we gave given up borrowing to invest a very long time ago.
Successive governments borrow only to buy votes.
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
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Successive governments borrow only to buy votes.
It would pay for itself (have a look at edf's uk profits). Even if it wasn't profit based, think of the billions of pounds returned, in effect, to consumers to spend (in the local economy)
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Instead of borrowing to buy EDF out, consider borrowing to build wind farms, energy storage or house insulation for example.
if you look at investment only because the dividend is good, you just turn the country into an investment bank. You should consider the role of state investments as seed investments in new technologies like renewables.
Instead of borrowing to buy EDF out, consider borrowing to build wind farms, energy storage or house insulation for example.
Well, yes, like France who, courtesy of a fully nationalised edf, have more nuclear energy than most. Would you rather have state seed investment properly funnelled into development that way or, as with our water companies (with their leaking victorian networks and sewage dumped in streams) into shareholders pockets?
Yes, it was Blair/Brown who really made an art of that, but they've all still presented it as investment.
At least one of Starmers spokesmen mentioned one part of the problem, low productivity, but still not with any understanding of the root of our economic malaise.
Measuring productivity as GDP against size of workforce while including exported services in GDP will never get us anywhere, while we import over half all our food, most of the manufactured goods we need and now even some services!!
It's a recipe that can only ever lead downhill, as it has done increasingly for the past seven decades.
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In which we always fail. We build wind farms with imported parts for example. We used to make the parts, like wind turbine blades, but were outcompeted and have largely shut down that production.
And those three things do nothing for our negative balance of payments.
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we may fail in generating immediate profit but in the long run, will attract much more both internal and foreign investment. It's much better policy than borrowing to buy out foreign investors.
That's the theory, but in practice any investment successfully used in that way ends in one of two ways:
The successful business is bought by other countries and made a bigger success.
Or what we've succeeded with is copied and improved by others, so still losing us the business.
In other words, we always get outcompeted one way or another. That is our real problem, not the theoretical low productivity based on faulty economic analysis that our governments think it is.
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that's true for any country. There is a recent article telling the story of Acorn/Arm. Herman Hauser of Acorn asked Intel if Acorn could modify one of their chips. Intel execs laughed and told them to go away. So Hauser and Curry took on 2 engineers to design their own chip which was used in the Acorn Archimedes and later, sold worldwide to make a myriad of electronic devices. Now would you have recommended that our government funds chip designs and silicon foundries in this country? France has just announced £17bn in a new venture with Intel.
I would do same but with AMD if I were in government.
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"And I'm saying that without even seeing the program!
But I will make a point of watching it on catchup over the weekend. I'll be quite happy to admit it if it turns out I'm wrong, but I would bet a large sum of money the program will be biased, one sided, and won't give accurate facts or statistics that warns of any dangers"
I was partially wrong, but mostly right.
As expected, they chose a bit of an extreme nutter as the example of a 'conspiracy theorist'.
They also had a rather angry woman, who because of her frustration, was potrayed as how the anti vaxx people can't be reasoned with and won't even have a discussion or even engage at times.
But there were a few individuals who seemed fairly level headed. I didn't think they would have even allowed that, so I was wrong there.
However, there is a plethora of hard evidence, published papers, even government and drug company statistics which a truly informed and prepared person could have produced or quoted to counter the majority of the arguments, or apparent 'facts' that the so called experts were putting forward.
The BBC were using doctors and people who work in the field to give the pro vaccination agenda, so why didn't they also include doctors and/or medical researchers who themselves have concerns about the safety of these vaccines? And they are out there.
That would have then allowed some proper debate and discussions, but as suspected, that wasn't done.
As for the advice for the pregnant woman. Wow. I was totally dumbfounded at that section where she was told the vaccination is absolutely safe with no danger whatsoever (or words to that effect). Anyone who's been following the reporting on this whole debacle will know that this is one area that has caused extreme concern.
Hell ... haven't even official US military documents recently revealed that there has been something like a 300% increase in miscarriages with armed forces employees ??
Edit - that may have been leaked 'official' military data from the dod database. I recall reading about Senator Ron Johnson trying to look into it:
This isn't what I came across, but for now:
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/military-doctors-dod-medical-data-shows-300-increase-in-cancer-miscarriages-infertility-after-jab-approved/
Edit 2 - here is the letter Senator Johnson sent requesting more info. Its coming back to me now - I think there was a bit of a fuss as well because after the data got leaked, there were reports that the database might have got tampered with to remove some of the negative statistics. Hmmmm....
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/services/files/FB6DDD42-4755-4FDC-BEE9-50E402911E02
But I will make a point of watching it on catchup over the weekend. I'll be quite happy to admit it if it turns out I'm wrong, but I would bet a large sum of money the program will be biased, one sided, and won't give accurate facts or statistics that warns of any dangers"
So I watched it.
I was partially wrong, but mostly right.
As expected, they chose a bit of an extreme nutter as the example of a 'conspiracy theorist'.
They also had a rather angry woman, who because of her frustration, was potrayed as how the anti vaxx people can't be reasoned with and won't even have a discussion or even engage at times.
But there were a few individuals who seemed fairly level headed. I didn't think they would have even allowed that, so I was wrong there.
However, there is a plethora of hard evidence, published papers, even government and drug company statistics which a truly informed and prepared person could have produced or quoted to counter the majority of the arguments, or apparent 'facts' that the so called experts were putting forward.
The BBC were using doctors and people who work in the field to give the pro vaccination agenda, so why didn't they also include doctors and/or medical researchers who themselves have concerns about the safety of these vaccines? And they are out there.
That would have then allowed some proper debate and discussions, but as suspected, that wasn't done.
As for the advice for the pregnant woman. Wow. I was totally dumbfounded at that section where she was told the vaccination is absolutely safe with no danger whatsoever (or words to that effect). Anyone who's been following the reporting on this whole debacle will know that this is one area that has caused extreme concern.
Hell ... haven't even official US military documents recently revealed that there has been something like a 300% increase in miscarriages with armed forces employees ??
Edit - that may have been leaked 'official' military data from the dod database. I recall reading about Senator Ron Johnson trying to look into it:
This isn't what I came across, but for now:
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/military-doctors-dod-medical-data-shows-300-increase-in-cancer-miscarriages-infertility-after-jab-approved/
Edit 2 - here is the letter Senator Johnson sent requesting more info. Its coming back to me now - I think there was a bit of a fuss as well because after the data got leaked, there were reports that the database might have got tampered with to remove some of the negative statistics. Hmmmm....
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/services/files/FB6DDD42-4755-4FDC-BEE9-50E402911E02
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Whatever, we have to learn to compete successfully, cheaper, or better, or different, or just able to better sell the same thing.
We need to lose the impulse to sell anything and everything the moment any other country seeing value wants to buy it, this related to our mania for privatisation.
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I was also wondering what effect HS2 has on how much it would cost to buy the railways. I'm rather lost off with who is paying how much to whom, who owns what, etc.
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the point is not selling good assets to buy votes.
The system is very easy to understand. A company tenders an offer to run one of the railways, meaning the rolling stock. We the public through Network Rail provide the whole of the infrastructure, stations, rails, signalling etc.
Then we guarantee to pay the company all of their cost plus a profit on top for their shareholders, regardless of how badly they run the railway. If they run it so badly they can't be allowed to continue, we sack them and pay them handsome compensation for their failure.
We should take over the whole lot and not pay a penny to anyone, since as the whole world has long known, no railway has ever made a profit. Ergo, no railway is worth anything.
Railways are only ever a public service so should be run by the state.
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Read all that stuff.. and then went to see on line whether there was any response from EITHER Johnson or the DoD in the ensuing months .. March, April May, June ..and surprise ...no response from Johnson in respect of this topic . Now if it were real would you not have expected at least a peep!.
Brexit really is the fount of all ...
Homegrown red tape doubles Brexit bill for chemicals companies to £2bn
FT 26/07/2022
Homegrown red tape doubles Brexit bill for chemicals companies to £2bn
FT 26/07/2022
did you watch Truss v Sunak on BBC last night? If you did, who do you think win it?
I couldn't be bothered to since these TV public debates make all participants the losers.
It's no longer about the best anyway, it's been reduced to a female vote issue now a woman has been eliminated leaving a woman against a man. The combined female vote will now almost certainly ensure Truss gets to be PM, such is feminist activism now.
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