That is a fun fact.

I honestly wonder who was pushing this nonsense.

So, there’s this pair of cunts called the Koch brothers. They have a business that extracts shale gas by fracking and then turns it into plastics for the US domestic market. They’ve done very well out of this business and out of fossil fuels in general.

Somewhat predictably they’re right wing shitheads. They seem to be behind a lot of the bollocks in the Anglosphere at the minute. The distribution network seems to be that they fund various think tanks including a few of the Tufton Street metastasis and also fund Steve Bannon, Turning Point USA and Turning Point UK.

The goal is to keep them and their dynasty on top.

Once the money gets to the UK, usually through Turning Point UK, it funds efforts to distort people’s thinking using social media.

Fifteen minute cities encourage walking and so if people can leave their cars behind that’s one of the major use cases for fossil fuels reduced. Can’t be having that.

Why does there even need to be a COP every year? They know what to do, they know what will be enough and they have the authority in their home nations to do it. COP is just theatre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Wars

Liz Truss was probably my favourite PM. Hear me out.

Every day of her premiership I got up out of bed in a good mood, couldn’t wait to hear the news about how she’d fucked the dog the day before. Through various circumstances that I’m not sharing with the internet she did cost me a considerable amount of cash when she crashed the economy but she was just so entertaining. And she didn’t hang around like a fart in a space suit like certain unelected PMs I could mention. The moment when the lettuce outlasted her and a hand came from off-screen and placed a tiara on its head is one of the lasting delights of the last few years.

Pleading won’t do no good, try a brown envelope stuffed with readies.

There’s a lot of people who don’t like the label fascism but just fucking love what fascism does. I think the problem is that a lot of people don’t understand how complex the world is and fascism always tells them that their stupid, lazy thinking is correct. Universal suffrage is the only way to that democracy can work in this day and age and I would literally fight to save it… but boy does it come with some downsides.

If I were a venal and corrupt politician and I were in an easy job that paid extraordinarily well I would hold onto that job as long as possible.

I am going to say that that we’ll be going to the polls in January '25.

Now all we need is for the CIA to take responsibility for the Islamic State and the circle of life (and death) is complete.

Similar thing happened back in the 80’s at a Sorting Office where I worked. The letters, then, were sorted into a 48 box fitting. They took a row of 48 box fittings down and discovered a postcard that was alleged to be 100 years old. I think they had a little ceremony with the living descendants of the addressee. This was when the Royal Mail prided itself on delivering the mail.

Always. If inflation runs away, the poor suffer. If we get stuck in a deflationary cycle the poor suffer. Apparently it is impossible to construct an equitable system that works without gross inequality (spoiler: it isn’t but some people love inequality and will do anything to prevent things being distributed more equally.)

It provides a reason for them not to just “take their ball and go home” once they have a pile of money.

If that’s the reason for it it’s not doing its job. Investments are much like savings to high net worth individuals and their investments are managed by someone else and they simply lay in the cut and collect dividends. Yes there is a risk to investments but if you’re in a good wealth fund then over time you’re almost guaranteed to win even if you have disastrous months here and there.

Yes, this is true but you also have to factor in the marginal propensity to consume, or in plain English, the poorer you are the more of your income you have to spend on necessities like rent or groceries.

There are always high interest investments available to people with a large amounts of spare cash floating about even when inflation is low.

If your rent + utilities + food = your income then you ain’t hoarding money even in a deflationary spiral.

Ska is simple, fun music that cares little for anything other than being fun, and is often gleefully immature.

Ska, as youngsters know it today, was reinvented by the 2-Tone movement in the UK (specifically Coventry) in the late 70s. The scene was overtly political and as @NuPNuA has stated was a deliberately multicultural movement, hence the name.

If you want to hear some original ska from Jamaica then have a look for songs by Prince Buster but beware you will find some historical attitudes.

This is because inflation isn’t a bug it’s a feature.

Anything that transfers wealth up the chain, from working class to middle class and from middle class to upper class, is a feature of the western economic system.

For example, in England and Wales the Bank of England is charged with keeping inflation at a target of around two per cent. This means that the pound in a workers pocket is supposed to devalue. The advantage is that the government borrows money in its own currency so inflation means that its debt goes down (in real terms) when inflation goes up.

Yes, I agree. I just wanted to point out that Brexit wouldn’t have happened without some fairly serious money being put behind it (UKIP’s funding had to come from somewhere and there were not one but two pro-Brexit campaigns Vote Leave and LeaveEU) and that money had to spent with a purpose.

This is a great post but I would say that there were some people who were absolutely dedicated to achieving Brexit and in large part their participation can be explained by the proposed financial transaction tax.

The idea that a supra-national entity might be able to impose a tax that could be difficult to mitigate was absolutely intolerable to various millionaires and billionaires e.g. The Telegraph owning Barclay Brothers. Any downsides from the resulting chaos, which in any case would only affect the working and lower middle classes, would be more than offset by the ability to bank offshore and retain their profits untaxed.

I look forward to the aliens response being something along the lines of, “You’re God’s best boys and girls, yes you are, who are blessed little ape-beings? You are, yes all of you.”

They’re hoping you’re too sleep deprived to notice.