Kebabistan – in Turkey

iGo Hungry – Sheffield. This one I cannot explain.

The latest four wheel drive versions of the Model S (P85D) are 700hp, have a quoted range of 300 miles, spacious (can be specified with 7 seats), luxurious and cost little more than an equivalent AMG/M5 barge.

I also like the fact that Tesla gave up their IP a couple of years ago. Marketing perhaps, but the stated reason was to proliferate BEV tech and hence have a larger market in the future. Forward and unconventional thinking.

Buy one of these for £999;

Transfer bits.

Sell HT frame for £130 or more (they’re £200 from on-one).

Steve – we’re 8 riders all on trail bikes. Lack of braking bumps sounds ideal for my baby-soft hands!

Cheers Jambalaya, email on its way!

Great stuff, thanks chaps. I wasn’t sure if the passportes route could be broken up into smaller bits, but this gives me the confidence to get planning just that.

Vinnyeh – I’ve just looked up the English version of that book – £43 on Amazon! I hope you’ve got it locked away safely (i.e. not in Camden…).

I bought the V3 essential the other week – wheels are Alpha and the rims say “Tubeless Ready” on them on the sticker by the valve hole. Not tried yet mind.

EDIT

This image is from the Meta V4 Origin:

EDIT

This one is from the V3 Essential:

EDIT #2

You can see the difference – the V3 has the smaller Tubeless Ready text, the V4 has just “650b”. The V4 Essential says Tubeless Ready on the picture.

Suggsey, I mention the comparison with the golf because on paper they’re the same car, but in reality the feeling you get from them is quite different. That’s not to say the golf is wild – it’s anything but – but it’s certainly more exciting than the a3 despite sharing lots of bits.

To say that cars which are not super car levels are all similar is a bit naive I think. Fiesta STs of the same era as the Clio 182 are are different kettle of fish, as are fabia VRSs compared to other diesel hatchbacks. Not to mention the panda 100hp compared to other 5dr shopping cars. You don’t have to be driving on the limit to appreciate those qualities either, they’re very apparent at legal speeds driving safely and considerately.

And, for the same reason a 330i is less capable in the snow than a Quattro a3, the 330 would not be the car of choice for someone who wants to drive sideways everywhere. No LSD, no walloping amounts of torque and traction control keeping things sensible just in case. It does however offer a decent power/drivetrain, is comfortable and can drink lots of juice if required. Are those not qualities the OP seems to be looking for in the A3?

Lots of chat about monetary cost but not a thought about the environmental cost. It should be part of the equation, especially for those of you who plan on/have procreated.

😆

Anyway, OP. Don’t listen to the folks saying “only an A3??”. You’re coming from a Berlingo – the Korma of cars – so moving to a Vindaloo might be a bit overwhelming.

That said, having driven and A3 3.2 quattro s-tronic and a Golf R32 DSG back-to-back, the reason they’re cheap becomes a bit clearer. They’re very wooly, remote and boring, basically. They also go wrong (my mates did, it was £6k-ish) and are not cheap/easy to fix.

I’d look at a 6 cylinder petrol 3-series, a 330i or the like. Fast and fun, although they seem prone to depreciation.

I like the silicon spray suggestions – I’ll use that on my frame some some she-ine 😀

Lots of car cleaning people recommend Bilt Hamber Surfex HD for degreasing. I use it on chains etc and it’s very good stuff. You can use it on car panels etc too for clearing off tree sap and bugs etc, and is water based so safe to wash down the drain. Use 2:1 with water, so 10L for £15;

http://www.bilthamber.com/surfex-hd

I buy WD40 in 5L cans from Cromwell. It comes with a ~500ml pump spray bottle which is much better than the aerosol. Not strictly bike related – I use this as a machining lubricant for aluminium (MQL, if you will);

https://www.cromwell.co.uk/WDF7322505B

Either the ST4 frame is tiny, or the Cannondale is HUUGGGGEEEEE.

Actually, my vote goes for the Williams. As much as I like the Martini livery, a new car in the Canon colours would be awesome and worth 20 sundays on the sofa to watch in itself.

Closest render I can find;

Either of these two;

At a guess, clutches on hardtails would last significantly longer than those on FS bikes? Especially those with large amounts of chain growth.

This is based on the logic that each shift and each movement of the suspension causes the mech cage to rotate against the friction of the clutch.

Iain, yep, that was easily enough thanks. Spent plenty of time riding round south of derby, and sure enough, it’s pretty and pleasant. I’d have thought there are other places in the vicinity that fit that description too.

But don’t forget, the op is probably a recent grad, full of energy and wants a great city to call home. A city from where he can ride, go out, try climbing and other stuff, and build a varied group of mates. Derby is not ideal to this end, nor is Nottingham.

As others have said, don’t commute by car from Sheffield though, it’s a killer. The train is ace though (expensive mind).

My vote goes for neither. I moved from Sheffield to Nottingham in order to work for Rolls last year. Commuting to moor lane from the park in Nottingham (derby road) wasn’t bad at 7.15am, but I was always away so being in notts was pointless. Moved to derby 6 months later, but honestly, it’s depressing as hell. In my experience you are either a professional working up a ladder or you’re poor. I think there’s a serious wealth gap in derby, and all the bad trappings that come with it.

I moved back to Sheffield 3 months ago. I’m no longer at rolls, but commuting to derby by train is easy and only 30mins each way (plus the free bus). You’ve got the dark peak on the door step, great people, pubs and plenty of other things to do.

Anyway, don’t discount Sheffield, it’s worked for me. And good luck with the grad scheme 🙂

My tale fits with those above pretty much entirely.

I fell in Whistler (because I’m Sick^Rad) and broke my perilunate and schaphoid. I decided once my arm was set in the Whistler clinic to get it properly seen to by NHS docs once I came back to the UK. Which was 2 months later….

I don’t think the wait really did too much further damage – the prescribed fix has been to gradually increase movement through physio exercises. I’ve not seen an operating table at all despite it being quite a mess inside my hand/wrist, because the surgeon was nervous about causing further damage and inflammation. This would ultimately lead to even worse arthritis than I can already expect because of the damaged wrist.

My wrist is no-where near as flexible as it was, and sometimes will cause some pain (if I fall on it etc.) but is practically full strength now. I can ride road or MTB without any issues.

I would recommend hitting the gym to do some weights. My whole left side of my body became noticeably weaker than my right as I naturally took on harder work with my right side. It’s amazing how quickly muscle mass drops away if you don’t use it!

Lamplighter pub in gas town. Very friendly women

Highfive!

Must re-visit 🙂

Price of Ti6-4 in 2007 was about £40/kg. Although it bottomed out last year at about £10, is now on its way back up (as the aerospace market recovers)

Compare that with the price of aluminium alloys, which tend to hover about £2/kg, and you start to see where the cost comes from.

I should think the processing costs are the main factor effecting purchase price however. Machining is significantly more expensive for Ti alloys and I suspect welding is too; your typical bicycle factory just isn’t geared up to process the stuff. That means they either have to fork out seven figure sums to purchase the appropriate equipment (which subsequently also costs £100/hr + to run), or pay an aerospace subby aerospace money to develop and perform a process.

More interesting still is that he’s a died in the wool climate change denier, who has spent his career working in coal combustion research. Not that this would affect his research at al

I’ll concede, that was lazy searching for evidence. There is much better data out there for C14 resident time

However, working for the IPCC or any other ‘climate change’ centre doesn’t mean you’re expected only to produce results along the party line? Phil Jones doesn’t agree, obviously! Climate science funding is just as much a gravy train as petro-chemical company research.

So much that is simply incorrect in that Ben.

Go on then Jeremy, be a hero. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Data about peak coal is very thin on the ground as you will know, but there are some indications that there is a tangible strain on the resource, indicating we’re already heading on a decline. For example, China’s cap on coal output is a reasonable indication that their heavy dependency on the stuff is causing worry as reserves decline. So I would say, even given a decade discrepancy between peek oil and coal (which could be shorter if synthesised liquids take off), the two are synonymous and can be considered the same.

Doomsday is coming not in the form of 30cm higher seas or unseasonably early blooming daffodils, but in a massive regression (or arguably redressing) of the UKs economic status. The pain will hit when we, after several decades as a net oil exporter and artificially wealthy nation, come face to face with our bleak economic future in oils absence. Developing the cutting edge of nuclear plant manufacture, decommission and waste disposal might lend us the chance to control some part of the global energy market again, and stop the UK on a dive into poverty and squalor. The fact that we’d be almost self sufficient* in keeping the lights on (and hospitals working, drugs fridges chilled, schools lit and heated etc.) is an added bonus.

*Until Thorium is viable and we can mine the arse out of Somerset, we might have to ask kindly for Uranium

Two points, once again going against the grain;

1)Waste disposal Are we looking at this just a little too pessimistically? Its quite a bit easier for us to dig, backfill and manage a twatting great hole than is is for Stan the Terrorist and his plucky chums to dig it out again (un-noticed) and make off with our nucleo-scum.
The comment above about fault lines appearing from no-where and poisoning the seas just kind of highlighted to me the paranoia we harbour over this stuff. If you chuck a few hundred thousand tonnes of rock and wotnot back in the hole, realistically, without a £1B civil engineering effort and several years notice, no-one is getting it back out.

2) Peak oil Allow me to come at this from a different angle. Peak oil, an undeniable reality, was predicted by most to occur between 2000 and 2010 (though some yanks pinned their hopes on 2020+). So its reasonably certain then that we’ve already used half the oil available to us, and consequently released half the carbon in said oil to the environment.

To think all that carbon is up there floating about is worrying; fortunately the residence time of carbon in the atmosphere is around 5-15 years (see here). Now if we assume usage grows exponentially, and that the exploitation of fossils has lasted ~150 years, the doubling time and hence stock we have left is about 6 months. This is preposterous of course; OPEC will raise the price to keep oil on the verge of mass affordability and hence maximised profitability until we truly have no more. As such, you can expect future usage rates to follow a downward trend mirroring that of the growth of supply, lasting another 150 years or so. This in itself leads to a couple of points;
a) The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere currently is not abnormal (380ppmv), yet we’ve already given half of what we have to give anthropogenically. Thrice over the past 200 years concentrations have exceeded 400ppmv (1825, 1857 and 1942); at our current output we cannot expect to match or exceed these levels, especially considering our output will decrease significantly in the next few decades as mentioned above.
b) The available fossil resource is dwindling and its price will escalate very quickly in a very short period of time (30 years or so, mirroring the rise in consumption over the previous 30 years). Whether we like it or not alternatives MUST be actioned right now; ahwiles will verify, wind power isn’t *quite* there yet to meet this need (eh Madam ;-)), and neither are the water based solutions. Most probably in the future they will be, but unlike nuclear, they haven’t been lighting and heating homes for several decades already.

Ultimately, in the next 30 years we’re going to feel a VERY big squeeze on fossils (for space and water heating, industrial and transport purposes), most obviously in the form of a lack of affordability. ‘Climate change’ will be long forgotten about at this point, its effects (if any at all) will be stunted by the fact that we just can’t afford to drill and burn the oil in the first place (and after a further 5-15 years, its residence time is up and we’re back to purely natural co2 output).

I’m a big believer that with the right research and progression we can make renewables work for us in a practical, economic and reliable fashion (we do receive 20,000 times more energy from the sun daily than we use after all). We just need a 30 year stop gap, and fission is the best bet we have.

Britains Trillion Pound horror story

What? Letting this thread die? Who said that? Not me, that’s for sure!! 😉

Even Daaaarling can’t stand up to interrogation (but has the cheek to say he’s not the authority on such matters?!). I think my point is made.

Oh and I had no idea this program was coming or of its contents, its pure coincidence its arguments precisely follow my own; public sector cuts, increase national output, look to China for an example of how its done. Excellent piece of programming!

Saving energy in all forms from heating buildings to personal transport

Jeremy; as per Zokes’ response above, due to other fuel types needing to be replaced by electricity at some point, the reduction in use/increase in efficiency required is just unrealistic. If we forget transport for a second, just to incorporate the 60-80% space/water heating requirement would require a 4 fold increase (and that’s assuming 33% of heating comes from electricity already). I’m not saying net energy consumption has to increase, but electric generation capacity will have to rise as other sources diminish.

Please explain why this is bollocks

Please show me irrefutable evidence of anthropogenic, carbon driven climate change. You can’t, no-one can. There are believers and sceptics alike who will tout carefully selected data sets ‘proving’ causation or otherwise, but ultimately as Rajendra Pachauri admitted (with reference to glacial melt) “I think the larger issue is that we really don’t have enough research-based information on what is happening”. That coming from a man who’s organisation boldly told us the Himalayan would be gone by 2035! We’re concentrating on one, minute endogenous parameter affecting global temperature. There are many other endogenous variables, and more importantly some very influential exogenous ones too; none of which are receiving the same level of attention as CO2.

In any other field of science (including the most mature subjects we believe to understand), the level of uncertainty associated to climate studies would cause far greater trepidation by the scientists concerned (see Gravity). The IPCC and the environmental groups are politicised and incentivised by the media to hurriedly produce figures which meet an agenda; as soon as the political impetus shifts or public buy-in erodes sufficiently, the field and its Exponents will fade to obscurity in an instant.

this is completely ridiculous statement

Been happening some time already. According to the DTI, industrial and service sector (where costs are paid more attention than anywhere else) energy efficiency rose by 100% between 1970 and 2000.

The DTI also showed how in final energy terms, space and water heating accounted for 60-80% of domestic and commercial energy usage, lighting and appliances are responsible for 9%. I accept some heating is electric, but the majority of that water and space heating will be carried out by domestic and commercial boilers running on fossils.

IF we get to a point in the near future where those fossils are hard to come by and we heat by electric, no amount of energy saving would make up for the shortfall. That again isn’t even to mention the 26% primary energy consumed for transport, which no doubt will have to be replaced with electric too.

Skywards I tells ye! 😀

Where as I applaud all efforts to cut down the wanton destruction, pollution and rape of resources etc, in the persuit of the all mighty dollar dividend, but what i do chuckle at is mans arrogance to imagine its all down solely to our activities

Big time. elevating fear of CO2 is a-la-mode; governments can use it as a control measure, companies can use it as a short term money spinner. I’ve not that much of a problem with either of those in principle, its not ideal but it has the associated benefit of reduction of our reliance on fossils. Being preached to about man-made-up global warming really ‘grinds my gears’ though, its just a load of bollocks.

I don’t believe we’ll have much of a problem with fossils running out however; we’ll run out of political clout (best case) or military might (worst case) well before the wells truly dry up.

Renewables, one day, will provide for us the clean infinite source of power we crave; the Earth receives 20,000 times the amount of energy from the Sun humans currently require, so we’re not short of a Watt or two. But for now they can’t even get close to providing for current consumption, and as Zokes points out, notions of reducing consumption are laughable (despite both consumer and industrial efforts to increase efficiency, driven by cost). Consumption is going to head skyward fairly rapidly regardless.

Fears over nuclear catastrophes and terrorism are not unfounded, but are artificially inflated as a by-product of the political and media hysteria about the issues generated to achieve disparate objectives. Nuclear waste is a problem for sure, but not insurmountable. Its a small step in innovation away from providing a the medium term ticket we desperately require, so we have to (and will) cautiously progress down the nuclear route whatever our preferences.

Brilliant. What a well constructed, fabulously insightful retort that is. You, Sir, are a true powerhouse of intellect and morality. Or maybe you’ve just resorted to trotting out the same old day-dreamy, feel good crap I blasted Trailmonkey for? 🙄

I’ve proffered an explanation as to why a simple redistribution would not work, and again you’ve chosen to ignore it and continue to assume some baffling moral high ground (which again I’ve deconstructed, proving your ‘values’ are yet to actually help anyone). I’m guessing you either find my response;
a) too difficult to swallow
b) too difficult to understand

For the second time I’m out, and we’ll let this die. I’ll carry on working, building, progressing and taking pride in the human race as conditions genuinely and continually improve for everyone. Feel free to continue on your regressive, jealously driven hate campaign, pointlessly and ineffectively ‘wishing’ for equality and welfare for all.

Junky, looking at your last post, its pretty clear to me that you don’t understand the clear distinction between wealth and welfare. You’re hooked up on the premise that a finite amount of wealth, if spread equally, would provide equally pleasant living standards for everyone. My argument is, the abundance of wealth in the top 10% has no bearing on the welfare of the people in the bottom 10%.

So if the top 10% possess 70% of the wealth, do they possess 70% of the welfare? Nope, they’ll still get ill and die. Would a redistribution of that wealth directly translate into sustainable welfare for the bottom 10%? I doubt it; wealth is an instantly trade-able, fleeting commodity and as I pointed out in my last post, any injection of wealth into a community (geographically or socially distinguished) would disrupt the local economics but not achieve a lasting change in living conditions. Wealth is just providing the gearing for the system, delicately set up but changeable in time.

The problem is welfare can only be earned. Investment of time is the only way to earn it, it cannot be purchased and as such the redistribution idea falls over. The good news is that welfare is infinitely abundant, the more we as a race work (using my ‘philanthropic capitalist’ framework to structure, organise and incentivise) the further we all climb up a welfare ladder. The idea that there has to be ‘losers’ is ridiculous.

Junky, looking at your last post, its pretty clear to me that you don’t understand the clear distinction between wealth and welfare. You’re hooked up on the premise that a finite amount of wealth, if spread equally, would provide equally pleasant living standards for everyone. My argument is, the abundance of wealth in the top 10% has no bearing on the welfare of the people in the bottom 10%.

So if the top 10% possess 70% of the wealth, do they possess 70% of the welfare? Nope, they’ll still get ill and die. Would a redistribution of that wealth directly translate into sustainable welfare for the bottom 10%? I doubt it; wealth is an instantly trade-able, fleeting commodity and as I pointed out in my last post, any injection of wealth into a community (geographically or socially distinguished) would disrupt the local economics but not achieve a lasting change in living conditions. Wealth is just providing the gearing for the system, delicately set up but changeable in time.

The problem is welfare can only be earned. Investment of time is the only way to earn it, it cannot be purchased and as such the redistribution idea falls over. The good news is that welfare is infinitely abundant, the more we as a race work (using my ‘philanthropic capitalist’ framework to structure, organise and incentivise) the further we all climb up a welfare ladder. The idea that there has to be ‘losers’ is ridiculous.

Not everyone can ” progress up the structure” the very ethos of capitalism means that there is a loser for every winner

Providing there is constant growth, there are always more winners than losers.

Look to the USA

The USA is not somewhere I would wish to be poor, thats for sure! There are the facilities for individuals to lift themselves from poverty in the US, but there are more tempting opportunities (drink, drugs, malaise) to perpetuate it. If our ‘mixed’ system leans left 1% too much (for my liking), then theirs leans right 75% too much.

Is that a tacit admission that philanthropic capitalism alone cannot provide everything?

Absolutely. The wealth generated by the capitalist element provides for the socialist part. A 100% capitalist society could stand on its own feet, but considering there are a few people who physically can’t contribute and take those steps up the ladder, it would be an unpleasant place to live. A wholly socialist society however cannot support itself.

some at the top some at the bottom yet we can all progress our way up?

Again, see growth.

The rest of your post

The thing is Junkyard, this is where I depart on a realist route and you continue wishfully on your idealogical one. Redistribution of wealth would not terminally end poverty. Injection of large amounts of cash to impoverished economies would kick off inflation, draining the new resource almost instantly. You’d then either return to the previous levels of wellbeing, or require money to be printed at an enormous and unsustainable rate to maintain.

Lets forget money for a minute. If you imagine the world economy as a gearbox, and the individuals within as the gears, what we have now is a situation where the resistance against the gears is just enough to limit us to a marginal, and (almost!) sustainable level of growth (~3%). In the west, you have some very big gears (rich), in the east you have some small ones (poor). You can change up gears, but like on your bike, that takes extra effort to achieve and you can only go one at a time.

If you made all the gears the same size however, the resistance to the system (natural growth) would be disproportionate to the level of work done by each gear, and the system would break.

Redistribution as an idea has been around forever, but will never, ever happen because those who understand know it won’t benefit a single human being in the long term. (I’d also like to point out that my example of real people seeing real benefit and exceeding a widely acknowledged poverty measure is withstanding; I am yet to be shown a single instance of how preaching redistribution of wealth on the internet has benefited anyone. By that measure, my beliefs are more wholesome and caring than yours :))

You did not answer whether we got more than them from the “beneift” did you?

We’ll have leveraged more from the deal than they did without a doubt, but through their own tenacity the wealth gap between us and China, and the internal wealth gap in China has decreased.

From here;

We find that various measures of global inequality have declined (in the period 1970-2006) substantially and measures of global welfare increased by somewhere between 128% and 145%

(EDIT; I should qualify, if you read into the report you’ll find growth is centred in China, and Africa has actually detrimentally effected the figures)

I hear ya when you say redistribution of wealth would fix a lot of ills, but really, who’s going to go for that? Certainly not the chaps with the power to action it! Its a romantic notion, but what have you (and countless others) done apart from sit on the net and profess it to make it happen? Nothing, because you know it never will.

You must have missed my point that the capitalist structure (which provides for and can be synchronous with a socialist element) structures and incentivises labour force to create growth. There will be some doing better than others, and there has to be one bugger at the top too. But personal progression up that structure is almost a given, and those incremental rewards and victories for the individual are what we live for.

REAL, tangible benefit for people in Asia is the example I give, and it trumps your idealogical notion every single day as a viable method for increasing human well-being internationally and domestically.

you are aiming very low indeed if you think it is miracolous that people now earn a dollar a day

Sorry Junkyard, the (as of 2008) revised figure of $1.25 for ‘poverty threshold’ would be more appropriate, you’re right.

I find it absolutely astounding however that such development is sneered at by you guys? Tell me, by what mechanism would you achieve such benefit? When will you achieve this? Which aid efforts could you refer me to which have achieved such a widespread and crucially stable positive effect?

I fully stand by my rant at trailmonkey. Look at that last post. Its pure working-mens-club propaganda, just pathetic. (though that’s not to say you don’t get the same from the other side, its just emotive guff which could just as easily be found on any page of the Mail and which I have no interest in discussing).

Trailmonkey;

You know, you typify what’s wrong with the average voter. You have NO IDEA how to form an opinion of your own or an argument to support it; you just cling to your titbits of cynicism (taken from whichever side of the fence your contemporaries tell you to) and regurgitate them with an arrogance so as to suggest you’ve conjured them in your own feeble mind.

TJ and Junkyard have provided some quality conversation points in this thread, and supported them with data and perspective which has been fun to consider and counter (after all, all we’re here to do is chew the fat). But you’re just a bigot churning out the same tired old crap, and I refuse to lower my conversational standards to your remedial level. You’re an embarrassment to your argument.

TJ; Can you make it a top hat please? Eating a capitalist icon would be a sweet irony 😆

Would not class it as brilliant but it is OK. Given authors it is not the most neutral thing you will ever read nor as bad as you may suspect/fear.

Yip, just to clarify for anyone who doesn’t ant to follow the link, we’re 92/134 where 134 is the BEST scenario (Sweden, who’d a guessed?!). I can’t be arsed to work out the percentiles on that data, but we’re up there in the .25-.35 index rating (just) which is keeping fine company.

TJ as you say, growth is required and making people jobless, on the face of it, isn’t going to make that happen. The loss of ‘1 million’ jobs is indeed a frightening proposition, and I can’t begin to understand the stress people with families and houses which need paying for will go through when losing their jobs. But I do not for one moment believe the overall unemployed figure will rise by that much; as we established, these people are good workers, used to working with tight budgets and they will find their vocations in the private sector. Its uncomfortable but true.

Once the boat has stopped rocking, hopefully we’ll be able to return to proportionate growth and improvement in public services.

Weren’t you arguing capitalism was philanthropic? Surely it is in the greater good that we all eat, have clean water etc Why has your super system not delivered this?

Junkyard, just to address this separately, my ‘super system’ has been doing this for some time now.

The outstanding and most recent example of the benefit to human kind of capitalism is China. Don’t get me wrong, its no Nirvana, but take a look at the number of people living below the $1/day threshold since China’s emergence as an industrial power. Between 1970 and 2006, the number of people in south Asia living on less than $1/day (in PPP adjusted dollars) fell by 86%. A turnaround of that magnitude in that time scale is nothing short of miraculous, and you hope for the people of southern and eastern Asia the growth and transformations continue to enable people to increase their living standards at such an incredible rate. You also hope that Africa will soon start to get its act together and join in 😐

I don’t mean to make any of this personal chaps, it just riles me when people won’t see that capitalism has been an enormous enabler for the human race over the past few hundred years. Its a great means of organising and incentivising our efforts as a race to better ourselves. Inequalities are a problem, they cause jealously and hinder productivity, though I believe personal gain should be allowed but controlled and made transparent. I think we’re converging on that point all the time and the current direction of our efforts is positive and constructive.

All in, glass half full. Carry on!

Ah, come back please, we were having a right laugh!

Oh **** it you’re right, this is fun.

lassie faire capitalists

Oh! Laissez-faire. Gotcha 😉

Ok TJ, the OECD says total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP for Germany in 2008 was 36.2% and put Britain at 36.6%. The International Monetary fund put PPP corrected GDP per cap. dead level for the UK and Germany. So we’re very equal you’re right, right up until you see that we’ve 3x the state deby of Germany and have a deficit twice as large. We’re keeping up with the Jones by maxing out our credit cards and buying our 42″ LCD health service at Brighthouse. We’re just not being productive enough, plain and simple.

How do you propose we continue funding all these services without making some cuts and trying to increase our exports? Really?

And before you go playing Robin Hood with the redistribution of wealth bollocks again, take a look at the 2009 CIA GINI co-efficient data below. We’re very much one of the World leaders in terms of maintaining a relatively small income gap (conceded, Germany have us pipped).

Look, I think insinuating that you three live in mud huts is about as realistic as saying I think private health care is a winner. CFH is right, we do currently have a mixed model which is working very very well, and our argument concerns the fringes of the system which perfect it. The NHS, educational system, emergency services etc. are all things we should be proud of and pleased to have, but we cannot maintain them if we continue to increase our debt and deficit. We HAVE TO increase our productivity as country, put emphasis on economic and private sector growth whilst obviously trying to protect those valuable services.

To that end, and just to re-emphasise, how do you propose we close the ever increasing trade deficit whilst maintaining pre-2010 expenditure?

😆 @ Cobb Douglas being discredited. Discussed for sure, because of its widespread use. Much like gravity, reproduction and death; mature subjects that still offer cause for academic conversation.

Trailmonkey, TJ, tell me how may socialist systems have benefited the entire human race in the same way I mentioned in the last past of the previous page?

None. They’ve all failed. Pedalling the ‘fair for all, peace and love’ balls is lovely and makes you seem like real care bears (I bet somewhere along the line its even bagged you a hairy arm-pitted smelly hippy chick or two). But the reality is, capitalism has fuelled enormous growth and development for the entire human race. Get over it, and start making a contribution.

Anyway, I’m going to stop posting here now. The adverts on the right (Halfords, Facebook, Apple etc.) are causing me spend money which is in turn powering servers, making rich richer, poor poorer, warming the planet, cooling the planet, killing children, flooding, melting ice caps, desertification, stopping the Gulf stream, and increasing horse fly rape simultaneously. I’m glad you hippies convinced me as such, and also hope you stop posting for the same reasons (although I doubt you will, because its fine for lefties to be enormous hypocrites, right?).

Yes industry does not require well educated healthy individuals with public health facilties and roads to get them to work. Remove all this and honestly wealth would not be affected. Good point.

You’re right. But proportionality has been lost somewhere. Business rates and corporation should go toward maintaining those facilities (assuming they’re paid- another argument) but currently we spend too much and take too little. To redress we should be promoting growth and fair taxation, not taxation to death.

Also, be careful with my use of ‘inefficiency’. I don’t mean the public sector is inefficient, quite the contrary in fact. They do very with with meagre resource, but they do not have any saleable competency which contributes directly to the countries wealth. Its an overhead which has been growing just a little to fast of late.

out of interest do you blame the private sector bankers and the market for the current worldwide economic situation or just an inefficient public sector?

Neither. Its natural (since we’re a product of nature, and the oscillations about the mean are the product of ourselves). Both banks and government should be as well placed to limit damage during the lean as they are to harvest rewards when profits are lush, but I don’t know how to make that culture change.

Industrial revolution. Didn’t the money for that come from the wealth produced by the slave trade?

The slave trade provided the leverage in terms of low cost resource to grow businesses above their natural rate. Its the same as farming work out now to take advantage of lower labour rates, just a little less politically correct.

Its terrible to think of the injustice served to those people who were enslaved, and thankfully the world is a fairer place now. Still not entirely fair granted, but in the past 2-300 years the rate of acceleration toward better education, longer life and social justice has exploded. From our tiny, 75yr long point of view we see nothing has changed, but the reality is 300 years ago the world was a much less pleasant place to live for a much larger percentage of the population. It really annoys me when people try to stand in the way of progression because we’re getting so close to achieving a Utopian society for all, another 100 years is all it might take.

Where on earth do you get that stuff in italics from.

Review of the Cobb Douglas function

As Written by Paul Douglas himself in 1976. The Cobb-Douglas function was first presented in 1928 in their seminal paper “A theory of production” and has gained universal acceptance as a firm or aggregate measure of productivity since. Have a look at Google Scholar and see how many results you get for Cobb Douglas. The paper above gives an excellent overview of the continental productivity growth and proffers some explanation as to why.

Significant expenditure in public services is an effect of prosperity, not a cause, and we are not prosperous enough to afford that luxury currently.

There is plenty of wealth to go around if a small group with teh power did not take an enormous share.

So, so, moronic. Capitalism is actually quite philanthropic in its concept; it enables prosperity and mobility to people at all levels of an organisation. Its success however has lead to such behemoth institutions, the guys on the bottom rungs can only speculate wildly about what the men at the top do and intend to do and so ridiculous, unsubstantiable suspicion grows.

Opening your eyes and learning will lead to all this making more sense, and you sounding like less of a fool.

I’ve just copied and pasted a passage from a small rant I had at someone on this very subject t’other day.

“The public sector, although vital, is an inefficiency (does not add to wealth, it simply facilitates it) and its cost must be less than that of the aggregated output (i.e. exports) minus aggregated inputs (imports). Western Europe increased per capita productivity in the early 19th century, which developed the wealth gap between east/west. The productivity per capita ratio stood at about 7:1 at the beginning of the 20th century, but has dropped to around 3.5:1 as efficient working practices have been adopted in the east, and inefficient behaviour has taken hold in the west. THE ONLY WAY we can begin to prosper again as a country, is for everyone to work towards increasing national output. We’ve rested on laurels (and north sea oil) for too long, and the rest of the world has caught up; playtime is over.”

I’m sick of hearing the same old commie shit being spouted by TJ and the likes. It comes right back to Union attitudes; I speak with factory workers and they’re still trying to decrease their personal productivity, so they get more overtime hours and become wealthier in the short term. But the company is failing to prosper, losing contracts and laying people off. But that is ‘the Man’s’ fault, not theirs.

I’ve heard say that ‘the best public sector workers will jump ship before the cuts’ and I sincerely hope they do. They can be subsequently employed in useful, productive roles which will contribute to the country’s wealth, and in turn facilitate resumed growth in both the private and public sectors. Anyone who doesn’t get that is a **** moron, and I hope they do not work in a position where their views will lead to further destruction of our country’s health and wealth.

[/rant over]

P.S. TJ, Junkyard et al.

I appreciate your sentiment, a fairer share for all is a noble ideal. But anyone who thinks that by speading the ‘fat’ of the rich down through society would enable the entire population to live like lords is clearly burying their head in the sand. Belt tightening and hard graft (industrial revolution) got us where we are (reduced poverty, better health), is getting the far east into a much better position more recently (again, increased health, reduced poverty), but sitting back now is only going to harm us all.

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mike drop[/url] by benkitcher[/url], on Flickr

Fillet, cooked on slate (with plenty of pepper), overlooking Lac Montriond from the tin mines, after a days riding in Morzine. Not bad 🙂

Oh and Carnivore in Milwaukee was INCREDIBLE also.