>>90255
ABOUT FUCKING TIME

>>90336

Al Gore's office, circa 2006.

>>94556
Oh thats incredible. A Mac Pro with 3x30" screens - I used to have exactly the same setup.

>>94557
That must have cost forty billion pounds at the time.

Good riddance to this utter fucking cunt. Not only is he a pillock, he's a class traitor. Despise this little creep.

>>94539
Obviously compared to your average 12-year-old Afghan girl right now, I'm absolutely crushing it. But my life has taken a hopefully temporary turn for the /emo/ and I was comparing myself to how I assume most of you live.

>>94537
Look on the bright side, lad. When your posho parents snuff it you'll be rich.

>>94535
You're not doing well, lad. I wouldn't call myself as doing well because I went to public sector in London instead of earning 3-4x times the money in the private sector, but I still have about 30k net worth.

How did you manage to not save buckets of money when it was literally illegal to go outside?

>>94538
>the only extra requirement is sticktuitiveness.

I think this is something sorely underrated in our society. I wouldn't say I'm particularly bright, I'm just a weirdo who has a bit of self-discipline but that discipline has made a world of difference compared to my peers.

>>94542
>How did you manage to not save buckets of money when it was literally illegal to go outside?

I only landed this job in January, so virtually the entire 6k I mention has come from that.

Before that, I was buried in an overdraft and small loan taken to pay for paying for accommodation while studying for a postgraduate qualification in another country. Prior to that again, I was an NHSlad on a relatively mediocre payband, saving for the said move.

Basically, I've doubled down on my career and future earnings over current savings at every point of my young adult life, and I also didn't get any transfer of wealth from my parents (not implying you did, but it's a factor here). The result is that I've doubled my salary twice and have set myself up well for the future, but should probably stick around and just earn cash for the time being.

>>94542

>How did you manage to not save buckets of money when it was literally illegal to go outside?

Big telly.

>>94508
I had Mrs Dickinson, similar height but solid features, bit of a hard Essex accent which was a turn on for us southern as fuck fairylads. There was an actually fit trainee teacher and I can't remember her name, so I don't know what to make of that.

When all's said an done, I'd probably be willing to go up to Joan Collins level of tarted up but saggy as owt. Nina Hartley will probably get me going for the next couple of decades. Is that bad?

Here we have it.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1015736/Build_Back_Better-_Our_Plan_for_Health_and_Social_Care.pdf

Only 'personal care' costs are capped, meaning the 'hotel style' costs are excluded from the cap.

This means it's likely only around £400 of the average weekly care costs of £680 would count towards the cap, so you are talking being in care for over four years before you'd reach the cap.

If you're self funding and paying £1,000 a week for care then it's still only the £400 a week or so local authority rate that counts towards the cap, meaning you'd actually pay over £200k before you reached it in four years.

The average person in care is there for 30 months, at a cost of around £82,000.

https://www.independentage.org/news-media/press-releases/cost-of-average-length-of-stay-a-residential-care-home-equivalent-to-26

>>94510
>The average person in care is there for 30 months, at a cost of around £82,000.

This has got to be the shittest bit of getting old.

>>94510
The purpose of this is to build on the fact that your live-in home doesn't count towards your assets - so presumably the 'hotel style' costs (which isn't referenced in the document?) don't apply for the target. It's for the care worker to pop in and do whatever that woman did who used to visit my nan (sponge baths? tea? etc.)

I could be wrong but I feel like you're reaching too much on this. What you need to do is plough for longer and deeper into how I pay enough tax.

>The average person in care is there for 30 months, at a cost of around £82,000.

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. The 'average person' likely won't need most medical treatment on offer but we still have an NHS paying for it. Go ahead, go into your nearest hospital and ask if you can play with the defibrillator - they told me to piss off. Fat chance I'll ever get a go on those new hospital beds I'm going to have to pay for while we're at it.

>>94512
>The purpose of this is to build on the fact that your live-in home doesn't count towards your assets - so presumably the 'hotel style' costs (which isn't referenced in the document?) don't apply for the target. It's for the care worker to pop in and do whatever that woman did who used to visit my nan (sponge baths? tea? etc.)

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. People who are worried about having nothing to pass on to their kids because their wealth has been used to pay for care fees are those who have to go and live in a residential home, not those who can manage with domiciliary care that is partially met through attendance allowance.

Point 37a of the document states that the cap is on personal care costs and covered further in point 38.

From October 2023, the Government will introduce a new £86,000 cap on the amount
anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime. This
will be a seismic change in the way we pay for care and will deliver a core
recommendation of the independent Dilnot Commission. It will be implemented using
legislation already in place under the 2014 Care Act, which introduces the independent
Dilnot Commission’s social care charging reform. As a result of this new cap, people
will no longer face unpredictable or unlimited care costs.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>94453
>It's basically an elected monarch and some nobles at the national level
I think of American politics more like a council of village elders who never change, but every four years you get to decide what colour ties they wear. And the village is obsessed with ties so that's all they ever see and don't notice that nothing ever changes.

>>94453

>No wonder they can't walk anywhere, they're probably traumatised without even knowing it.

Not traumatised, patronised. Capitalism is the problem with America, in short. Or to be more precise, perhaps, consumerism.

The unique thing about America, really, when you cut it to the bone and compare it to every other developed country, is that every single aspect of a human being's life in the United States is commodified. Every single little aspect of the human experience is a product, whatever human feeling or action you can imagine, there's something to buy and sell for it. America is the only country in the world where you can imagine some grubby businessman trying to marketise the air you breathe, and instead of a dystopian satire, conclude "Yeah, that's quite plausible actually."

I mean, we're not that far off, but in America it's truly pervasive, because the country is built on the foundational principle that that's exactly how things should be. They don't walk because they're encouraged not to- The car industry wants every penny it can make out of the population, so cars are woven into the very fabric of everyday life. They're not a vehicle to Americans, they're an essential appliance like your fridge or your central heating.

There's a lot of examples that'll come to mind if you start thinking about it. Their mad dentistry has already been brought up. Americans always use tumble driers, even when they live in the fucking desert- They simply never even think about putting clothes out to dry, because they've been sold a product to do it. If you watch telly in the states and sit through the adverts, it's mental. Even religious redemption is a product you can buy.

>>94457
>They don't walk because they're encouraged not to- The car industry wants every penny it can make out of the population, so cars are woven into the very fabric of everyday life

IIRC, there are parts of America where the motor industry bought out bus and tram companies to deliberately run them into the ground. They're also the reason they have the crime of jaywalking, to shift the perception of responsibility if someone gets run over from the car and driver to the pedestrian.

>>94458

America, as is usually the case, is the extreme example. But roughly the same pattern occurred here to a lesser extent.

To my knowledge the only country with a system of governance anything like the US which hasn't suffered a coup is the US itself. Everywhere else the specific system of checks and balances between the legislature and the executive which seems to be fellated by americans and a certain kind of non-american leads not to some desirable system of liberal, responsible, hands-off governance, but to the president and the congress deadlocking (each claiming legitimacy from the electorate) until one side goes "bugger this" and gets on the phone to the army to shell the other lot. (Unlike in Westminster systems which resolve this using the crazy idea of having the PM call a snap election or having parliament hold a vote of confidence, leading either to a new government or a snap election. Or European systems which are their own odd thing.)

There's an incredible gulf between the quality of outcomes their system generates (no coups yet, but the government still shuts down every so often in a ridiculous piece of political theatre) and the reputation it has. (Maybe cargo culting around the fact it happens to be used by a global superpower, even if it is one who'd do much better to scrap their entire system of government and steal Australia's.)

>>94370
Surely it could only be considered to be a trick question if you thought 'black' was a wrong answer.

Fucking hell. I agreed with both of you on the physical appearance quips, but you seem to be going pretty barmy when people make non-appearance quips.

I have noticed that I, personally, do spot far more lookalikes than most people. Maybe I just only have four or five faces in my head and everyone else has more, and so I am much more susceptible to people saying X person looks like Y.

>>94372
>I agreed with both of you on the physical appearance quips
While I'm loathe to point this out, that wasn't me. And if it was, I'd never admit it. But it wasn't.

For some reason I've spotted at least one lookalike of my brother about once a month this year, but only since coming to London, never anywhere else. And he's the same colour as me so it can't be racist.

>>94373
How do you know that it's not your brother keeping an eye on you, when is the last time you checked refrigerator for sausages/plant-anus?

>>94371
Yes, exactly. Not wrong, but a wrong answer. In the context. Nobody wants to be the one to point out someone has a certain characteristic that the whole seminar, or whatever it is, is about. Obviously it looks like a set up.

He doesn't sound very glad at all.

Apparently half 2 is the perfect time for my neighbour to start screaming at the top of his lungs that one of his children is a bastard who is bang out of order.

>>94292
I hope you shouted to him that he's a bastard who is bang out of order for shouting at half two.

>>94293
No, but I've been very noisy this morning. Having the radio on, loudly shutting cupboard doors. That'll tell him.

>>94294

You should spend a half hour at 8am yelling at the top of your voice directly at the shared wall "I can't believe that my neighbour and his son are such bastards. *pause* They are both bang out of order!"

>>93927
Right, employment is all that matters who cares if wage growth -inflation makes everyone except the wealthy need a government stipend to subsidize their income after their teensy savings get drained dry causing median value real estate to crash.

The worst possible monetary risk for labor is a post inflation deflation. Unions are going to wake up one day in the distant future acting like they're surprised their pants were stolen.

Porridgewogs can get an interest free loan of up to £28,000 over six years to buy an electric car. The jammy bastards.

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/grants-and-loans/electric-vehicle-loan/

Absolute state of 'the Tartan Army' in London today.

Rebuild Hadrian's Wall and keep their wee ginger tadgers on the right side of the border.

>>94115
I'll have you know my ginger tadger is perfectly average, thank you very much.

>>94115

Fully in agreement as long as the wall runs south of my house too.

>>93913
>How can we open this anon "EU's" eyes to show him we are doing our best to meet him/her somewhere to figure out this Brexit
First, we could maybe actually try and do our best to meet them somewhere instead of stamping indignantly like a petulant child as we've been doing for most of the past five years.

>>93918

There's that "Royal We" again.

>>93930
Classic english

>>93943
Please stay in the /zoo/.

>>93946
I can't escape the safari zone

>>93256
and has exactly one tree in the middle.
just get sheep*

*caveats. So many caveats. And, in case our resident deviant is reading, don't fuck them. They don't like it. And it's quite illegal.

>>93257
>They don't like it.

They might do if you take them out for dinner first and compliment them on their fleece. I can't imagine many beastophiles engage in foreplay and instead ram their knob straight up that poor sheep's unsuspecting clopper.

Flash sale on robomowers. I'm starting to suspect Big Mower is behind all of this.

https://www.myrobotcenter.co.uk/en_gb/gardena-sileno-minimo-250

Correct, why they will do anything to increase consumption boggles the mind. It creates lower wages, more pollution.

The only thing better than communism is socialism. Instead of sharing a lawnmower you could have a community vote of who the community likes the least. Then this person could be made the slave laborer and could mow everyone's lawn for free until they die of starvation. Then after that the community has the next vote for lawnmower.

>>93241

Isn't there a massive problem in the States where low-rise apartment buildings are made out of wooden frames with cladding, that burn down constantly, only to be rebuilt more or less exactly the same?

We had one big fire in a block of flats and it became a national tragedy, but it happens constantly in the States and it's more or less jut a fact of life.

>>93241 insects can be bastards - at least we don't have termites here, but this was holding up my barn. Looked like a perfectly sound sleeper, but had been completely hollowed out by ants in a mere sixty years. If climate change means the UK gets termites, I'd worry about wooden buildings given our lack of building inspections.

>>93242

Wooden houses in the States are very often built to absolutely awful standards. Americans really don't value longevity as much as we do, and it's much more common that houses get torn down again just 40 or 50 years after they were built to make room for new developments. So there's often no point using materials that will last beyond that, especially if you're a land developer who is knocking up entire streets worth of new units for-profit.

The upside is that, at least until the recent new spike in house prices, you could buy full-size, four-bedroom suburban family homes made out of low-end timber and plasterboard for $200K. But again, you couldn't expect quality for that price.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56821462

Run-down of candidates for Chancellor in September.

Mr. Laschet could face a similar fate as Gordon Brown. They definitely missed an opportunity by not letting him take over during Merkel's final term.

On the other hand, Green Party candidates in Germany seem to have a history of being the political equivalent to vaporware when Germans then actually go and cast their vote. I guess it's that whole thing about a lot of people agreeing that a lot needs to be done to save the environment, but they then can't bring themselves to vote Green because they don't like the idea of higher taxes and petrol prices that directly affect them. Apathetic bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all.

Could end up being a very interesting election though. I was in Germany visiting a friend once while there was some state election going on that weekend, and it was a complete cliffhanger till after midnight, and ended up producing a lowest-common-denominator coalition between very unlikely partners. If you think the 2010 hung parliament in Britain was a cliffhanger, then the knife edge of German elections can be ten times thinner. It's not unheard of that three parties from diametrically opposing ends of the spectrum have to go together and still only have a razor-thin majority.

>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/13/germany-greens-back-annalena-baerbock-chancellorship-despite-dip-in-polls

>The latest poll showed the Greens have dropped 6 points in the polls to 20% and the CDU has risen 5 points to 28%, prompting speculation over whether the Greens will manage to regain their momentum.

>The poll results have also led to calls for Baerbock’s co-leader, Robert Habeck, to take the candidacy from her, although the idea was rejected at the weekend. Their joint leadership was also reconfirmed in a vote on Saturday.

It's not in the bag for them yet.

>>93686
>Most of the money went into large companies suffering financial difficulties in an attempt to save jobs, rather than going into new companies that might create new jobs.
I will go to my grave quite angry that I can't remember the source of a wonderful quote to the extent of "The National Enterprise Board was imagined as a socialist maternity unit, unfortunately it was quickly turned into a capitalist nursing ward" which perfectly summed up how it was messed up: If I remember correctly the vast bulk of their budget went to British Leyland.
Which makes me wonder if the NEB can really be given the blame, except perhaps for failing at what it set out to do by blowing all its money on boring not-all-that-high-tech companies. If you instead imagine that the government just bailed out Rolls Royce and British Leyland as before while leaving the tech sector to the free market without any interference from the NEB or MinTech or any of that, is it really likely Britain would be in a much more impressive place today?
Japan and the US both had much larger domestic markets than Britain, and even then a British company created the ARM architecture that powers most smartphones nowadays, though we don't seem to make much a fuss about that.

But I'm thinking aloud there instead than making a direct argument in defense of the NEB - I'm not familiar with the specifics of its involvement in technology, and while I know that ARM is ultimately derived from Acorn of BBC Micro fame (leaving open some kind of "We coddled them, now they're soft" case for why they seem quite overlooked.) I can't say I'm familiar enough with their corporate history to comment either. It's just that it seems quite possible that the big problem with the NEB (as with the Wilson-Callaghan government as a whole in my view) is not that it was "too left wing" or too willing to interfere in the market, but that it was too orthodox, too small-c conservative, too "common sense", and that we'd have gotten better results if it had been throwing money around more freely, with less conditions and oversight while leaving failing old names to fend for themselves. Something that would sit ill at ease with both Callaghan (who couldn't bare to be so irresponsible) and with Thatcher (who'd quite like the state to get the hell out of the way of the market, thank you very much.), and which would still be a controversial proposal today.

>>93692

I don't particularly disagree with your line of reasoning. What the Yanks did was barely rational, certainly very difficult to justify in narrow economic terms, but it ultimately worked miraculously well.

A Conservative government would probably have bollocksed it up in a slightly different fashion, but the Wilson government still deserves plenty of scorn for their awful industrial policy. It's all counterfactual speculation, but the problems with the tech sector weren't just neglect - the NEB (and the wider government) exerted a huge amount of control and steered a lot of companies down blind alleys. While I can't say that we would have been a tech superpower, we certainly squandered what advantages we had.

ARM is a perfectly British success story - their technology was incredibly innovative, it became ubiquitous but ARM never actually made much money. IIRC they had an operating income of ~£150m before Softbank bought them, which is basically pocket change in tech terms.

I'm told we're a global leader in biotech, but I don't know enough about the industry to speculate about the reasons or even say if that's an accurate assessment.

>>93689
Do you think innovation isn't real or something?

>>93693
Massive inequality feeds into this surely. The rich Americans today throw money at anything, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, they will spooge cash at anybody. Its not simply state driven.

>>93698

See >>93686

>>93475

It wasn't even an argument you spacker, it was a complete guess which I presented openly as such.

Go sharpen your hatchet on someone who was actually trying to argue with you.

>>93477
>which I presented openly as such
Except you didn't. But please do continue to spout uninformed opinions in the finest .gs tradition.

>>93476
I worry about puberty blockers a bit. It's not great being behind your peers in that stuff, regardless of their being temporary. Am I worrying about nothing?

>>93475

>Nobody argues seriously for abolishing marriages

A lot of the early gay rights campaigners did precisely that. The Gay Liberation Front weren't campaigning for acceptance, they saw themselves as part of a broader left-wing struggle against what they saw as the oppressive nature of heteronormativity; they drew support from Marxists, radical fisherpersons and anarchists. Gay marriage was antithetical to the people who first started agitating for gay rights - rather than achieving liberation, they would see it as an acceptance of the oppressive structures they sought to overthrow. Many of the people who organised the first Pride march are horrified by the way in which gay people have acceded to straight values.

From the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto (1971):

The oppression of gay people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family, consisting of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models.

The ultimate success of all forms of oppression is our self-oppression. Self-oppression is achieved when the gay person has adopted and internalised straight people's definition of what is good and bad."

[i]It is because of the patriarchal family that reforms are not enough. Freedom for gay people will never be permanently won until everyone is freed from sexist role-playing and the straight-jacket of sexist rules about our sexuality. And we will not be freed from these so long as each succeeding generation is brought up in the same old sexist way in the patriarchal family.

Conservative sociologists have pointed out that the small family unit of two parents and their children is essential in our contemporary advanced industrial society where work is minutely subdivided and highly regulated - in other words, for the majority very boring. A man would not work at the assembly line if he had no wife and family to support; he would not give himself fully to his work without the supportive and reassuring little group ready to follow him about and gear itself to his needs, to put up with his ill temper when he is frustrated or put down by the boss at work.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>93479

Puberty-blockers are reversible; puberty isn't. They give gender-questioning and trans-identifying children the time to make informed decisions about their future. I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that being a late bloomer is much less traumatic than unwillingly going through puberty as the wrong gender.

Yep. I wrote a big 'Stop Polticising Police' with orange and black marker pen. They can't miss it.

I said yesterday I was going to spoil, but it was raining all evening and I never bothered. Sorry, I let you both down and I'm sorry.

I drew a dick on my ballot but I think they got the wrong idea.

>>93451
>I drew a dick
Another vote for Cressida!

>>93451
They count those for the incumbent, you've naused that right up.

>>93157
It's the thin end of the wedge.

>>93156
>This thread hadn't been touched for six days
Welcome to .gs, where the userbase occasionally has better things to do than shitpost on the internet.

>>93156


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwipdk6-_NY

>>93159
>the userbase occasionally has better things to do than shitpost on the internet

It's the audacity of this lie that really gets to me.

>>93164
Are you suggesting that having a wank isn't more satisfying than shitposting on the internet?