O/T:- Trump Presidency 2.0 [hic sunt dracones]

[i961pie]

You clearly lived in a more affluent place than me, in the early 60's, I'd struggle to know anybody who owned their own house and growing up in Aspley, that percentage would be less that 1%. I'm wracking my brain now and genuinely, cannot recall a single house in my area, which I could identify as privately owned.

I agree I didn't know many who owned their own house in the 60s, most seemed to be council or private landlord owned.

[BigFatPie]

This is completely true


This is complete garbage, if everyone is poor like in many developing countries there isn't the resource available to invest in the young.



Another complete bag of garbage that is clouded by your opinion. You seem the think that those that have the same opinion as you are right and those that disagree are wrong. The social media platforms and governments colluded to cover up problems with the vaccines that were supposed to be effective against Covid. Even today you are not able to post things on youtube that goes against the left wing narrative. Experts in their field were silenced from the main platforms at the behest of the US and EU as what they were saying didn't agree with that narrative. You only have to look into the lies that the "left wing" media pushes out, the Guardian and the Independent are renown for lying about what is going on and too many "on the left" accept it as gospel.

Here's the thing, and i know I've stated it so many times. The established media all of them are lying. They push narratives that will agree with the opinions of their target audience but will also make those that disagree with them angry. If they get people angry then it is more likely that one of those angry people will post it with a link so they get more visits to their site.

You keep going on about things like the Murdock press, well what about "left wing" media sites that are controlled by billionaires, you give them a free pass but they are all doing the same thing. Push out articles that will agree with their target audience but will nudge them in the "correct" direction but will also anger those that disagree with them so that enough of them post links that will drive traffic to their sites.

Also we have people complaining about Musk getting involved with politics, where is the anger when Bill Gates and George Soros get involved or are you only angry when they are pushing opinions you disagree with

A perfect example of the easily fooled. You were caught absolutely bang to rights supporting the spread of misinformation and yet here you are without apology or acknowledgment writing a looooong post which amounts to nothing better than garbage, garbage, YouTube, George Soros. Thank you, you?ve illustrated the point I was making further up fantastically well.

[BigFatPie]

That is what they did with their wealth. Musk made his money with Paypal (itself a great innovation) and rolled that into Tesla where he made most of his money. Starlink and spacex etc are also what he did with his money. Admittedly he also spaffed a bunch up the wall buying Twitter and running it into the ground, but AFAIK this too was a public service. If he could just take out Tiktok too that would be great.

Amazon employs 1.6 million people. That's a bit more than I do. Bezos doing his bit. Sure conditions could be better, but I refer back to worker's bargaining power being eroded etc.

META only has 67k employees apparently but that's still a lot of jobs. Facebook also did a bunch of cutting edge stuff with web tech that we're still using to this day. In fact, we're using it right now to communicate on this forum.

These guys also do things with their wealth I don't approve of, of course. Superyachts and the like. But, that's the problem with freedom. People do things I don't like. I have to accept it, so long as they aren't harming anyone. These guys didn't steal their wealth, they built it. They inherited a bunch first tho of course. Still, if you want to point to evil capitalists they're pretty bad examples. Of course, the good examples stay in the shadows as much as they can while these poor fools tapdance in the spotlight 24x7. Well musk does, anyway.



I feel like we're on the same page here except I don't follow UK politics at all so this is kinda greek to me. Everyone should pay tax, wealthier people should pay more (%) than poorer. No issues with what you're saying I don't think. Democratically elected governments need to be stronger than corporations and stay stronger. People need to see through the BS and propaganda spewed at them by media corps and actually vote in their interests.

IMO free market capitalism benefits from strong regulation. Markets with no regulation result in criminal cabals running things and don't benefit anyone in the long run.

The newish internet companies were great opportunities with their economies of scale and lower overheads to radically improve the working conditions of the people they employ. I don?t know enough about Meta to comment, but I know working at an Amazon warehouse is generally appalling. There?s a really good piece on how they?re a case study in union busting tactics here;

https://www.ier.org.uk/comments/trade-union-recognition-the-amazon-case-and-a-new-deal/

Very relevant to your comment about the erosion of worker?s rights. In a fairer society Bezos and others like him would be initially taxed at a requisite level and then be held to much higher standards on the rights of the people they employ before they become billionaires.

[BigFatPie]

This fixation with owning property is relatively recent, very few, working class people owned property when I was growing up, in fact, I can only think of two, of my contemporaries whose parents owned their house. When I bought my first house, I was paying 15% interest on the loan so it wasn't as easy as some of you seem to think it was.

Many people only got on the property ladder when Thatcher started giving council houses away for almost nothing, depending on how long you'd lived there.

One of the reasons for the crazy rise in house prices, is the massive, increase in population which hasn't been matched by house building. The fact that some people were lucky enough to have been alive when opportunity knocked, seems to be a constant source of revulsion and jealousy to some here.

Right to buy wasn?t a massively bad policy, and it?s one I would have taken advantage of if I?d have been old enough. The problem was that didn?t build nearly enough houses to replace the stock lost to the private sector, and they didn?t put big enough restrictions on selling them on.

[Med Pie]

Meanwhile, 'put down your bong Mr Starmer'.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6peKsSEaXk

[Lullapie]

You may be right - one of the large Hucknall estates compared to Aspley! Maybe it was the decade difference.

My family bought a council house on Bestwood Estate in 1977. I believe that Bestwood was one of the estates targeted by the Tory government with regards to the 'Right to Buy' policy.

I can remember my mum having a list of 'available' properties, printed out on four sheets of paper and we travelled around looking at them. You don't notice a lot when you're young, but I remember thinking how bad some of the houses were on the list and considering Bestwood Estate was one of the better areas on there, says it all really.

However, it was a foot on the ladder and there were quite a few people living near us, who had also bought their council house. The difference was that they had been living in their house for many years. Ours hadn't been touched since it was built.

I always used to love Bulwell as it always seemed 'high-end'. Years later I moved to Hucknall and that's where I settled and played my football.

I came across a photo from my bedroom window taken just after we'd moved in. Bloody hell, it looked like a war zone.

[Lullapie]

One of the reasons for the crazy rise in house prices, is the massive, increase in population which hasn't been matched by house building.

The fact that some people were lucky enough to have been alive when opportunity knocked, seems to be a constant source of revulsion and jealousy to some here.

Another accelerant to high house prices is the availability of cheap money. Before I bought my first house, it was nearly impossible to get a mortgage (indeed credit of any kind). Then as the years have gone on, every mailer is an attempt to lend people more money.

I remember having to struggle to get my first mortgage because I was a business owner, plus being 22 years old didn't help either. There were no self-certificating mortgages then.

When my girlfriend (now wife) and I eventually managed to get a mortgage, the interest rates were really high. It was a form of financial slavery, but if you wanted to get on in life, the first thing to do was to buy your own bit of the world.

I was made to sign up for an endowment mortgage at 16 and had three, by the time I bought my first house. The Co-Op insurance salesman must have loved coming around our house.

Cheap money is the root of many evils. Some people can handle it and indeed flourish with the availability of it, but the vast majority struggle and never really manage to unlock the shackles. We were never taught at school about financial responsibility and only by making mistakes or being lucky and having people close to you to educate you on personal finance, do we come to terms with it.

[Med Pie]

Another accelerant to high house prices is the availability of cheap money. Before I bought my first house, it was nearly impossible to get a mortgage (indeed credit of any kind). Then as the years have gone on, every mailer is an attempt to lend people more money.

I remember having to struggle to get my first mortgage because I was a business owner, plus being 22 years old didn't help either. There were no self-certificating mortgages then.

When my girlfriend (now wife) and I eventually managed to get a mortgage, the interest rates were really high. It was a form of financial slavery, but if you wanted to get on in life, the first thing to do was to buy your own bit of the world.

I was made to sign up for an endowment mortgage at 16 and had three, by the time I bought my first house. The Co-Op insurance salesman must have loved coming around our house.

Cheap money is the root of many evils. Some people can handle it and indeed flourish with the availability of it, but the vast majority struggle and never really manage to unlock the shackles. We were never taught at school about financial responsibility and only by making mistakes or being lucky and having people close to you to educate you on personal finance, do we come to terms with it.

With the lure of it paying off your mortgage with a nice, hefty, bonus on top but, no mention that it depended totally on the success of the investment portfolio. This meant that not only were you not guaranteed that hefty, bonus, it wasn't guaranteed to pay up the mortgage either and in fact, I know a few people who had to remortgage to pay of the original loan because of this.

[i961pie]

By the time I moved into our current home I had 3 endowment mortgages. The first paid a healthy ?15,000
the second only ?3,000 and the third I cancelled and paid off my mortgage after being told at the end of the term I would still owe over ?2,000. How times have changed, mind you interest rates were often over 10% and even reached 15 for a short time.

[BigFatPie]

An Indiana man recently pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is dead after being shot by a sheriff’s deputy while allegedly resisting arrest.

https://fox59.com/indiana-news/jan-6-rioter-recently-pardoned-by-trump-shot-killed-by-indiana-sheriffs-deputy-while-resisting-arrest/

Who’d have thought pardoning a load of violent criminals wouldn’t end well?

[SmiffyPie]

An Indiana man recently pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is dead after being shot by a sheriff’s deputy while allegedly resisting arrest.

https://fox59.com/indiana-news/jan-6-rioter-recently-pardoned-by-trump-shot-killed-by-indiana-sheriffs-deputy-while-resisting-arrest/

Who’d have thought pardoning a load of violent criminals wouldn’t end well?

It probably won't for the Deputy. Trump will cry foul no doubt.

[Mapperleypie]

It probably won't for the Deputy. Trump will cry foul no doubt.

I doubt it. Releasing them for him was all about him being able to still say the 2020 election was stolen and they were somehow justified in their actions.

They have served that purpose for Trump and I suspect he no longer gives two shiny ones as it does not benefit him personally in any way.

[Lullapie]

With the lure of it paying off your mortgage with a nice, hefty, bonus on top but, no mention that it depended totally on the success of the investment portfolio. This meant that not only were you not guaranteed that hefty, bonus, it wasn't guaranteed to pay up the mortgage either and in fact, I know a few people who had to remortgage to pay of the original loan because of this.

I think I had five in total. The final two were pretty much useless - although I probably back what I paid in. The early ones were very good though.

[Lullapie]

By the time I moved into our current home I had 3 endowment mortgages. The first paid a healthy ?15,000
the second only ?3,000 and the third I cancelled and paid off my mortgage after being told at the end of the term I would still owe over ?2,000. How times have changed, mind you interest rates were often over 10% and even reached 15 for a short time.

You're right. Horses for courses. They were a very good idea initially then the finance market ruined them.

[Lullapie]

I doubt it. Releasing them for him was all about him being able to still say the 2020 election was stolen and they were somehow justified in their actions.

They have served that purpose for Trump and I suspect he no longer gives two shiny ones as it does not benefit him personally in any way.

What the lot of you seem to miss is that Trump pardoned 1,550 people when returning to office. Nearly 900 of those were for non-violent offences - mainly trespass. The conjecture was that he would only pardon those of the 6th January event that had committed non-violent acts, but Trump pardoned all of them. In fact all of those he pardoned had been convicted at trial.

However, compare this to Biden. He has pardoned more than 8,000 people. This is far more than any other President. Thousands of Biden's pardons were for serious criminals (murderers, pedophiles and people convicted of committing serious fraud). He has also given pre-emptive pardons to his family and many of his close supporters. Pre-emptive in the fact that they have been pardoned for acts that they haven't been charged or convicted of, but these acts might be discovered at a later date and the individuals may have had to give evidence against Biden. Many of Biden's pardons benefit him directly. As far as I can see, none of Trumps benefit him directly.

If Trump had done the same, those with TDS would be shouting from their keyboards that all of those he had pardoned in advance had DEFINITELY done something wrong and he was only pardoning them to protect himself.

Additionally, Trump let it be known, prior to the election, that he was going to pardon many of those involved in 6th January. He was voted in with a mandate. Biden did no such thing.

The big mistake that Biden made was that by pardoning those connected to the Biden dynasty, he took away their right to invoke the Fifth Amendment if they are called before a Congressional Hearing, thus forcing them to give evidence if subpoenaed.

They can't 'plead the Fifth' as they will have no chance of incriminating themselves being already pardoned. I'm looking forward to seeing how that will play out.

Biden and his advisors have changed the political landscape in the US in a very negative way. He has done things that no other President has ever done and his cronies not only ignore it, but go on to say that Trump was thinking of doing it first. That's how they explain everything away. 'Joe has to pre-emptively break the law to prevent Trump from doing it'.