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Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,365
16,870
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
Flecc. What about the greed of the bankers who caused the 2008 crash and then were bailed out by we taxpayers? They got off scot-free, unlike the bankers in Iceland who were prosecuted and jailed.
It's always one law for the rich and powerful in this country, another for the rest of us.
Our government made a profit in Lloyd's and RBS shares since.
The original problem was that any one of our big four banks could bring the whole of our fintech sector down if they were let to fail. That problem still is.
 
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Az.

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 27, 2022
2,045
903
Plymouth
it was 5k but i got it 2nd hand for 3500.
So... let me get this straight... you don't work and you don't want to work... and yet you ride bike worth 3.5k?

Man... you are my hero! Where do you live? We should meet in local pub and have a pint or two while complaining about migrants and Chinese taking our jobs. I will make sure drinks are flowing and you could teach me a trick or two. I was working my whole life, paying taxes, mortgage and I can't afford bike like that. I clearly see I was doing it all wrong.

PS Do you also blame EU for all our economical misfortunes?
 
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Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,365
16,870
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
So... let me get this straight... you don't work and you don't want to work... and yet you ride bike worth 3.5k?
SW bought his bike 3/4 years ago, so he's not riding an expensive bike. If I understand the story correctly, SW suffered an accident at work. He could have bought his bike with the money he's got from that.
 

soundwave

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 23, 2015
16,895
6,505
i have a brachial plexus injury and that means nerve damage in my right arm so i can not do any sort of heavy lifting or fast based production work.

but im fit for work because i can lift a card board box with my other arm :D
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,191
30,598
Flecc. What about the greed of the bankers who caused the 2008 crash and then were bailed out by we taxpayers? They got off scot-free, unlike the bankers in Iceland who were prosecuted and jailed.
It's always one law for the rich and powerful in this country, another for the rest of us.
Of course it is. and if you read right through my posts you would see that I've also mentioned similar and the strength of my left wing leanings.

But for two reasons there is no point in saying it:

Firstly it's what children do, "Ah but Miss, John did it too!", in other words lets all be irresponsible. That's not going to achieve anything.

Secondly, even if we took all that money the wealthy minority made and distributed it among all the rest of us, the vast majority, we'd have hardly anything each. We'd still be left with a country of very low productivity, uncompetitive, costly and with too few products, 25% of working age not in employment, widespread abuse of the welfare state, the black economy.

Our failings are across the board from bankers to the rest of us. It is only by sorting the whole country's problems that we will all be better off. So to get a result that primarily means sorting out the majority first.
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,191
30,598
i have a brachial plexus injury and that means nerve damage in my right arm so i can not do any sort of heavy lifting or fast based production work.

but im fit for work because i can lift a card board box with my other arm :D
I once had a friend who was pretty much useless for doing anything, but he still got a paid job. The job centre gave him a job, in the Brixton Job Centre.
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matthewslack

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 26, 2021
1,854
1,341
Sixth largest economy but only 21st largest population. The world's physical workshop cannot thrive with those numbers. Stuff is made where people are cheaper. Unlikely to change.
 
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MikelBikel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 6, 2017
910
329
Ireland
"Factchecking" has got a bad name of late, but..
Gov lost £400m paid in interest of loan that paid for Lloyd's shares to be deducted from £900m claimed gain (they were "v.careful Not to use word 'profit', channel4 notes). And who paid the £2.5bn fee to "leave treasury protection" I wonder?
As for RBS, BBC say they sold £5 shares for £3.30 in 2015 and for £2.71 in 2018, losing another £2.1bn while still owning 62.4% of the £752m a year in profit bank.
Natwest/RBS will mean another £40bn loss by 2024-25 says 'Thisismoney', and less said about Northern Rock, the better. o_O
So when they lose, we pay, and when they win, we lose again. Go figure! ;)
 
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soundwave

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 23, 2015
16,895
6,505
I once had a friend who was pretty much useless for doing anything, but he still got a paid job. The job centre gave him a job, in the Brixton Job Centre.
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id rather kill myself than do that to ppl ;)
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,191
30,598
Sixth largest economy but only 21st largest population. The world's physical workshop cannot thrive with those numbers. Stuff is made where people are cheaper. Unlikely to change.
That is too simplistic. Germany is very successful, the world's fourth largest economy but is also low down the population numerity scale. Success isn't solely due to masses of cheap labour, very far from it.
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Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,365
16,870
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
We should invest less on houses and more in factories.
 
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matthewslack

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 26, 2021
1,854
1,341
That is too simplistic. Germany is very successful, the world's fourth largest economy but is also low down the population numerity scale. Success isn't solely due to masses of cheap labour, very far from it.
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Germany is labelled 'very successful' and is doing better than the UK in simple numerical terms like GDP per capita. And their manufacturing sector is regarded as streets ahead.

But the disparity is smaller than I expected to find when I went looking, admittedly not further than Wikipedia: GDP per capita is only 14% higher than ours.
 

Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,365
16,870
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
Their public debt per capita is much less than ours
 
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,390
3,234
If demand for our exports of new forms of magic money tree, money laundering and tax-evasion ebbs, we'll be even more screwed.

 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,191
30,598
Germany is labelled 'very successful' and is doing better than the UK in simple numerical terms like GDP per capita. And their manufacturing sector is regarded as streets ahead.

But the disparity is smaller than I expected to find when I went looking, admittedly not further than Wikipedia: GDP per capita is only 14% higher than ours.
True, but they are way ahead in so many other ways as well, Woosh highlighting just one of them. It is their comprehensive package of achievement that makes them so successful.

It's the multiplicity of our failures that is so troubling.
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Kev.k

Pedelecer
Jan 22, 2023
109
11
I was a Halifax branch manager when the share value dropped from £13 to 12p overnight.
 

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,390
3,234

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,390
3,234
I was a Halifax branch manager when the share value dropped from £13 to 12p overnight.
I bumped into Howard Brown's grandad - he contributes to his care home costs, now that his grandad has retired from being a session drummer for some quite big names, back in the day. Gave me tips about how to use an umbrella against muggers.
 
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guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,390
3,234
No one in the west is really any better off than us.
This shocked me and not many things do. No wonder inflation is through the roof.
That video was very interesting, until the stoned excessively Testosterone Replacement Therapied one started talking. Go East! Where economies are more real! The West is doomed.
 
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Bonzo Banana

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 29, 2019
805
464
Nonsense.

We were already bankrupt and our industries collapsing long before joining the EU, that is why the IMF took over the running of our economy through the 1970s. I know all this because I was out at work from 1950 and watched it all happening at first hand as we failed to compete in the world with our inadequate products.

You don't know, so with your anti EU phobia you place all the blame for our failings on the EU. How are they to blame for our continuing failures since we've left? Such as our failure to get the trade agreements that the leavers promised.

And if the EU is so bad, how come all the other members economies are so far ahead of ours now? How come Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Italy as EU members subject to the same rules do so well? How come even the French workers with their much shorter working week are 20% more productive than the British?

The answers are all there, we don't have enough British mass production products that the world wants, so we make other countries products and their profits for them. Our productivity is so poor our own goods are too expensive. Our few designs too often lag far behind current standards. And as the PM remarked, 25% of all Britons of working age are not employed though not shown as unemployed. How can we succeed if a quarter of the country's workers aren't even working or wanting to work?

The continuous stream of our failures from WW2 to date are all entirely ours and nothing to do with being an EU member, as all the successful EU members prove beyond any possible doubt.
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Are you mad France and Spain has crippling issues like ourselves and huge debts. The EU has been a huge disaster for many countries of Europe. What do you mean continued failures, just because we leave the EU it doesn't mean the industries return in a puff of smoke or the huge burden of debt disappears. This is not something debatable surely. Everything is recorded at the office of national statistics. The decline in industry since joining the EU, the huge payments to the EU and the cost of imports increasing. Seems madness to use the unemployed as somehow a case for your argument. So the EU destroyed our industries causing huge unemployment but according to your logic the problem is the unemployed themselves. So we had good employment until we joined the EU and then our industries died because we couldn't compete in the EU and then somehow its the unemployed's fault?

It's madness to open a free trade agreement to a market you can't compete with when your currency is too strong, its madness to send huge payments outside the UK and its madness to be restricted in what you can buy when those restrictions benefit other countries not yourself. This is so simple to understand I can't understand how anyone can argue against it when the statistics are recorded so clearly at the office of national statistics.

Ultimately we are now just a small country without an empire, politics has to operate in the interest of the people and we have to be protected from ourselves and our huge level of imports. We have to balance the books and start making our country more difficult for imports and create more assets within our own country. It is clear to any reasonable logical person that the EU was a huge disaster for the UK as its backed up by a huge number of statistics across all parts fo the economy. This isn't debatable to any logical person.

To rejoin the EU will lead to even higher build up of debts towards £3 trillion maybe £4 trillion or even £5 trillion over time. It will be absolutely crippling with horrific poverty that we haven't seen for generations. It's absolute madness to consider it. The UK is in a very damaged state and needs some isolation and independent policies to go into repair mode. At this point we have to focus on returning to a trade surplus which cannot be done within the EU as they will continue to dictate hugely damaging policies to us and push their own products. We have lost a huge amount of skills and industrial capacity.

How on earth would we correct the economy in the EU? What policies do you propose to restore a trading surplus and stop borrowing. I just can't see how any logical person would ever suggest rejoining the EU. I know of no logical ways we can repair our economy within the EU unless we half our pay rate or do some other drastic measures so we can compete in Europe.

Lets say we are less productive and more lazy as your unemployed jibe hinted well that in itself would show surely we are not suitable for the EU because we cannot compete in that marketplace so have to be protected from it. It's clear we cannot compete in the EU every statistic shows that and if you are implying we are lazy etc then your argument is we must leave the EU. The only reason to join the EU is surely we will do well in it and profit from it but not even you with your warped and strange logic would go that far surely when every bit of data shows that is untrue. If we failed because of our own incompetence that means surely we are incapable of competing in that marketplace. I just don't get your point of view it seems politically or idealistically motivated with zero logic behind it.
 
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