Making the news today....

[Mesterh]

19 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

How about some great celebratory cheers for a Tory Chancellor that has engineered the potential for a global agreement on corporation tax.....

 

Surely a cause that must be at the very core of all anti capitalist / anti establishment SJWs?

 

 

That is something worth celebrating. 

[sime42]

Some good info on the "Opt out" links on there.

I've only had a brief look at this but it seems to be an overly convoluted process to opt-out. No doubt intentionally, bstards. Looks like you've got to go out of your way to do it by printing off a form and taking it in to your GP. I mean, paper, why do we need to use that these days?

[sime42]

How about some great celebratory cheers for a Tory Chancellor that has engineered the potential for a global agreement on corporation tax.....
 
Surely a cause that must be at the very core of all anti capitalist / anti establishment SJWs?
 
 

Bloody good news if it does actually turn out to be true. Long overdue.
I was listening to an article about it and it was mentioned that the recent change at the White House had also been a fundamental enabling mechanism for it as well. Obviously.

[Stubby]

19 minutes ago, sime42 said:

14 hours ago, roboted said:

Some good info on the "Opt out" links on there.

 I mean, paper, why do we need to use that these days?

You can't wipe yer bum on line . 🙂

[sime42]

You can't wipe yer bum on line . [emoji846]

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

[Sutton]

10 hours ago, Mark J said:

In a nutshell yes, your medical data has immense commercial value. Access to it has the potential to allow people to make money by either selling you something or denying you something.

True. I've heard BigPharma Reps used to wine and dine Drs so only their drugs would be prescribed. That was over 20 years ago, mind. I was asking the question on Opting Out in the light of Big Data rather than consumer rights or citizen duties.

 

Here's a silly old story to illustrate how patient records being anonymised isn't an issue:

 

Back in the Wild West, a man rides into town to withdraw his savings from the bank after hearing his money might not be safe there. The bankmanager tells him "Sorry, Sir. There's been a robbery". The bankmanager then goes on to explain how the bank looks after everyone's money. Each person's cash is kept down in the safe, each boxed or bagged and individually named. "Unfortunately", says the bank manager, "the robbers took your box and there's nothing the bank can do about it".

 

Few would question why data has value: using historical trend/pattern analysis makes the future clearer. More data => refined accuracy -> greater value. For everyone.

[Khriss]

@Sutton that is true, however data can be a weapon also, and knowing how to attack and when to attack is a powerful force. Government backed hackers are having great effect. K

[roboted]

1 hour ago, sime42 said:

16 hours ago, roboted said:

Some good info on the "Opt out" links on there.

I've only had a brief look at this but it seems to be an overly convoluted process to opt-out. No doubt intentionally, bstards. Looks like you've got to go out of your way to do it by printing off a form and taking it in to your GP. I mean, paper, why do we need to use that these days?

If you're like me, single no kids or family, 5 minute job online.

[Khriss]

Small reminder as today is the day as was back then. K

 

British Normandy Memorial unveiled in France to honour veterans

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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It records the names of 22,424 servicemen and women killed on D-Day and at the Battle of Normandy.

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

13 hours ago, Mull said:

Taxing the rich??

Thought that would go against your grain Mr J

I hate tax Mull, can't deny it.  

 

I guess, it would be more accurate to say I hate systemic governmental waste of money when that money is generated by taxing my hard graft.

 

There's no way round it, waste, incompetence, corruption etc etc etc are endemic - albeit we'll all have differing ideas and thresholds for what constitutes waste, incompetence etc and what is appropriate, sensible and VfM tax spends.

 

You can't blame the corporates for exploiting / utilising* (delete as appropriate) existing national and global tax regimes.  I'd suggest we ALL do it - albeit on a much smaller scale.

 

Governments use tax 'breaks' (and penalties) to incentivise certain behaviours but it has taken too long for all/any government to properly catch up with legislation to effectively tax offshore corporates and tax havens of the super rich.  I don't 'blame' Starbucks / Apple / Branson for what they do, I've got an ISA so I guess that makes me just as bad as them - on a much smaller scale - but the principle is the same.

 

The masses that patronise these corp's are just as bad as the corp's themselves - again, as I type on my Mac, I guess that makes me just as culpable.

 

Now that the global financial elite have been forced to recognise the fragility of the existing Ponzi scheme that is tax, and the global pandemic has forced a re-think on propping it up, they have had to seek a means to harvest income from sources that were previously off limits.  

 

Thatcher and Reagan promoted and implemented the 'trickle down' principles of macro economies which, with the passage of time, can be seen to have been a flawed concept and a failed process.  They couldn't have known it at the time but 'we', with the benefit of hindsight, can now see it as a failed process.

 

What we do know is that communism / socialism will ALWAYS fail.  No point arguing any other way.