I don’t think the vast majority of people pulled in the UK would support China invading Taiwan so it’s weird that they’re framing it like this, as if that’s the only way that anyone would care.
Truly life being stranger than fiction, in that he was recently in the news after being acquitted in the US.
He had this to say on the American legal system at the time: “the reason I’m sitting here, let’s be honest, is not only because I was innocent… but because I had enough money not to be swept away by a process that’s set up to sweep you away”.
Tried to force through a budget that brought the UK within hours of a greek style total economic collapse until the bank of England stepped in to unfuck things because it was just going to be that bad if they didn’t.
So, this minibudget included tax cuts, coupled with a massive increase in government spending, which then caused the currency to devalue. Still don’t fully understand how it got this bad, though.
The tax cuts were huge (billions). She didn’t increase spending, but didn’t decrease it either; so it would leave a huge hole in government finance that would require massive government loans. The “market” freaked out. The pound and UKs credit rating plunged. The main crisis became the gilt market crisis (which was a catastrophe for almost all pension funds and the economy as a whole). This itself is well explained here:
(In case you haven’t noticed, I think TLDR news make absolutely fantastic videos and would recommend checking out their videos if you are interested in high quality news).
I have no idea man. My knowledge extends as far as that video. After watching “The Big Short”, I’ve learned that there are a lot of ways that finance bros play the economy in ways that we cannot comprehend.
My hypothesis is that they put the gilts up as collateral so that they could borrow money to invest. So, interest rate goes up, and the value of existing gilts goes down, because why buy a gilt with 1% interest when you can get a new one with 2% interest? Pension funds need to add more collateral to their accounts, because the gilts became less valuable.
a power struggle between the spiders and rats begins, with each slowly growing bigger to outpower each other, years pass and we have dog sized spider and rats, and dog kind joins in… a few years later we have cow sized spiders,rats, and dogs… it never ends.
I really hope in the next few years we see a revolution in short distance transport. Most journeys are less than 3 miles (if I remember correctly, could be 5) a perfect distance for e-bikes, e-scooters and normal acoustic bikes. Hopefully at least some places capitalise on it
Sadly this is a term that has caught on even though it makes no sense. I wish people had latched onto “non-electric” bike or “NE” bike instead, but here we are.
There are some great examples of cycle lane design out there. And some atrocious examples of cycle lanes that have been built. But that’s a separate rant.
If we had a quality cycle lane network, we could have adapted that to support “more than walking, less that driving” lanes without much issue.
The earlier we invest in this new class of highway the cheaper and easier it will be.
It stops a lot of people. Unfortunately, they are also the ones who would actually follow the rules. This just leaves the rule breakers and idiots, giving everyone else a bad name.
I would personally love a micro mobility option. An option between walking and driving my van somewhere would be extremely useful.
What are your rules about bicycles? In Sweden, we regulated them kinda like bicycles - as long as the motor has an effect under 250w, and is limited to driving at speeds of 20km/hr, you’re able to use them in the same places and manners as other bicycles.
Recently they started to require traffic insurance, and basically all insurance plans have zero deductibles as long as you’re wearing a helmet. I barely see anyone with helmets still, but yeah…
Or is the biggest nightmare that there’s not many designated bicycle paths, and so people are zooming around where pedestrians are walking?
25kmph and 250w, off the top of my head. You need to pedal for the motor to engage, and they count as a bicycle so no insurance needed. The twist & go bikes (no pedalling required) are basically motorbikes with pedals so they’re technically illegal but they’re still widespread. You’ll regularly see them in every city centre for food deliveries and you’ll see kids on them everywhere else.
The lack of bicycle paths is a big problem but I don’t think they’ll solve it entirely. The barrier of entry is just too low, any idiot can ride one and be oblivious to the danger as they weave in between people.
And not these bullshit white lines that people park over and drive in constantly.
There’s a road near me where they spend loads of money “upgrading” the cycle infrastructure, literally all they did was to paint some white lines. Which as you say people park on.
Yeah I’m positive it’s just a box sticky next exercise.
But it’s just another example of the conservatives and their complete lack of any real interest in the carbon initiative, because that’s where this comes from. They were supposed to increase cycle infrastructure by a certain percent by a certain date, but since they were not going to do that they instead they decided to just paint some white lines on the ground and claim that they’d done it.
Then about 5 years ago they just decided to give up and not even pretend anymore, and left us with whatever mess they had got to.
I hope it wasn’t to try to escape fishing spiders because the US has 9 from the same genus. And Dolomedes tenebrosus is even larger than our European ones.
In a nation so riddled with poverty, strife, and failing public services, where most of us are struggling just to keep a roof over our heads and get our serious illnesses treated, is it any surprise that things like this fall through the cracks?
It’s these sorts of issues that a first world nation should have the time and energy to focus on improving.
Unfortunately these days we’re a second world nation that still thinks it’s a first world nation. Heck, a not insignificant portion of us still think we’re as important as when we were the British Empire 🤦♀️
We’re delusional, we need to have a reality check on our new, smaller place in the world, and on how successful and wealthy our economy and our people actually are.
Once we come to terms with how weak and feeble we have become as a country, we can refocus our efforts based on reality - not on a fantasy of our past glory, and then hopefully backlogs like this can slowly begin to be dealt with ❤️
Yep but those increases in UK student fees rarely resulted in increases to uni funding. As it was matched with government funding drops/ Ala austerity.
I’d add fees need reducing or removing. Not entirely for the unis. More for the value to our nation. Fees leave in debt students who find it harder so avoid future academic progression.
This leaves the nation with only the children of more wealthy parents moving into advanced education. Removing a huge potential from lower classes.
This of course removes potential for invention and discovery within the UK.
Yeah, I stabbed that old lady for £500. But if I hadn’t done it, they’d have just got someone else to do it anyway! It may as well be me who gets the money!
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