Mungler

So, in this week’s news we have video footage of a Ukrainian POW being castrated by his Russian captors and overwhelming evidence of at least 50 Ukrainian POWs being tortured and murdered. So, where are we on the ‘none of this happened, MSN is lying to us and it’s a NATO conspiracy?’ Oh and just to clear up the point, the reduction in supply of gas to Germany isn’t because of ‘routine maintenance’ is it? It takes time but all the Russian lies and nonsense are unravelling in front of our eyes and those that chose to believe Kremlin propaganda unmasked for the gullible loonies we know them to be.

And that’s also where the likes a China have the advantage - ‘we’re building an airport where your village and ancestral home has been for 500 years, be gone by this time next week or take it up with the bulldozers’.

You know what, with Brexit I agree with and understand the direction of travel but despair at the lack of thought and proper implementation. Yes to a common market, no to everything else. Thatcher’s sell off of the nationalised industries funded our escape from the 70’s and stopped us being the sick man of Europe. The sell off would have been of no consequence now had we built any new nuclear power stations or properly pursued energy self sufficiency. Try and get a fracking licence or planning permission to whack up a nuclear power station or add a runway to an airport - that’s where the problem lies.

1 & 2 : No contradiction. The point being the EU is heading for a disaster of its own and Germany (the power house and mainstay of any amorphous EU stat or metric) is going to take the biggest hit. We can come back to this in say March and have a weigh up. 3. One of the criteria for us staying in was the adoption of the Euro. Indeed, if you are going to sell your soul and shackle yourself to a demanding economic union which requires total subservience, then it's not an unreasonable request but one which we have mercifully avoided in the quest for independence. We shall see the value of that independence rise in due course. 4. It's early doors and covid has certainly thrown a spanner in the plans. There will be other spanners landing and coming over the horizon no doubt. 5. Yes yours was ONS and mine OECD. 6. This is where I stop arguing with remainers. It's like arguing about police brutality with long serving police officers - they just won't have it. You can have the video of the disabled pensioner getting CS gas in the face and shot with a taser, but to a man, long served police officers will feel obliged to back the tribe. Trump was 100% right on the issue of Germany's energy independence. You can argue that he's got so much else wrong, but if you can't accept the plain truth that he was 100% right on the subject of German energy independence from Russia, then you lose all credibility. Indeed, let's try the other way - where was Trump wrong on the topic of Germany's energy independence from Russia? .

1. The EU is not a country, it is a collection of countries wherein some are fairing better than others. For example Poland is going great guns, less so Italy and Greece etc. GDP is an interesting measure / metric but not the be all and end all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_GDP_growth 2. All of the economic predictions for the EU went out the window yesterday with the lovely Mr. Putin cutting the gas supply and the longer term position into Winter and next year not looking too clever for Germany. Germany is of course the EU and the underwriter of "the Euro" and it's all going to get very interesting and very quickly. 3. At this juncture, not being shackled to a European Union or a centralised European currency effectively controlled by the French and Germans is going to be a bit of luck for us. 4. You keep talking about "growth" but again, "compared to what?" - last year? There is massive growth in an emerging economy like Poland (for example) and Polish economic growth and GDP year on year will show growth beyond our economy's year on year growth (and probably Germany's too) but it's still Poland. 5. The OECD data for productivity on hours worked is here: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm I am not sure what chart you are looking at? 6. I am looking forward to seeing how many EU rules and regs the Germans and French now break and bend to solve national issues at home. I also think that the Germans owe Mr. Trump a written apology for the heads up about energy dependency on Russia? Indeed, recent events show neither the Germans nor Putin to be as clever as everyone once thought.

All received and paid for - thank you. A bit of a treat for the bbq this weekend 👍

1. The IMF prediction is correct but you are missing the point about looking at the figures since the pandemic - our recession hit faster and deeper but our recovery was greater and quicker. In short we’ve had more of a bounce back recovery already and the EU will have a bigger one next year because they are catching up. 2. We had 200,000 workers leave following Brexit and then the pandemic hit. In any event ask the man on the street if he would like to be living Spanish or UK levels of unemployment? Indeed I don’t know what point you are attempting to make. 3. What do you mean by relative earnings? Relative to what? The average / mean UK salary is double that of the EU. Great, but so what? 4. worker productivity is measured against GDP (see my commentary about measuring GDP and measuring against GDP). According to this wonderful and accepted means of measurement, the Irish are the most productive workers and yet work some of the smallest hours. Brilliant. Let’s all live in Ireland eh? 5. you then raise and wander into illegal immigration - no idea what you’re doing or where you’re going now 😆

I was taught by my economics teacher to always say ‘compared to what?’. Here, let’s have a look at what the Euro has done against the dollar by way of comparative example. And Euro to Juan

Yes please

Remainer spin. Growth is based and measured ‘year to year’ and on GDP which is something most economists can’t even agree on. For the sake of this example if your economy is at 10 (let’s say that’s GDP, but as above I don’t think GDP is the be all and end all measurement) and in 2020 with covid your economy sustains a massive crash down to 2.5, but next year in 2021 it returns and bounces back to 10 - that return is of course represented on year to year growth as a 400% increase in annual GDP from the previous year. What is being punted now is more of this - have a look at the average annual growth rate of gross domestic product in the European Union vs UK over the past 5 years. Back to GDP, that’s one measure of economic prosperity. So are employment figures for example (3.8% in UK) and far worse across Europe. There are other measures and indicators but my experience of Brexit vs remain is that people carry with them entrenched views and I would be wasting my time - and I voted remain 🙂 Also staunch remainers should refrain from throwing stones - the glass panels in the Italian, Greek, Spanish and now French / German sections of that greenhouse are looking rather wobbly.

This

You know what it's forcing the Germans to do what they should have done already and that is (1) not give Putin any money at all (2) sort their energy supplies out and get off their false green high horse. Laughing at Trump who warned against energy dependency on Russia and crowing about your green economy when you are "off books" importing all your nasty carbon fuels from the gangster run petrol station next door is frankly nauseating. The problem is, it's going to hit us all in the pocket and the critical events that would break the EU and which I could long see coming are now all lined up late like buses and will shortly arrive 3 abreast. Strap in, it's going to get bumpy.

So, further gas supply cuts today, because of "maintenance". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62291458 "Gazprom said stopping another turbine at the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would cut daily gas production to 20%, halving the current level of supply. The German government said there was no technical reason to limit gas supply. It is likely to make it more difficult for EU countries to replenish their stores of gas before winter. European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the prospect of Russia cutting off all supplies to the EU is a "likely scenario"." So, is this still Western misreporting about routine maintenance? If it was a choice between believing the Kremlin or any other news source, I'd choose David Icke over the Kremlin every day of the week 🙂

This is an interesting one and I suspect that the manufacturer made a whole load of bold claims about a 10 year warranty whilst thinking: 1. No one will enforce this because no one will remember to keep their receipt - it’s not like a car or a set of double glazed windows and doors and 2. if anyone does step forward, we’ll duck out by arguing that we guarantee the life of the battery but if you set the smoke alarm off every single day by burning your toast and diminishing the power within the battery then that’s on you 3. Ignoring all the consumer protection legislation, a breach of contract claim as may have been available against tescos would probably have been statute barred under the Limitation Act after 6 years So, in short, yes, your claim if any exists would be against the manufacturer. Following on, is the manufacturer still in existence or even a company based in England / Wales? An interesting set of circumstances but a disproportional waste of time to pursue, save that a moany letter to Tescos HQ might get you a goodwill voucher. I would add that most manufacturer warranties that give a consumer / end user greater rights than would otherwise arise under law (‘your statutory rights remain unaffected’) will often require some form of formal ‘registration’ with the manufacturer and so as to form a separate and direct warranty / contract as between the manufacturer and consumer and thus removing the retailer from the equation.

Cheeky monkey has put his prices up since I bought from him.

Big fan of the steel in these knives and the price. I have picked up half a dozen along the years (pennies from junk shops) and I found a Chinese handle supplier off eBay. And yes, I used the expanding gorilla glue 😆 and could have done a better job. However in our house everything lives or dies with whether it goes in the dishwasher. That knife as photo’d has been through the dishwasher 100 times. If the handle splits I’ll get another off eBay (the blanks are a couple of quid, drill it out, wang in glue, insert blade and job jobbed.

Precisely. And with modern advance passenger notification there really is no need for paper or stamps. Anyways, it's academic. When Le Pen gets a foothold all bets will be off.

So because we have left the club we aren't allowed to pass comment or observe on deliberate under-staffing or make a suggested improvement to efficiency? How very odd and petty. That's really going to help 🙂 Mind you, if that's the way they want to play it, fine by me. I just wish the rest of the country would vote with their wallets - immediately stop buying French wine, cheese and cars and certainly on no account holiday there. How many of the people sitting in a 12 hour queue are going to open themselves up to that again next year? Following on, who loses out on that tourist revenue? Genius. We will all have to get used to getting a boat to Santander or dropping in through Belgium or Holland. Inconvenient and financially costly to the French, but what price independence eh? Ask a Greek or an Italian. And since you mention the Germans, well, their relationship with Putin and behavior within Nato has opened a few eyes I bet. Altogether as one in Europe, that is until national interests and domestic elections matter, then it's make it up as you go along. And we want to be part of that club?

Yes, and so what? Does "leaving" make my observation about the needlessness of paper and physical stamps or French border control under staffing or a thousand years of national discontent any less correct? I am quite pleased at the queues because: 1. I am not so stupid as to be sat in them 2. the French (as too the Spanish) will feel it next year with a reduction in tourist numbers 3. this pettiness helps remind everyone that we've never got on (historical fact)

It’s all nonsense, in this world there is no need for physical paper and physical stamps. When was the last time anyone going through an airport ever reached for a piece of paper? Also with advanced passenger information and electronic checks, you could have a green channel (strait through) and an amber channel (we need a look) - as per container shipping. Fielding half the bodies on the busiest day and checking for everyone’s warning triangles sends a message. Nice of them to remind us that it has *never* been the case that’s we’ve always been together as one in Europe as every remainer will have believe.

Agreed. We need a plan though and the will to see it through. Re ‘a plan’, Dover needs sorting out. Indeed I would have put that and a 3 lane motorway to Cornwall I front of HS2 - who wouldn’t do more holidaying in Cornwall with a 3 lane motorway connecting it to the rest of the Country? I’ve got friends and family in the NHS and the consensus is that 20% of the people do 80% of the work and it doesn’t need more money it needs a proper sort out. The NHS sucks a breathtaking amount already and it’s not like we’re getting any value - we’re neither the happiest nor the longest loving despite the highest per capital spend on state healthcare.

Italy won’t be far behind. Once the initial wash of investment and new roads and infrastructure is forgotten, people wonder how it is that they don’t control their own economy any more, and in so doing their actual country. We have a real opportunity with Brexit but we have to snap out of this current negative malaise and I’m not sure if the next generation have any fight in them - everyone wants everything and a 4 day week. And that is also why fundamental economics should be taught at GCSE because that instils that no one gets something for nothing.

They have really rolled out the red carpet haven’t they, and good for them, I hope it pays dividends. Our transfer driver was a Greek man who went to Canada to teach mathematics, met a Greek girl and then came back home to look after the elderly parents. We had a fascinating discussion (I always like to look over a fence or two and see what’s what) about the state of Canada, Jordan Peterson and finishing with how the Greeks rue the day they joined the Euro and wish they had their own currency and independence back.

Here’s one worth watching. It’s long but it’s considered and it’s less than complimentary about russia and so will be dismissed out of hand by a few on here. Interestingly, one of the Putin apologists on here told us the Ukraine war would be over by now. The strategic targeting that the Ukrainian forces have been able to carry out with the HIMARS has had a dramatic and very cost effective impact.

It’s blindingly obvious and simple, Ukraine doesn’t want to cut off Europe’s gas supply - the consequences of that will be worse than the consequences of letting the gas flow.