The news thread

[aaid]

7 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

Far-right libertarian outsider Javier Milei has won Argentina's presidential run-off poll, according to provisional results.

Mr Milei's proposals, which included detonating the central bank, won support with voters desperate for change.

Reacting to the result, former President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: "The whole world was watching! I am very proud of you.

"You will turn your country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again!"

His talk of introducing the US dollar as the country's official currency was met with applause by his supporters. Many economists though talk of financial disaster.

No matter, in a country where annual inflation is now over 140% and two in five people live in poverty, his win proves that Argentinians are fed up with traditional politics and economic disaster.

His victory means they are willing to try something new in an effort to make their lives better.

You sure it’s not Bernard Manning?

[Kirk]

On 11/17/2023 at 3:48 PM, Ally Bongo said:

Yes

My wealthy Aunt passed away last year and her estate is roughly around £800k to £1million 

Going at the top range would mean Inheritance Tax of £260,000 leaving £740,000 to be split between two of us

It basically means her estate is being split 3 ways with HMRC getting nearly a third of money that she paid tax on all her life

 

I'm with you here 💯. The money has had tax paid on it. Inheritance tax is a nonsense. When people go the money should go wherever they have chosen and it should be the full amount regardless of how much or how little.

 

Enjoy your money though and spend it wisely.....coke and hookers in Germany 

[RanelaghScot]

I'm in Argentina (fantastic choice that's turning out to be...) so I thought I'd write a few words about it as a sort of therapy..

Javier Milei began as an almost comedy figure on some TV shows but slowly got converted into a more "serious" figure for the masses by the same organisations behind Trump and Bolsonaro (no surprise his first international trip includes Israel).

It was a task made easy by the country's media, 99% of media outlets here are Argentinian versions of GB News but more extreme.

Take an inflation rate of almost 150% and a government that was doing practically sweet F all about it and it was a recipe for disaster..

A significant percentage of his voters don't think he'll actually do what he proposes or think that at least he can be stopped in congress.

His platform is libertarian in the economy but ultra-conservate on social matters. The true evil in his movement is his vice presidential pick who openly supports the military dictatorship of the 1970s that killed at least 30 thousand people (international supporters of Milei usually ignore this...).

His voters? I'd say for every person that truly is suffering from high inflation and unable to put food on the table looking desperately for a solution there is a 23 year old bellend living off their parents who believes that it's the world's problem that he can't speak with women (look at any rally that Milei holds and it just screams INCEL).

As for my wife and I we constructed our house last year so we're fixed in place, we're going to batten down the hatches for at least four years and hope everything blows over..

Edited November 21, 2023 by RanelaghScot

[Alibi]

The thing about inheritance tax is that it is imposed on people who have wealth up to a certain point, but those who are even richer can avoid it entirely.  I think the starting point is £500k at the moment, and that's not actually a lot if you have a house, a car etc.  It's a lot if you have nothing, but that's really a different issue and should be addressed by governments setting tax rates that generate sufficient money to ensure everyone has a proper safety net - the idea of a universal basic income seems like a reasonable concept to me.

Ask yourself why the monarchy don't pay inheritance tax.  Do you think Rishi Sunak will pay it?  Alister Jack?  Not a chance.  They have their wealth stored out of reach of the UK tax system.  If we had a proper inheritance tax, wealth would be taxed annually on vast wealth like Sunak's wife, and those folk wouldn't even notice it had gone.  Set a wealth threshold of say £10 million and take a progressively tiered chunk of anything above that and it would start a genuine wealth redistribution process.  If folk don't like it, they can afford to move elsewhere.  Instead, the uK government go after folk who've struggled to buy a house, paid a mortgage etc, and then the UK blows it all on wars.

I for one don't mind paying reasonable taxes, but I want to know that everyone else is in the same boat.  And once tax has been paid on capital earned, the tax authorities shouldn't be coming back for another huge chunk, especially at relatively low thresholds.  The UK is a fucking Ponzi scheme and it's being financed by you and me (but not the obscenely wealthy).

[aaid]

The funny thing about tax is that people get all socialistic about it and agree that it should be those with the broadest shoulders that should pay, when they themselves aren’t paying it.   They then turn into rampant hypocritical Tories when the have to pay it.

[Toepoke]

4 hours ago, RanelaghScot said:

A significant percentage of his voters don't think he'll actually do what he proposes or think that at least he can be stopped in congress.

 

If only there were lessons from history there 🤔

 

Great post btw 👍

 

[Ally Bongo]

 

[Ally Bongo]

Annabel Giles passes away aged 64

Diagnosed with a grade 4 Glioblastoma in July (My Mum went the same way in the same timescale when she was 69)

Ex Wife of Midge Ure and TV Personality since the 90s

 

[ger intae them]

8 hours ago, aaid said:

The funny thing about tax is that people get all socialistic about it and agree that it should be those with the broadest shoulders that should pay, when they themselves aren’t paying it.   They then turn into rampant hypocritical Tories when the have to pay it.

Don’t think you’re right…….. fairness is what applies to both. You’re not a rampant hypocritical Tory to think someone with far more wealth and good accountants is ducking it when you have to dig deep……. in fact the opposite!

[Och Aye]

The Record's sister paper the English Mirror. Compare the importance of these Headlines.

[mariokempes]

21 hours ago, Kirk said:

I'm with you here 💯. 

 

Enjoy your money though and spend it wisely.....coke and hookers in Germany 

 

[mariokempes]

Do not waste yer cash on a fat rugby buffy

[ger intae them]

12 hours ago, RanelaghScot said:

I'm in Argentina (fantastic choice that's turning out to be...) so I thought I'd write a few words about it as a sort of therapy..

Javier Milei began as an almost comedy figure on some TV shows but slowly got converted into a more "serious" figure for the masses by the same organisations behind Trump and Bolsonaro (no surprise his first international trip includes Israel).

It was a task made easy by the country's media, 99% of media outlets here are Argentinian versions of GB News but more extreme.

Take an inflation rate of almost 150% and a government that was doing practically sweet F all about it and it was a recipe for disaster..

A significant percentage of his voters don't think he'll actually do what he proposes or think that at least he can be stopped in congress.

His platform is libertarian in the economy but ultra-conservate on social matters. The true evil in his movement is his vice presidential pick who openly supports the military dictatorship of the 1970s that killed at least 30 thousand people (international supporters of Milei usually ignore this...).

His voters? I'd say for every person that truly is suffering from high inflation and unable to put food on the table looking desperately for a solution there is a 23 year old bellend living off their parents who believes that it's the world's problem that he can't speak with women (look at any rally that Milei holds and it just screams INCEL).

As for my wife and I we constructed our house last year so we're fixed in place, we're going to batten down the hatches for at least four years and hope everything blows over..

Interesting first hand insight…… cheers for that.

[vanderark14]

Lee Anderson thinks the asylum seekers should be shipped to a Scottish Island. 

That's not some bnp or national front moron from the 80s, that's an elected MP in 2023 saying this shit

[Orraloon]

16 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Lee Anderson thinks the asylum seekers should be shipped to a Scottish Island. 

That's not some bnp or national front moron from the 80s, that's an elected MP in 2023 saying this shit

Can we do an exchange deal? We could send all our English white settlers to some English Island. 

[TDYER63]

22 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Lee Anderson thinks the asylum seekers should be shipped to a Scottish Island. 

That's not some bnp or national front moron from the 80s, that's an elected MP in 2023 saying this shit

He is not just an MP either he is the bloody deputy chairman of the party. They have well and truly lost the plot. 

Cutting benefits for people with mental health problems unless they agree to wfh. Would that be mental health problems that have sky rocketed during  Covid and exacerbated by the need to stay at home  ? 

[StirlingEgg]

1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

Lee Anderson thinks the asylum seekers should be shipped to a Scottish Island. 

That's not some bnp or national front moron from the 80s, that's an elected MP in 2023 saying this shit

Diversion tactic from analysis of another unhelpful budget? 

[Ally Bongo]

 

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/mystery-child-pneumonia-sweeps-through-chinese-schools-leading-to-hospitalisations-4597996

 

[scotlad]

8 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

Lee Anderson thinks the asylum seekers should be shipped to a Scottish Island. 

That's not some bnp or national front moron from the 80s, that's an elected MP in 2023 saying this shit

I think he might have said the quiet bit out loud!

Anderson, like most English-based MPs, holds the sensibilities of his constituents far above the welfare of vulnerable people, and certainly way above the needs and best interests of a part of the country that doesn't generally vote for his party anyway. The UKG has been sending asylum seekers to Scottish towns and cities since the late '90s/early '00s, when Labour had Scottish votes in the bag and would go out of their way to avoid upsetting middle England voters in the marginal constituencies they'd worked so hard to win over.

As an idea it is only slightly more crackpot than housing dozens of Syrian refugees in Rothesay. Considering the lengths the UKG are going to to get the Rwanda plan off the ground it wouldn't surprise me if housing them on a Scottish island en bloc is one of their mad contingency plans.

 

8 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

He is not just an MP either he is the bloody deputy chairman of the party. They have well and truly lost the plot. 

Cutting benefits for people with mental health problems unless they agree to wfh. Would that be mental health problems that have sky rocketed during  Covid and exacerbated by the need to stay at home  ? 

I suppose it depends on the nature of someone's mental health problem. If someone is okay within their own home but goes to pieces when they go outside then it could work, but it's very much a person-specific thing.

Another issue is that not every job on the market can be done from home, and not every person's home will be geared up to home working anyway. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by scotlad

[Malcolm]

On 11/21/2023 at 10:08 AM, Alibi said:

The thing about inheritance tax is that it is imposed on people who have wealth up to a certain point, but those who are even richer can avoid it entirely.  I think the starting point is £500k at the moment, and that's not actually a lot if you have a house, a car etc.  It's a lot if you have nothing, but that's really a different issue and should be addressed by governments setting tax rates that generate sufficient money to ensure everyone has a proper safety net - the idea of a universal basic income seems like a reasonable concept to me.

Ask yourself why the monarchy don't pay inheritance tax.  Do you think Rishi Sunak will pay it?  Alister Jack?  Not a chance.  They have their wealth stored out of reach of the UK tax system.  If we had a proper inheritance tax, wealth would be taxed annually on vast wealth like Sunak's wife, and those folk wouldn't even notice it had gone.  Set a wealth threshold of say £10 million and take a progressively tiered chunk of anything above that and it would start a genuine wealth redistribution process.  If folk don't like it, they can afford to move elsewhere.  Instead, the uK government go after folk who've struggled to buy a house, paid a mortgage etc, and then the UK blows it all on wars.

I for one don't mind paying reasonable taxes, but I want to know that everyone else is in the same boat.  And once tax has been paid on capital earned, the tax authorities shouldn't be coming back for another huge chunk, especially at relatively low thresholds.  The UK is a fucking Ponzi scheme and it's being financed by you and me (but not the obscenely wealthy).

inheritance tax is morally wrong.  It’s double dipping by the government and should be scrapped.  Wealth creation should be encouraged and not actively discouraged.

[Ally Bongo]

Veteran anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders has won a dramatic victory in the Dutch general election, with almost all votes counted.

But to fulfil his pledge to be "prime minister for everyone", he will have to persuade other parties to join him in a coalition. His target is 76 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Mr Wilders, 60, harnessed widespread frustration about migration promising "borders closed", and he put on hold his promise to ban the Koran.

He tempered his anti-Islam rhetoric in the run-up to the vote, saying there were more pressing issues at the moment and he was prepared to "put in the fridge" his policies on banning mosques and Islamic schools.

Nationalist and far-right leaders around Europe praised his achievement. In France, Marine Le Pen said it "confirms the growing attachment to the defence of national identities".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67504272

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Ally Bongo

[Alibi]

On 11/21/2023 at 11:45 AM, aaid said:

The funny thing about tax is that people get all socialistic about it and agree that it should be those with the broadest shoulders that should pay, when they themselves aren’t paying it.   They then turn into rampant hypocritical Tories when the have to pay it.

I don't know if that post was a response to my post immediately preceding it, but I think you're not quite correct.  Nobody actually likes having to pay tax, but most people appreciate that it is meant to be for the common good.  If everyone paid their due taxes, most people would regard that as fair and equitable.  The discord arises when some individuals, and some companies, don't pay taxes that they should be paying, and particularly when individuals use tax havens to avoid paying tax.  Of course folk are going to moan about paying taxes, but I hardly think they're going to convert to hardline Toryism - in fact bear in mind that under the current UK government, taxes are as high as they've ever been in my (fairly long) lifetime.

Whilst I don't object to paying taxes, and in fact have a policy of paying my income tax as soon as I find out what is due (I'm not in the PAYE system), I do object strongly to some of the things on which my taxes are spent; nuclear weapons, wars, the monarchy, blocking independence, and the vast sums stolen by corruption due to fraudulent PPE contracts and other covid-related scams, but that's a different issue.

[Dave78]

4 hours ago, Malcolm said:

inheritance tax is morally wrong.  It’s double dipping by the government and should be scrapped.  Wealth creation should be encouraged and not actively discouraged.

It's not "wealth creation" though is it? It's more like rentier capitalism

[Malcolm]

2 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

It's not "wealth creation" though is it? It's more like rentier capitalism

 

What’s the point of making money for the government to take almost half of it when I die, when I should be able to give it to my kids to give them a better life?  I have already given half of it to the government when making it in the first place.  Be easier just sitting on my arse taking benefit.

No wonder people set up trusts to hide their money.

[vanderark14]

Net migration hits record figure of 745k

Hold the fucking boat, I thought brexit was fixing this? 😆 🤣 😂