Potus ???

[GarethM]

We're gentle parenting our dogs - no wonder they're so anxious

INEWS.CO.UK

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Impartial news & intelligent debate

 

 

[peds]

[Mesterh]

I was watching a couple of videos ae weeks back of yanks recording the cost of items now so they can compare them at a later date. Jessh, their stuff is way more expensive than over hear, it looked like the only cheaper product was petrol although they expect that to start going up soon too. 

[tree-fancier123]

commodities markets are the new bitcoin - 

[GarethM]

20 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

commodities markets are the new bitcoin - 

That's nothing to do with markets, there's a cocoa shortage due to some disease.

 

It's a bit like banana's, they have a disease as it's like 1 or 2 species of tree, so no resistance in the banana groves where there's hundreds of trees.

[tree-fancier123]

15 minutes ago, GarethM said:

That's nothing to do with markets, there's a cocoa shortage due to some disease.

of course there is an underlying cause of disruption to the supply - but the markets are still used as instruments of speculation - not sure about cocoa, but sometimes with oil there are far more paper contracts than there is oil to deliver on them - you probably remember during covid the crazy moment in march 2020 when for a few hours oil was at minus $40 a barrel (because there was no storage to take physical delivery)

I reckon that cocoa chart has been bid up by financial buyers as well as Cadburys

[GarethM]

I dunno, blame the milky bar kid.

 

I don't eat either 🙂

[tree-fancier123]

found an example to illustrate the point

In 2010, a U.K. hedge fund manager spent around $1 billion to acquire the legal rights to about seven percent of the world’s annual production of cocoa – enough beans to make over 5 billion bars of chocolate. This cocoa trader, dubbed “Chocolate Finger” as a nod to the Bond villain Goldfinger, never intended to actually use his hoard of cocoa for anything. He was a financial speculator, an investor who made millions of dollars when the world cocoa supply did not meet the demands of chocolate makers, the price of cocoa went up, and the chocolate companies came to Chocolate Finger for desperately needed cocoa. 

The condemnation of Chocolate Finger was universal, with the loudest objections coming from European chocolate companies and transnational cocoa suppliers. The London Exchange investigated Chocolate Finger’s purchases but found “no evidence of abusive behavior”. By the standards of commodity trading, that is probably true. But when the real-world impacts of cocoa commodity trading are investigated, the evidence shows that traders such as Chocolate Finger are hurting the farmers, who risk everything to grow cocoa, in two major ways. First, they take money from the total revenue generated by cocoa products despite not adding any value to the cocoa economy. Second, the commodity market amalgamates the world’s cocoa supply into one giant pool of identical goods, with no differentiations between high-quality, sustainable, ethically produced beans and the low-quality beans grown by trafficked children. 

 

[Youngstu]

On 24/01/2025 at 21:00, Johnsond said:

No one’s seeing red or getting defensive, but speaking absolute rubbish and preaching your LGBTQ trans shite to a guy who has reasonably successfully raised 6 up to now well balanced decent human beings is just patronising garbage. You left wing buggers see anyone who disagrees with your lunacy as either angry, ic, ist or far right. Raise your kids how you want. But don’t expect the more traditional two genders types out there to buy into the same  lunacy.

I think it's really more about respect, empathy and kindness. 

From a personal perspective I think religious beliefs are essentially a load of waddle and brainwashing, but even though I think that, I don't feel the need to tell friends, colleagues or others that what they think is wrong in my opinion. 

If they individually are doing no harm with their beliefs and practises, respect their choices and leave them be. 

 

Out of interest have you been in a position where you refuse to use a person's chosen name or outwardly refuse to respect their gender choice, or is it at this stage hypothetical bluster? 

[Johnsond]

25 minutes ago, Youngstu said:

I think it's really more about respect, empathy and kindness. 

From a personal perspective I think religious beliefs are essentially a load of waddle and brainwashing, but even though I think that, I don't feel the need to tell friends, colleagues or others that what they think is wrong in my opinion. 

If they individually are doing no harm with their beliefs and practises, respect their choices and leave them be. 

 

Out of interest have you been in a position where you refuse to use a person's chosen name or outwardly refuse to respect their gender choice, or is it at this stage hypothetical bluster? 

There’s zero hypothetical shit with me, the answer to your question is an absolute 100% yes. Let this go YS you have your views I have mine. You raise your kids as you see fit. Good luck