Squaredy

24 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

weird how house prices were even more expensive than today in 1845 - before the minimum wage a lot of those people in 1845 would have been properly poor, so the average wage much lower

Well of course people did not buy their house then.

And I totally agree about upgrading.  I would like to move out of suburbia into proper countryside.  But to do that even for a smaller house means finding about £150,000 extra, so it just ain’t gonna happen.  So yes, we all lose by having high house prices, unless we are lucky enough to inherit or for some other reason have multiple houses.

16 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

I don't see the problems with taxation that you do - many of my customers are quite well off with big gardens, and not aristocrats, just people who worked hard and made good decisions when they were young. Taxation hasn't stopped them building wealth. On this forum I could mention a dozen or more guys who have build successful tree firms that are still trading, despite the tax burdens of recent decades.

Take Beechwood and Aspen, both successful firms that are still trading. You could argue those business owners, as examples would be even wealthier if VAT was only 10% and Ltd tax only 10%, but my point is people are living a good standard of living in the here and now. I'm nowhere near as successful as the two I mentioned, a mere one man band, but I have savings (ISA) and a SIPP, my own modest home nearly all paid for and hopefully a few years left to increase my wealth before my body is degraded to the point manual work is not possible.

Today's environment is good I'd say - I  don't care about VAT or other tax, if I want more mony I just work more days, or sometimes get away with increasing prices. There is no poverty for the hard working that I can see. My tax hasn't all been sqaundered - I've seen a retired guy with a massive lump from leukemia now in remission, cancer treatments are better than 20 years ago. Someone has to pay. People can go to Uni, or become florists, bin men, chefs - all is right in the world

 

I agree I do not see much poverty.  Except perhaps when it comes to buying a house.  I feel for my kids when they want to buy their first house.  

My main gripe is that the government have more money than ever, yet public services are generally dire.  Of course, bear in mind I have lived in a Labour area for 26 years.  Some things like education are certainly better where Labour have not been in charge for long.

25 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

but it isn't the highest tax regime since WW2, if you read that Wiki history of taxation Mark J posted above it says the basic rate was up around 33% for a while. 

 

The government of Margaret Thatcher, who favoured taxation on consumption, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s in favour of indirect taxation.^[19] In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%.^[20] The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets – to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988; The top rate of income tax was cut to 40%.^[21] The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.

Under the government of John Major the basic rate was reduced in stages to 23% by 1997.

21st century

Under Labour chancellor Gordon Brown, the basic rate of income tax was further reduced in stages to 20% by 2007. As the basic rate stood at 35% in 1976, it has been reduced by 43% since then. However, this reduction has been largely offset by increases in other regressive taxes such as National Insurance contributions and Value Added Tax (VAT).

And it is worth remembering that when people talk about austerity, the amount of money the public sector takes as tax and spends is at record highs - not just due to the Labour government.  Despite accusations of austerity public sector spending went through the roof under the Conservatives.

Many services have been cut and are struggling, but this is not due to tax cuts or frugality.  If only it were then the solution would be easy.  Our public sector is better funded than it ever has been, but outcomes are probably worse than they ever have been at least since WW2.  The actual solution is to somehow make the public sector efficient and productive.  

45 minutes ago, Mark J said:

those who own the government debt ie: the billionaires we should be taxing

It is worth remembering that the billionaires you are talking about consist mainly of pension funds.  In other words the future prosperity of you and I (unless you have no pension of course).

17 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

but it isn't the highest tax regime since WW2, if you read that Wiki history of taxation Mark J posted above it says the basic rate was up around 33% for a while. 

According to the media we currently have the highest overall tax burden since not long after WW2.  Yes some rates may be lower, but there are many other taxes.  Remember purchase tax was around 6%, this was replaced by VAT when we entered the EEC at 10%, and now it is mainly 20%.  NI rates are also through the roof, property tax is higher, etc, etc, etc.  So, yes we have VERY high taxation levels currently.  About to get higher in a few days.

9 minutes ago, Mark J said:

The richest paid 98% tax after WW2, that's how social hosing and NHS was possible. 
 

Indeed, they paid 98% on investment income until Maggie came to power in 1979.  And the thresholds were not exactly high, so it wasn't just the super-rich.  So I agree some (on the face of it) good things happened in the period 1946 to 1979, but the country was a basket case.

And I would suggest if you are interested looking into the history of wealth taxes.  It is rather chequered in terms of their success.

On 22/11/2025 at 14:49, Mark J said:

37K views · 2.4K reactions | 👩‍⚕️👨‍🚒🤵 Doctors, firefighters, even the...

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

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👩‍⚕️👨‍🚒🤵 Doctors, firefighters, even the super-rich themselves can see it… so why can’t Rachel Reeves? It’s time to tax the super‑rich and invest in the collective future of our...

 

The makers of this video think that the public sector is suffering because of lack of funding.  So where do they imagine the highest tax regime since World War Two actually goes?

1 hour ago, mitchel said:

I have 15 trees on a small woodland along side of an a busy A road and 15 trees have been condemned by the council. I have 4 months to sort them otherwise they will and bill my customer.

 

How easy is it to get a felling license quickly the trees either have Dutch elm or ash dieback. there are others in the woodland that will need taking down at same time due to the same diesease. Obviously just that council man obviously doesnt leave his 4x4 while surveying.

As has been said speak to the tree officer at the local authority; as if they are requiring you to feel the trees for public safety it may be that a felling license is not needed.  Or indeed if the trees are under a certain size.

Nearly all over now sadly.  Been an amazing match, but the Aussies made it look easy in the end.  I see we have a breakthrough now, but just a little too late I am afraid.

9 hours ago, sime42 said:

 

Relatively speaking yes; the BBC are totally balanced and objective. 

Seriously though.Sure, they suffer from bias and serious errors of judgement. Like the Trump speech stupidly, or the Gaza/Israel coverage or the inordinate amount of airtime devoted to Light Blue rather than Green or Orange. But compared to anything else out there, nothing even comes close in terms of breadth of coverage and range of content. In the main all pretty balanced, overly balanced sometimes. 

 

What would you suggest as an alternative to the BBC? Surely to you don't want to end up with a situation like they have in the States, with very little but partisan "news" outlets. Or even worse, having to try and glean glimmers of truth from AI infused social media owned by the likes of Zuckerberg or Musk. Sends a shiver down my spine.

 

 

I agree with much of your analysis, though I think they take the bias further than you do.

And over the years I have liked plenty of their non-news output.

There is not a perfect solution and every news outlet has an agenda of one sort or another.  What I think is wrong is for the public to be forced to fund the BBC.

The license fee should have been abolished as soon as there became a viable choice back in the eighties.  If the BBC are that good they will have no trouble attracting subscribers.  
 

To demonstrate how wrong the current system is, in my household we don’t watch any live broadcast TV except my wife and boys watch the Grand Prix which we pay for through Now TV.  But because they watch this live I am forced to fund the BBC.

It is like shopping in Asda but there exists some archaic law that means you have to pay fifteen pounds a month to Tesco even though you choose not to shop there.

If I get time tomorrow I will list some of the times in the last 20 years or so the BBC has been found guilty of institutional bias.  Of course that will probably be the fault of Ofcom.  The BBC are totally balanced and objective.

1 hour ago, Mark J said:

 

I have heard this before.  The BBC have only made a mistake, and they are the victim of a vicious right wing attack.

I genuinely pity anyone who is sucked in by this.

23 minutes ago, 5thelement said:

Yet more whataboutery.

She was found guilty of a hate crime, encouraging racial hatred on social media, after reacting to right wing populist bullshit that turned out to be incorrect, all this on the day that the children where killed in Southport, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I have zero sympathy for her. 
She is being held up as the darling victim for the right wing populist press, and you have clearly also got her in your wank bank. 

No, I just recognise disparity in justice when I see it.

47 minutes ago, 5thelement said:

You assume wrong, and your whataboutery  doesn’t make her any less guilty either. 

She was certainly guilty of saying some vile stuff on social media.  In truth probably no worse than a million things said by UK citizens on the internet every day.

32 minutes ago, Steven P said:

 

Thought he had gone to court? But the law has to be fair and even.

He went to court, but he pleaded not guilty, so it went before a jury.  The jury quickly decided he was not guilty.  The words he used were not in doubt, but the jury clearly accepted he wasn’t actually suggesting anyone slit anyone’s throat, even though that is what he said.  Just like Lucy Connolly it should never have ended up in court.

I heard about Stokes’ heroics.  Looking forward to watching the highlights with my boy later.

12 minutes ago, 5thelement said:

She was a victim if her own effing stupidity and was convicted for breaking the law, inciting racial hatred by encouraging people to burn down hotels housing migrants, she is not the victim, although she is playing the victim card now all right, and she did 10 months in total. 

And am I to assume you are OK with Ricky Jones who was a public figure not even getting a reprimand?

2 hours ago, 5thelement said:

He will be playing the victim card like Lucy Connolly when he gets out, seeking ‘asylum’ in the USA, the irony, you could make this shit up with a straight face.

To be fair to Lucy Connolly, she WAS a victim.  What she said was horrible and wrong, but 2.5 years in prison!  Whether she was a victim of poor legal advice (her barrister advised her to plead guilty) of politically motivated state over-reach or both is a matter of opinion. (Compare the similar case of Ricky Jones who pleaded not guilty and got off scott free).

53 minutes ago, Welshfred said:

Quite long but worth it

 

What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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The long read: As GenAI becomes the primary way to find information, local and traditional wisdom is being lost. And we are only beginning to realise what we’re missing

 

 

That is an intelligent article, making fair points.  But as the author points out the knowledge collapse started many many years ago.  AI may hasten it, but the threats he identifies have existed for thousands of years at least.  Societies evolve, they grow and shrink, and even in my own little area I could easily point to loss of traditional skills and knowledge.  There is probably not a solution, but luckily there are always people around who will develop niche interests and learn about their heritage and (some) past skills.

But we can't preserve the past as if it is a crime to develop and evolve.  The skills of coracle making, eel trapping, hunting and cooking small birds and amphibians, foraging for roots, turning hawthorn berries into nutritious food, and a million other traditions have all but disappeared from my area, but life goes on and new customs develop.

I do not dismiss what the author is saying, and yes we can all guard against following each other like sheep.  This should start with parents and schools encouraging kids to think independently, analytically and critically.  If a school fails to embrace plurality of opinion and approach they are failing their pupils.  If a school and parents help a child use their brain and think about the issues of the world and their community they are setting them up to use AI and other tools (like modern construction methods mentioned in the article) for their own and others' benefit.

Critical thinking is the key; not ludditeism.

29 minutes ago, sime42 said:

Where do stand on children having smart phones? 

I am not sure I have the answer here.  I think school life was better before smartphones. It is so sad seeing so many people walking around staring at their screens all the time, no doubt much of the time on social media.  
 

But where do you draw the line?  It is not always bad.  Having said that I think schools should take a strong line and this would make it easier for parents.  But I fear the teachers love technology as it can do much of their work for them.  My boys school uses an awful system called Sparx Maths which does all the lesson planning, sets all the homework, marks all the homework, shows pupils help videos for any work they are stuck on.  The teacher barely needs to turn up.  The kids hate it and in many cases it makes them hate maths.  But it looks like it is the future.

If I had my way all homework would be paper based.  In fact pretty much all schoolwork would be paper based.  Generally kids work out really fast how to use technology.  It is the traditional skills they need help with.

Wow; as a sawmiller it is so sad to see such amazing logs turned into chip.  I realise that you may not find a suitable buyer exactly when you need one, but there is a niche market for such logs.  

Not only sawmills like mine, but also some chainsaw carvers like nice big lumps of sequoia.

i recently bought a lorry load of sequoia not quite as big as some of the ones on this thread, but I was only buying the second and third lengths.  I paid £100 per ton delivered if I remember rightly.

1 hour ago, Welshfred said:

 

+1 I do feel there was a technology sweet spot around 2005. A lot of "advances" since have been purely for commercial gain rather then customer need or desire. 

So about the time that suddenly everyone had a computer in their pocket, rather than a communication device. 

I tend to agree, but you could say that IT was elite until the smartphone became afordable.  Ie only those who could afford a PC or laptop and broadband at home were IT enabled.  But of course the upside of this was that things were still available the old fashioned way.  Banks were still a thing; the high street had a huge variety of shops, and you could phone ahead to see if they had what you need.

Nowadays some things are just so easy to find - a quick google search, press a few buttons and within a day or two it arrives.  On the other hand how frustrating is it when we are forced to do things via an app that doesn't work properly?  And how sad that so much of life is just now about staring at a screen - social media is a whole rabbit hole of good and bad that we haven't even mentioned.  

8 hours ago, sime42 said:

But it could be limited, curtailed, controlled or at the very least regulated to some extent.

Agreed.  It seems the educational establishment have no idea how to tell how much work is down to a student and how much is AI.  Perhaps a solution to this might be for universities to actually return to exam based assessments!

8 hours ago, Mesterh said:

I was under the impression of the exact opposite. 

Agriculture gave us leisure time.  But also huge famines, huge wars, slavery, obesity, genocide etc.  I am not sure many people would want to return to hunting and gathering however!

1 hour ago, Mark J said:

The AI Machine Men Snatching Our Souls

WWW.DONOTPANIC.NEWS

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(**************** AI Part II)

 

Good grief, the writer of that article has some serious hang ups!  I guess he walks everywhere and uses a typewriter to send letters to his friends!  Which to be fair there is nothing wrong with. And also to be fair he does make some valid points.  But he lost me when he said AI is racist.  And the example he gave was pathetic.

I think we can all agree that AI has its risks, just the same as probably every technological advancement from planting seeds to grow your crops to machines replacing skilled workers also has risks and downsides.  In fact you could reasonably argue that where it all started going wrong for humanity is when we learnt agriculture ten thousand years ago:  life expectancy plummeted, we became stunted due to lack of variety in diet and almost every major catastrophe that has happened since would have been impossible before large scale farming.

But put your hand up if you want to go back to a hand to mouth existence where you hope you can feed your family and keep them alive for one more day.

Surely we need to learn to harness AI and use it for our ends.  After all it can’t be uninvented!