comfortably.

Although there are many people who are very poor and trapped in low paid, soul destroying jobs, let's not pretend everything is dreadful and we're all miserable. A fair percentage of the population are happy with their lot. It's why the Tories get voted for in the first place

[HTG]

On Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 11:38, oaksoft said:

 

 

I made the mistake of thinking 

Spot. Fucking. On

[NotThePars]

The vast majority of people I know have a job they don't mind, 40 hr or less working week and earn a reasonable wage that allows them to live comfortably.

Although there are many people who are very poor and trapped in low paid, soul destroying jobs, let's not pretend everything is dreadful and we're all miserable. A fair percentage of the population are happy with their lot. It's why the Tories get voted for in the first place

By that logic it only means about one third of the electorate are happy with their lot since the Tories only poll about 37%.

[NotThePars]

You really need to stop posting this sort of nonsense.

Read the quote, read the words "by that logic" then read the rest of what I wrote.

[pandarilla]

I certainly think that the pursuit of material wealth has caused a lot of misery.
People are ambitious on the whole though and want to better themselves. This brings pressure and stress. Some people thrive on it and some people absolutely hate it.
Finding the balance is the key.
Maybe people would find it easier to establish a better balance if they stopped obsessing over what others will think of them.
In that respect society can be both good and bad for people.

Balance is the key.

My life is very good at the moment, and I live in a decent area. My wife is quite involved in the community due to the kids and child minding. I certainly involve myself in the school community and it brings me a lot of satisfaction.

But by in large there isn't enough community involvement in Britain. I think we need considerably more social cohesion - to get the balance right.

Global financial institutions and multi national corporations have too much power. The super rich are living on a different planet (based on any genuine indicators).

I accept that there's going to be rich and poor. Some folk will do well and others will struggle (sometimes due to their own inadequacies and sometimes not) - but we've lost all balance. We need better support networks and we need to strengthen, not weaken, our safety nets.

There's plenty of money to do it - we just need to fix the balance. Those at the top of society have sponged off western governments for far too long. They are the real scroungers.

[pandarilla]

You really need to stop posting this sort of nonsense.

What was nonsense about that post? Fptp governments need less than 40% to win power. This is inherently undemocratic and the idea that the majority people are quite happy with how things are going is quite clearly not true.

[NotThePars]

What was nonsense about that post? Fptp governments need less than 40% to win power. This is inherently undemocratic and the idea that the majority people are quite happy with how things are going is quite clearly not true.

Sorry, mate. I only had one chance. He's not reading it again.

[pandarilla]

Our safety net is strong enough that it has broght about unparalleled dependency, the likes of which we have never witnessed on these islands. The Tories are fixing it but the pain has probably not even started yet, given that we are still borrowing. Our welfare budget is ridiculously large. We are handing billions of pounds to people who dont need the help.
As for the miniscule fraction of super rich? I couldnt give two shits about them as long as they are paying their taxes. You seem genuinely obsessed about them.

And you with those on benefits...

The welfare budget has almost nothing to do with our debt. Borrowing rose sharply when new labour came to power. They spent billions on schools and hospitals (not welfare) which was long, long overdue. Unfortunately they decided to do it by borrowing instead of raising the finances. Then the banks fucked us all over - and the government bailed them out.

f**k all to do with disabled folk. It was the fucking banks!!

You better believe I'm obsessed with it. Not one of them went to jail. Not one.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

16 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Our safety net is strong enough that it has broght about unparalleled dependency, the likes of which we have never witnessed on these islands. The Tories are fixing it but the pain has probably not even started yet, given that we are still borrowing. Our welfare budget is ridiculously large. We are handing billions of pounds to people who dont need the help.

As for the miniscule fraction of super rich? I couldnt give two shits about them as long as they are paying their taxes. You seem genuinely obsessed about them.

Shut the f**k up you pathetic drama queen.

[EvilScotsman]

The Tories are fixing it but the pain has probably not even started yet, given that we are still borrowing.

Two things:

1. Whichever way you care to measure it, Tory governments borrow more than Labour ones.

2. State borrowing (and therefore sovereign debt) is how the system works. That's why every developed nation has debt.