Making the news today....

[Mark Bolam]

....and now we are going backwards.

[Stubby]

23 minutes ago, Paul Cleaver said:

it was just a thought Stubby -There is  a lot more  shock absorption in a regular tyre compared to a solid one. perhaps science has brought us along way since yesteryear

Yea but the one in the picture is not " solid " It just has no compressed air in it .  In fact it looks to absorb quite a lot .

[openspaceman]

7 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

A fairly chunky commentary on tax, society, economics and inequality from the Guardian:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/jun/06/socialism-for-the-rich-the-evils-of-bad-economics?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook&fbclid=IwAR18TDnxKlbTBtJlo_Q0nFxrpeweFx3Ps08NgjsjwpOcJhyBAX6Ilc_lAD8

 

It's a fair long piece rather than a quick glimpse...

I'm interested as to why YOU would post it, I'm well to the left of you  but not particularly socialist although I have observed the post war swing away from the ideals that produced the welfare state and am not that sanguine about it.

 

However in the apparent awareness that current exploitation of resources is probably not sustainable I do identify with this grauniad piece, and have alluded to it before. Having super rich people who can afford to ignore calls to better conserve resources does the globe no good. I also fail to see the benefits to the super rich as persons.

[openspaceman]

6 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Yea but the one in the picture is not " solid " It just has no compressed air in it .  In fact it looks to absorb quite a lot .

Stubby I think you are right, the air in a conventional tyre takes the shock as it compresses but it is the tyre that absorbs the energy, as heat and dissipates it as well as the springs of the suspension, with the dampers then absorbing their energy. This means the whole mass of the tyre is unsprung weight. If you can have a flexible link between the tread and the wheel centre that can keep the tread on the road without altering the point of rotation above the ground then the tread is the only bit of unsprung weight.

[Stubby]

23 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Stubby I think you are right, the air in a conventional tyre takes the shock as it compresses but it is the tyre that absorbs the energy, as heat and dissipates it as well as the springs of the suspension, with the dampers then absorbing their energy. This means the whole mass of the tyre is unsprung weight. If you can have a flexible link between the tread and the wheel centre that can keep the tread on the road without altering the point of rotation above the ground then the tread is the only bit of unsprung weight.

True . And having done a bit on bikes reducing unsprung weight is key to handling .  Hence Dymag and all the others ....

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

18 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I'm interested as to why YOU would post it,

I think I can be pretty sure that you look beyond the current so called 'populist' opinions to form your own views, I know I do.  I  suspect however that the majority of those who 'claim' to, whilst simultaneously accusing others of not doing so if the view presented is contrary to their own, probably, actually, don't...

 

Why did it interest me enough to share it...

 

In part because it takes a reflective look back at previous political decisions / policies and how they may have contributed to current day societal status.  It is only by looking back and seeing what / why things were done that opinions / conclusions can really be informed. 

 

In part because I have probably been unconsciously influenced by the notion that work hard = personal reward, maybe without even knowing that it could have been a system of societal control (if you believe the opinions presented in the piece.)

 

In part because I am vehemently opposed to the waste, ineptitude, incompetence, inertia and lack of accountability / responsibility which seems to permeate so many levels of local, national and international government institutions - all tax funded of course.

 

In part because I have to pay tax.

 

In part because I'll never be super rich nor super poor so I'm one of the 'millions in the middle' that feels (IMHO) justifiably outraged by tax revenue taken from my hard earned being pissed up the wall (in what ever form that may take.) 

 

 I posted it - I didn't present any comment (yet)

 

From the closing paragraph - which I'm supposing was meant to be some form of loose 'conclusion' which I thought the article fairly failed to provide (other than the sweeping statement in the opening passage - "...The economic arguments adopted by Britain and the US in the 1980s led to vastly increased inequality – and gave the false impression that this outcome was not only inevitable, but good...")

 

Much of the inequality we see today in richer countries is more down to decisions made by governments than to irreversible market forces. These decisions can be changed. However, we have to want to control inequality: we must make inequality reduction a central aim of government policy and wider society. The most entrenched, self-deluding and self-perpetuating justifications for inequality are about morality, not economy. The great economist John Kenneth Galbraith nicely summarised the problem: “One of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy … is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

 

I do think there are some totally crazy and unjustifiable deltas between super rich and super poor (and the relative influence each group might have wrt shaping future policies) but I genuinely struggle with the 'bit in the middle' or is that just me struggling with the moral justification for selfishness?

 

It's difficult being in the middle - there are those that would think I'm a peasant and probably 100,000x more that would think I'm well off....

 

Tonight I'll ponder my shitty place in the universe over a salmon wellington and an ice cold old vine Chenin Blanc whilst someone sleeps in a cardboard box and someone else sleeps aboard a £4billion yacht.

 

Meh.... dichotomy - my working hand against a backdrop of granite worktop - didn't give us any answers to that in the article did they.  No surprise, probably only been read by soft handed, office working, champagne socialists in Islington anyway...

 

 

 

 

[Paul Cleaver]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

Yea but the one in the picture is not " solid " It just has no compressed air in it .  In fact it looks to absorb quite a lot .

yes I should have considered that

[Khriss]

Dancing on the head o' a pin here. Nice hand Kevin. Mine done same in the past but sipping champagne now after giving up the car n biking more. Dunno wt  the answer is- I am super rich compared to my mates. But still shop in Lidls! K

[breffni]

16 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

I think I can be pretty sure that you look beyond the current so called 'populist' opinions to form your own views, I know I do.  I  suspect however that the majority of those who 'claim' to, whilst simultaneously accusing others of not doing so if the view presented is contrary to their own, probably, actually, don't...

 

Why did it interest me enough to share it...

 

In part because it takes a reflective look back at previous political decisions / policies and how they may have contributed to current day societal status.  It is only by looking back and seeing what / why things were done that opinions / conclusions can really be informed. 

 

In part because I have probably been unconsciously influenced by the notion that work hard = personal reward, maybe without even knowing that it could have been a system of societal control (if you believe the opinions presented in the piece.)

 

In part because I am vehemently opposed to the waste, ineptitude, incompetence, inertia and lack of accountability / responsibility which seems to permeate so many levels of local, national and international government institutions - all tax funded of course.

 

In part because I have to pay tax.

 

In part because I'll never be super rich nor super poor so I'm one of the 'millions in the middle' that feels (IMHO) justifiably outraged by tax revenue taken from my hard earned being pissed up the wall (in what ever form that may take.) 

 

 I posted it - I didn't present any comment (yet)

 

From the closing paragraph - which I'm supposing was meant to be some form of loose 'conclusion' which I thought the article fairly failed to provide (other than the sweeping statement in the opening passage - "...The economic arguments adopted by Britain and the US in the 1980s led to vastly increased inequality – and gave the false impression that this outcome was not only inevitable, but good...")

 

Much of the inequality we see today in richer countries is more down to decisions made by governments than to irreversible market forces. These decisions can be changed. However, we have to want to control inequality: we must make inequality reduction a central aim of government policy and wider society. The most entrenched, self-deluding and self-perpetuating justifications for inequality are about morality, not economy. The great economist John Kenneth Galbraith nicely summarised the problem: “One of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy … is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

 

I do think there are some totally crazy and unjustifiable deltas between super rich and super poor (and the relative influence each group might have wrt shaping future policies) but I genuinely struggle with the 'bit in the middle' or is that just me struggling with the moral justification for selfishness?

 

It's difficult being in the middle - there are those that would think I'm a peasant and probably 100,000x more that would think I'm well off....

 

Tonight I'll ponder my shitty place in the universe over a salmon wellington and an ice cold old vine Chenin Blanc whilst someone sleeps in a cardboard box and someone else sleeps aboard a £4billion yacht.

 

Meh.... dichotomy - my working hand against a backdrop of granite worktop - didn't give us any answers to that in the article did they.  No surprise, probably only been read by soft handed, office working, champagne socialists in Islington anyway...

 

 

 

 

Ya rich bastard with your granite worktops!!!!??

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

48 minutes ago, breffni said:

Ya rich bastard with your granite worktops!!!!??

That’s exactly the trouble though. How does it get fixed unless EVERYONE has exactly the same? 

 

Id quite like the Jag’s that Prescott had (wouldn’t really, but for artistic licence), the Brazilian holidays of Crow etc, etc. 

 

Everyone is a Lord of the Manor iffum yome living under a bridge...