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Total bollocks

As Nelson Mandela said, “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings.” Child poverty is not an individual choice, it is a collective choice—and just as we choose to perpetuate it, we can choose to abolish it.

It is wealth, income, which is created. The natural state of man is that nasty, brutish and short thing.

Also, the US child poverty rate is, properly measured, some 1 and 2% – pretty good for government work.

Yet that above sort of tossery is regarded as a viable input to the political process.

22 thoughts on “Total bollocks”

  1. I also think slavery and apartheid are pretty natural. There is certainly a lot of Biblical precedent.

    But expecting logical arguments from leftists is liking wishing for the sun not to rise. I just had the misfortune to see a Good Law Project post complaiing about Sunak taking a helicopter ride courtesy of Phoenix – so the private company spending its own money thus saving the taxpayer a few bob – and linking it to benefit cuts.

  2. Bloke in North Dorset

    On a similar theme, I was reading about a radical feminist anti-capitalist group yesterday and it got me thinking that feminists should be the ones pushing for more capitalism. As the great man said, it brought them washing machines and also the knowledge based working environment that means women can work on an equal level.

    In other systems women are still mostly reduced to domestic chores and 2nd class citizenship whereas we’re dealing with the gender equality paradox.

  3. Steve must have an appointment this morning but in his stead I will point out that this guy’s going to see an awful lot of poverty once ‘Net Zero’ kicks in in earnest.

    And that’s before the populations of El Salvador and Honduras (or their equivalent numbers) have crossed the Rio Grande, or the US has defaulted on its debt.

    Bachman Turner Overdrive had it right for sure.

  4. I objected to Sunak’s chopper ride mainly because it’s always those that want to save the planet by impoverishing us and taking us back to the 18th century that are keenest to use planet killing transport because they simply HAVE to get somewhere 10 miles away in three minutes or the world will end.

    Mandela became a hero only because nasty whitey was nasty to him. Draping petrol laden tyres around the necks of his black enemies was fine…

  5. Interesting article that in the Graun. The subject of it is a Senator Joe Manchin who opposes child tax credit because he reckons the beneficiaries will spend the money on drugs.. Nowhere in the article does it mention Manchin is a Democrat. It blames Republicans in the Senate for not opposing him.

  6. Enter Joe Manchin.

    Last December, the West Virginia senator, houseboat enthusiast, and Maserati collector

    Manchin owns one Maserati. a Levante SUV costing c$80k, hardly a collector.

    His houseboat apparently cost $220k.

    Yet the writer laughably implies this level of “opulence” is somehow atypical of politicians. I agree. It’s way less than most of the bastards accumulate over a lifetime of grifting.

  7. Was forced to use public transport yesterday. The bus was definitely arriving in one minute until it wasn’t. I assume it was swallowed up by some sort of space vortex near the previous stop. That screwed up my connection so I gave up. Lacking a helicopter I got a taxi.

    Bus travel is for when you have to get somewhere and you don’t care how long it takes or how indirect the route is.

  8. The American national debt is a trillion, bajillion, mazillion dollars and keeps growing like that frightening 70’s video about powers of ten.

    I mention this, because it doesn’t seem to occur to people that printing and spending funny money is a very temporary and unusual condition that’s going to go away soon. The USA is now more leveraged than it was after WW2:

    US debt to GDP ratio 1946: 116%
    US debt to GDP ratio 2023: 123%

    In 1946, that level of debt was considered a national crisis that required a massive reduction in spending. But the US got plenty of value for its money – it had won the war and emerged as the only major industrial capitalist economy on the planet not to have been ravaged by the Luftwaffe or the Waffen SS, or indeed the RAF and US Army.

    1946 USA had excellent demographics and a confident, cohesive culture. They were well positioned for economic growth and rising standards of living.

    In 2023 they’re pretty much fucked on every conceivable front. Deficit spending isn’t buying them anything except more debt, but their system is too perverted by bad incentives to stop. It’ll collapse instead.

    See also: Great Britain, where £50Bn a year in “defence” spending buys us an Army that would last maybe 2 weeks in a high intensity war.

  9. From Guido:

    Borrowing was higher than the OBR’s forecast of £13 billion with public sector net debt 1.8% higher than last year at 97.5% of GDP. Debt interest payments were higher than all November figures on record since 1997 at £7.7 billion. The government’s response is just to say that reducing debt is a “top priority“.

    But we know reducing debt is not a top priority of the “British” government.

  10. John – yes, this is small beer by senatorial standards. They live lifestyles of the rich and famous on $174,000 per annum.

    Sounds like Manchin is “Hillbilly rich”, so I don’t think Obama will be inviting him to meet Beyonce at Martha’s Vineyard. He’s far too poor for their circles.

  11. Steve

    I ran your contentions by an ‘expert’ – here’s his reply:

    I think you’ll find that The Bank of England’s ‘Monetary creation in the modern economy’ gives the lie to your notion.

    There is historical evidence that U.K. governments have run deficits since the 12th century.

    I have explained how the money could be raised in my masterful ‘How to make rich people pay Moar Tax and confiscate people’s money for my own boondoogles’

    I have accredited status as a University lecturer for the upcoming term at Lower Corby University

    This is in addition to my honorary positions at Mid Skelmersdale college and City University, Cambuslang

    Candidly, you are trolling

    That’s your last contribution here

    Richard Murphy

  12. VP – Marvelous, but what if we trained ChatGPT on Quotations from Chairman Murph?

    Or is that what those AI people were warning against.

  13. Steve

    You have made me think – I might get ChatGPT or Claude to scan it (wouldn’t want to put the great ‘Noel Scoper’ out of work but all in a good cause) and try and have it write blog comments then sneak them in with a new pseudonym – my latest, ‘Ri Mang gon’ could be putting in cryptic comments for sure.

    I have limited experience with ML or AI but I do find the maxim ‘put bullshit in, get bullshit out’ is unfailingly correct…

  14. “Bus travel is for when you have to get somewhere and you don’t care how long it takes or how indirect the route is.“

    One of my local hospitals is about 2 miles away as the crow flies. I can walk it in about 45 minutes. The bus – the only bus – takes over an hour. Once you’ve caught one.

    It’s ten minutes by car.

  15. Does our £50bn a year include replacing all the armaments, equipment and ammunition we give to Ukraine (and which actually end up God knows where) or is our defence capability now much reduced?

  16. Mandela became a hero only because nasty whitey was nasty to him. Draping petrol laden tyres around the necks of his black enemies was fine…

    TBF, necklacing was more Winnie’s thing, wasn’t it? But the ANC were always a terrorist organisation, bombs in shopping centres etc.

  17. the ANC were always a terrorist organisation

    They wrre quite an incompetent bunch of terrorists though. Mandela had bimb making equipment at home. They did manage to blow up that oil refinery in the 70s, but that was about it.

    I’m not sure that uselessness us a mitigating factor though.

  18. Talking of terrorists I notice the Irish are going to the Human Rights courts to protest the British government ruling on amnesty for troops etc during the Troubles
    Don’t seem to recall them being too concerned about all the terrorists that were freed as part of the Good Friday Agreement

  19. Via Sam and Martin we’ve sort of gotten onto bus travel. I’m liking the former colliery towns for buses, as they’re laid out linear, with a bit of herring bone for side streets but the bus route goes down the main road and covers about 6 stops over 3 miles in 10 minutes and is accessible to about 5,000 people.
    Compares favourably with bicycle.
    A Tiu Keng Leng population density would be even better for public transport users, but this is NE England, so no chance of some population density.
    A nearby new town, the roads are all horseshoes, snakes, some with bumps to boot, three times as long for a bus to get through a route for the same population roughly. I hate the town planners.

  20. John
    December 21, 2023 at 9:56 am

    I agree. It’s way less than most of the bastards accumulate over a single term of grifting.

    FTFY

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