Fun and games with ballot papers

[Bryn]

The matron writes:

Carry on patronising. As if I care....I don't ...in case you're still confused.

[teamsaint]

Oh FFS...stop living in a dream world. Do you actually understand economics ? Do you actually understand reality ? Do you even understand that maybe, just maybe, there are websites out there that are deliberately providing distorted information ? Or do you only look at those that support your viewpoint ?

Is there an Ignore option on this forum ? If there is, I'll put you on it.

Even MrGongGong agrees with me that I can offset my putative capital gains tax on the sale of my property by the amount I've spent on adding value to it...

Understand Economics? Do tell all.

Shouldn’t take long ...........

But for those who can’t wait, here’s some basic stuff from an undergrad course at MIT, fairly typical of undergrad courses on fundamentals I suspect. Enjoy !!

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-01-principles-of-microeconomics-fall-2007/lecture-notes/14_01_lec03.pdf

( no wonder our economies are a shambles, but thats another story)

[ahinton]

Yes there is. Put me on it too please.

Me, too!

[Bryn]

Understand Economics? Do tell all.

Shouldn’t take long ...........

But for those who can’t wait, here’s some basic stuff from an undergrad course at MIT, fairly typical of undergrad courses on fundamentals I suspect.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-01-principles-of-microeconomics-fall-2007/lecture-notes/14_01_lec03.pdf

( no wonder our economies are a shambles, but thats another story)

'cept that's econometrics, rather than economics in general. Following tonight's C4 debate, from which the cowardly Johnson and Farage absented themselves, we should all be thumbing back through Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process. Were he living today he would have undoubtedly have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics which Samuelson argued he had wrongly been denied.

[teamsaint]

'cept that's econometrics, rather than economics in general. Following tonight's C4 debate, from which the cowardly Johnson and Farage absented themselves, we should all be thumbing back through Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process. Were he living today he would have undoubtedly have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics which Samuelson argued he had wrongly been denied.

Doubtless you are right, but that sort of stuff gets covered in economics undergrad courses though?


And surely this is the dirtiest British election ever ?

[Bryn]

That sort of stuff gets covered in economics undergrad courses though?

Yes, but I had to find a vehicle for the Georgescu-Roegen plug, innit?

And surely this is the dirtiest British election ever ?

I would not be too sure about that. The 19th Century saw some pretty dirty stuff too. Certainly the dirtiest UK General Election this Century, so far.

[Dave2002]

That isn't the point. Treating the whole thing as a game you can just opt out of is wrong.

My point was that you can now use your own response to your previous actions to avoid repeating the “mistake”, and possibly to modify the behaviour of others. There is no point in worrying about things which have already happened and can’t now be changed.

[cloughie]

I would not be too sure about that. The 19th Century saw some pretty dirty stuff too. Certainly the dirtiest UK General Election this Century, so far.

You shouldn’t beleive all you saw on Poldark - but eligibility to vote was a big factor on outcomes in the past!

[Bryn]

You shouldn’t beleive all you saw on Poldark - but eligibility to vote was a big factor on outcomes in the past!

Having never watched Poldark, it's a bit difficult to respond to that.

[ahinton]

I can offset my putative capital gains tax on the sale of my property by the amount I've spent on adding value to it...

So? Is anyone saying that there's anything wrong with that? It's not much different in principle to the self-employed sole trader controlling his/her income tax liability by claiming legitimate allowable expenses against gross profits.

[oddoneout]

A bit of light relief perhaps...
From the Boy John's letters in Norfolk dialect to the Eastern Daily Press, commenting on the February 1950 general election.
"Well, thas over (the election I mean), an sum on 'em ha got wot they want - an sum hearnt. We dint fare to ha' no time to think about walentines nor yit pancearkes. My hart, that finished up a rumin, dint it? All them wot woted put down a X, that ment a draw - an they werry nigh got it tew, nigher than wot they git them football coupons."
This is the context

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_United_Kingdom_general_election

[Anastasius]

Teamsaint asked for facts. Here are two. 100% true.

Fact 1 - Jezza said that Labour will plant 2 billion trees by 2040.

Fact 2 - that is planting 200 trees....every minute...every hour...24 hours a day...every day for the next twenty years.

Highly unrealistic. Totally unachievable. If anyone begins to think that this is possible maybe needs to re-evalutae their contact with reality.

Now planting trees is not exactly rocket science. Get a spade. Dig a hole. Put tree in hole. Fill in hole. Job done.

But if Jezza conjures up this meaningless and unrealistic number on something as simply as planting a tree....is this really the man you want running the country ?

[teamsaint]

Teamsaint asked for facts. Here are two. 100% true.

Fact 1 - Jezza said that Labour will plant 2 billion trees by 2040.

Fact 2 - that is planting 200 trees....every minute...every hour...24 hours a day...every day for the next twenty years.

Highly unrealistic. Totally unachievable. If anyone begins to think that this is possible maybe needs to re-evalutae their contact with reality.

Now planting trees is not exactly rocket science. Get a spade. Dig a hole. Put tree in hole. Fill in hole. Job done.

But if Jezza conjures up this meaningless and unrealistic number on something as simply as planting a tree....is this really the man you want running the country ?

Did I ask for facts?

Anyway, saying that things are unachievable is part of why we are in the place we are.
I’d rather have somebody with high if ultimately unattainable ambition running the place, rather than the mean spirited class based self interest thas has defined our leaderships for most of my adult life.

[Anastasius]

Did I ask for facts?

Anyway, saying that things are unachievable is part of why we are in the place we are.
I’d rather have somebody with high if ultimately unattainable ambition running the place, rather than the mean spirited class based self interest thas has defined our leaderships for most of my adult life.

My goodness...you really DO think he's the Messiah !

[Richard Tarleton]

Teamsaint asked for facts. Here are two. 100% true.

Fact 1 - Jezza said that Labour will plant 2 billion trees by 2040.

Fact 2 - that is planting 200 trees....every minute...every hour...24 hours a day...every day for the next twenty years.

Highly unrealistic. Totally unachievable. If anyone begins to think that this is possible maybe needs to re-evalutae their contact with reality.

Now planting trees is not exactly rocket science. Get a spade. Dig a hole. Put tree in hole. Fill in hole. Job done.

...those figures courtesy of the BBC's Chris Mason, quoted in Matt Chorley's Red Box Election Countdown in today's Times (I think sources should be acknowledged if someone else has done all the work )

Actually - and an entirely non-party point here - it's vastly more complicated than that - have you ever done it? The right tree in the right soil type/ecosystem, soil preparation, aftercare (planted trees need a lot of care, compared to trees which have grown themselves from seed in the wild) - weeding, tree guards (against rabbits, deer, squirrels), and so on, otherwise your tree planting is a waste of effort as they will all die. It's actually costly and labour-intensive, and this doesn't stop when you plant the tree. The auction of tree-palnting promises was meaningless, Labour's (and this is party political) more meaningless than the rest by virtue of being the most extravagant (and mathemativcally impossible). I don't suppose any of them has planted a tree in their lives.

In many circumstances (e.g. rewilding the uplands) it would be much better simply to exclude sheep, or exclude or cull deer, or both, and let nature do the job unaided, but that takes time and is more difficult politically. I passed the time in the gym this afternoon listening to Jonathan Bartley (I think his name is) of the Green Party, and he evaded this question (about farming in the uplands, also the one about eating venison), indeed I found his lack of environmental knowledge surprising.