America III: Going Deutsche

[Cassius_Smoke]

I was only a baby during Thatcher so I have no personal thoughts about her. From what I've read she seems to have dragged the UK in to commercialism and the 20th century at the expense of the old world like mines.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, too young (glad I can still say that for something) to have first hand memories beyond some semblence of recall but it seems like destroying some of the industries is a big part of the issue (amongst other things). In hindsight it almost looks like the issue was she was right in doing it but utterly, utterly wrong in leaving a complete void of a replacement for them which left decades of negative after effects.

[Lebowski]

Yep, too young (glad I can still say that for something) to have first hand memories beyond some semblence of recall but it seems like destroying some of the industries is a big part of the issue (amongst other things). In hindsight it almost looks like the issue was she was right in doing it but utterly, utterly wrong in leaving a complete void of a replacement for them which left decades of negative after effects.

And yet more and more jobs are disappearing with no real plan for a replacement in site. In a capitalist society businesses are constantly striving for greater efficacy with lower overheads. most company's biggest outgoing is it wage bill, so you get situations where you push your workforce to its limit to maximize profit, people doing more means you have to employ fewer staff.

A strong economy need people to be in work and spending, so most of these company's are their own worst enemy's and cant see that they are the very instrument of their own downfall. Amazon putting company's like Debenhams Or Marks and spencers to the wall may be good short term but when we have a country full of out of work people who cant buy anything then your business isn't viable anymore.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm amazed that COVID and its impacts haven't heightened the debate around automation. It's bound to be accelerated by what has happened this year and is inevitably the direction everything is headed meaning realistic mid-term plans need to be made now for what a post-jobs world will work like

[CAPCOM]

And yet more and more jobs are disappearing with no real plan for a replacement in site. In a capitalist society businesses are constantly striving for greater efficacy with lower overheads. most company's biggest outgoing is it wage bill, so you get situations where you push your workforce to its limit to maximize profit, people doing more means you have to employ fewer staff.

A strong economy need people to be in work and spending, so most of these company's are their own worst enemy's and cant see that they are the very instrument of their own downfall. Amazon putting company's like Debenhams Or Marks and spencers to the wall may be good short term but when we have a country full of out of work people who cant buy anything then your business isn't viable anymore.

Great post!

[Hirst]

I don't want this to spill into some tedious political argument, so I'll leave this as a point rather than a question - take a tour around any of the ex-mining communities and see how they are getting on.

[MartyG]

Amazon putting company's like Debenhams Or Marks and spencers to the wall may be good short term but when we have a country full of out of work people who cant buy anything then your business isn't viable anymore.

Amazon didn't put Debenhams out of business - Debenhams committing to a large number of long term inflexible leases on huge inner city properties did.

[Lebowski]

Amazon didn't put Debenhams out of business - Debenhams committing to a large number of long term inflexible leases on huge inner city properties did.

which at the time was viable for their business, who would have thought that we would be buying all our goods from an online book seller in 2020 not Marks and Debenhams

Maybe I've over simplified it but amazon certainly has canablised a lot of businesses and any other retailer going is a win for them as it pushes more people to them in the short term.

[Hirst]

Amazon definitely won't have helped Debenhams, but their brand itself was becoming increasingly irrelevant to most people and rather than concentrate on having some kind of unique selling point they chose to aggressively expand the number of stores selling the same products that weren't really flying off the shelves in the first place.

[MartyG]

which at the time was viable for their business, who would have thought that we would be buying all our goods from an online book seller in 2020 not Marks and Debenhams

Maybe I've over simplified it but amazon certainly has canablised a lot of businesses and any other retailer going is a win for them as it pushes more people to them in the short term.

There are plenty of shops that continue to do very well - having £221 million odd in rent payments per year that you can't get out of is seriously going to eat into your profits, especially when your web offering leaves a lot to be desired - I'm sure Deb's board of directors would like to blame Amazon for their failing to move their business where shoppers are, as it gets them off the hook.

[Anpanman]

These people were as Hilary Clinton called beyond deplorables! That other poll is also in the ultra leftwing Guardian owned and opearted by the Scott Trust, no surprises there as their readership are all Corbynites at heart = Marxist or Communist.

Baroness Thatcher was a great Prime Minister she changed Britain for the better but if you were leftwing or a Unionist you will hate her until your own grave...life is short...enjoy it. Reagan and George W were also great Presidents... let the political flame wars commence!

I was only a baby during Thatcher so I have no personal thoughts about her. From what I've read she seems to have dragged the UK in to commercialism and the 20th century at the expense of the old world like mines.

I'm old enough to have lived through the Thatcher years and those before, the country was royally pissed off with the winter of discontent and the also it's fair to say the power of the unions which for me has only been beaten in the ****tiest era of my life by CCP-virus.

Thatcher came in and brought the free trade economy to the planet along with a move to climate change - or at least speaking about it. Kicked the Argies out of the Falklands and closed down the mines which had to be done as they were losing money faster than you could type in the zeroes on a keyboard.
That said it's fair to say she went overboard with the mines and the unions in general to a degree and blotted her copybook in other ways, too much selling off, NHS was poorer off and probably the schools too and then there's the Poll Tax, and like all governments who are too powerful for too long get stale and we needed a change and so Blair came along which at the time was a refreshing change.

People will have different takes on it dependant on their political bent, floaters like me will probably see the good and bad in most governments.

[Anpanman]

There are plenty of shops that continue to do very well - having £221 million odd in rent payments per year that you can't get out of is seriously going to eat into your profits, especially when your web offering leaves a lot to be desired - I'm sure Deb's board of directors would like to blame Amazon for their failing to move their business where shoppers are, as it gets them off the hook.

I heard on the telly that the new owner of Debs sold the land and then leased it back, they pocketed the cash and from then on more or less all the profits went in to paying the rental and debt repayments.
So yes the directors would love to blame the company named after a river.

[CAPCOM]

Conservatism is a force for good...Marxism and leftism is just pure evil...

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/conservative

https://spectator.us/joe-biden-leonid-brezhnev-vibes/

Biden’s Brezhnev vibes
Is the presumptive President-elect the candidate of American stagnation?

The Spectator USA 03/12/2020 Full Article

Like many other Americans who had the misfortune to live under socialism, I’ve been having lots of flashbacks lately. In particular, I find that the presumptive President-elect Joe Biden gives out serious Brezhnev vibes.

The general secretary of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, Leonid Brezhnev was not a healthy man. He was a chain-smoking workaholic who’d been appointed to a series of very stressful positions — you try to rise in ranks under Joseph Stalin. He served in World War Two, when he was wounded, and suffered a concussion. Brezhnev’s mind and body took a toll; his first, minor stroke happened in 1951, when he was still in his forties.

Despite that, he was able to feign decent health up until December 1975 when he suffered another cardiac arrest. By then a nurse appointed by the KGB began administering sedatives to the communist functionary to counter his insomnia. He became dependent on drugs, and continued using them through the end of his life. In 1968, the heavy-set Soviet head of state overdosed in the plain view of the Czechoslovak delegation, and had to lie down on the negotiating table.

Ordinary Soviet people had no knowledge of this, but, watching news segments on TV, it was hard to avoid conclusion that the general secretary was unfit to rule. His speech was slurred, and his movements unsteady. His mispronunciations were notorious: ‘socialist countries’ came out his mouth as ‘sh-ty sausages’, and ‘systematically’ — as ‘booby boobs’. Towards the end of his life he required the help of an apparatchik to lift his arm to salut the troops at a parade.

Because the official Soviet sources released no medical information, rumors about Brezhnev’s health abounded. So did the jokes. For instance:

‘Brezhnev’s voice on the radio: “Comrades! Imperialist enemies are spreading false rumors that my speeches are played on a record…a record…a record…”’

Or:

‘Brezhnev asked his speech writer to write a 15-minute address to the Party Congress. The writer gave him the address, and Brezhnev went up on a podium to present it. It’s taking him 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 40, 45. When he’s finally done, he asked the writer “What did you do? I asked for a 15-minute speech!” The writer says: “I wrote you a 15 minute speech, and I gave you three copies of it.”’

This one can be easily retold about Biden who once read a chyron on live television.

That there is something wrong with Biden is dangerously close to becoming a subject of open discussion. A topic rarely brought up outside conservative media after the Democratic primary was touched upon by satirical site the Onion when it ran a piece titled: ‘Doctors Concerned As Hairline Fracture In Biden’s Foot Spreads Through Entire Skeleton’.

The story riffed on the real-life news item about Biden fracturing his foot while playing with one of his dogs. The Biden family pets had received so much media attention a few days earlier that it only makes sense the critters had a second act.

Shortly after the fracture made the news cycle, I heard a rumor that Biden broke his foot because he had a stroke. It’s just a rumor of course, but is there any wonder that it would circulate after a bizarre presidential campaign during which so few people showed up to his socially distanced rallies and his media appearances were sparse and tightly controlled?

Even under those circumstances Biden’s speech was slurred, he often appears lost, and he made too many ‘gaffes’, including forgetting the name of his former boss Barack Obama. Curiously, during one of his interviews the former vice president admitted that his cognitive ability is tested ‘constantly’.

It shouldn’t be surprising that according to a Zogby poll, 55 percent of likely voters believed Biden is in the early stages of dementia. What’s surprising is that the November 3 election revealed how 80 million Americans apparently hate Trump so much that they think Biden’s anonymous handlers will do a better job of running the country — and so they voted for the Democratic nominee.

At least nobody in the Soviet Union voted for Brezhnev — the elections were a sham with Communist party candidates running unopposed. Everything was a sham, actually. In his mumbling, robotic tones, the general secretary delivered long-winded, heavy on Marxist cliches and utterly incomprehensible televised speeches. The economy flattered, dissidents were subjected to psychiatric torture, corruption proliferated, and the rate of substance abuse skyrocketed. That period of Soviet history is known as zastoi, or stagnation. It only made sense that the man on top was some sort of sclerotic.

Like Brezhnev, Biden’s rhetoric is ridden with clichés, but of a different, folksy kind. At the time when political slogans are catchy and provocative — Make America Great Again, Black Lives Matter — Biden’s yard signs read ‘Our best days are still ahead’, and ‘Build back better’. His Twitter account is full of platitudes like ‘This is our moment — ours together — to write a newer, bolder, more compassionate chapter in the life of our nation.’ He’s just a boring ordinary guy — until he lashes out at a voter, or bites on his wife’s finger.

Is Biden the candidate of American stagnation? His cognitive and physical decline is increasingly difficult to hide and it’s highly disturbing to witness it become a subject of speculation. I’ve lived through it before and it gives me the creeps. Free citizens of a free republic shouldn’t need a Kremlinologist to decipher what’s wrong with their president.

Trump and Boris would have been better for the UK and the USA in my opinion. Biden's is an Iranian stooge and will be replaced by Harris at the next election as the candidate. Biden needs to prove himself to me like any President Elect. On both sides of the Atlantic a bifurctaed political system does not work for anyone...

As a Republican and a Conservative I despair at some of the ignorance at the core values of these political philosophies its as if some of you have never read Francis Fukuyama...



Stanford University Head of Political Science

[teddymeow]

Nope.

I mean, how more right can a post be? [MENTION=3144]Dogg Thang[/MENTION] to the point as ever.

[teddymeow]

As a Republican and a Conservative I despair at some of the ignorance at the core values of these political philosophies its as if some of you have never read France Fukuyama...



Stanford University Head of Political Science

No, but I have read Francis Fukuyama, Monsieur.