Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes. Have another crack at reading my post

Cash only payments, low overheads, difficult to prove revenue, high pass through of people.

Pretty good to launder through basically.

That's what I've always suspected.

And hand over items easily.

Predictable Worstall controversial
But to a significant degree factually accurate. My staff pay tax which in part subsidises train and tube fares so that I can get to work for the same cost as they do.

I think there should be some merit in pricing season tickets without discounts and giving travel grants to people on lower incomes, but past efforts at redistribution through credits have fundamentally screwed that model. (TW would never agree with that theory)

Using a car wash to launder illegal money? I feel like I saw that somewhere.

In Brum, 15 years ago there was a road with 20 handcar washes in a mile. We were explicitly banned from taking them on as clients no matter how much they offered to pay.

Sorry man, but Terry Wogan died in the great celebrity cull of 2016.

Reddit, a while back. Checking water volumes used to verify number of customers.

Reddit perhaps isn't the best source of investigation.

Ultimately my mind has merged two articles together. I found the first but not the second. Oh well.

This one does describe some of the problems well, but the solutions are not ones that would appeal to many, as they are very left wing. It is after all just a comment-bait think piece.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -wage-jobs

Ultimately there is an issue here. We have very low productivity here, and extremely low uptake of technology in many fields, because we can pay people buttons to do it manually. You can improve productivity by incentivising automation, such as by increasing minimum wage to make initial capital outlay more attractive. This increases productivity and ultimately is good for the economy. The problem is it simultaneously increases unemployment. So we need more jobs for people to do, and I don't think that is dealt with well in the article at all (it seems to say to just attract jobs by being a good economy, but details are sketchy).

It's a problem we will have to face as the current ways of dealing with economic issues have been to slash budgets for things that help the less well off, and Brexit, which looks set to damage the economy at least in the short to medium term. At some point the pissed off masses are going to need something else to placate them as income disparity is ludicrous and only getting worse, but there's no incentive for people or businesses on the better end of the scale to try to rebalance.

TW's being a bit of a libertarian dick here, though. It's all well and good to call for nothing to be subsidised and everything to be paid for by every individual, regardless of their ability to pay, but it's just a wanker's way of feeling good about not being poor, and ignoring the many things he likely participates in that are subsidised in some form by the government.

Agreed he's being a dick and I actually don't think he genuinely believes that you should just price railways to a maximum revenue model. In fact if you take his argument to its logical progression there'd be a quarter of the jobs currently in London.

That aside though, there is no way that my, or your, season tickets should be subsidised. Not only is my travel cost these days the lowest percentage of my salary, it's the lowest real cost. I paid more in travel in actual £s when I was on less than a tenth of my current salary and had no choice but to drive. And that isn't due to fuel taxes hypothecating transport investment at all.

I mean, that's the core problem. I don't think there are going to be any jobs, especially not any that aren't soul-destroying.

We'd best get on with all that Starfleet technology so everyone can be happy then

Or unemployed people get entered into The Hunger Games.

Or conscripted into the army so we can have a war with someone.

Let's fight Denmark!

FOR ALL THE BACON!

Angry protesters armed with banners bring traffic to a standstill in Bradford over death of Mohammed Yassar Yaqub. Which is odd, as he was from Huddersfield.

Whilst clearly automation is continuing apace (just as it always has), and no doubt there will be specific jobs/sectors such as drivers, pilots etc. particularly affected (I mean, we already have driverless trains, Unions permitting that is ) - I'll continue to file claims that "robots are taking over!!1" as under 'swivel-eyed tosh', in much the same vein as similarly outlandish claims that we'd be up to our necks in seawater by the 2020s a few years back. Look, it just isn't going to happen.

The doom-sayers always underestimate the powers of human ingenuity in matters such as this. Take Gaywood's example of the supposed "great loss" of the coal-mining "industry" where, well within living memory, if you lived in certain towns pretty much your only employment option was to work in a foul, dangerous pit in the ground, likely shortening your lifespan by years as the black dust and filth clogged your lungs and arteries. Yes, there were serious losers and yes, even now, there are pockets of high, residual unemployment BUT the *big picture* is that there have never, ever, in the history of these Isles ever been so many people in work, in employments immeasurably better than working down a coal mine in every single meaningful sense, and the standards of living and life expectancy of *everyone* has significantly improved, even from, say, the early 1980s. Summary: human group-think ingenuity and innovation will always find other ways and paths, we surely have good reasons to be optimistic (particularly as England especially has a propensity to elect, and lean towards Right of Centre governments, so no Corbynesque S.E. apple cart upsets are likely).

RemindMe! 10 years

A 9mm pistol with a silencer was found in the car. Crikey.

* suppressor.

What?

Suppressor is the correct term for a thing that fits onto the end of a gun and makes it a bit quieter.

It often gets called a "silencer" because you'd describe a 9mm with a suppressor on as a "silenced 9mm", and everyone would know what you're talking about, but TECHNICALLY CORRECT.

OBVIOUSLY the crypto-fascist police oligarchy hid it there to cover up the fact that the police exist solely to just shoot ethnic minorities. That's all rozzers join up for these days.

So you're saying because he owned a gun he deserved to be killed?

Not exactly.

I don't think any one is saying that.

Police don't soot, unless there is a reason. One of the reasons, is that the Police or public are perceived to be in mortal danger.

As none of us were there it is only speculation on what happened.

I'm not sure how you could possibly parse that from what I wrote, myp.

There was a fair bit of the "he was a lovely bloke, loved his mum, the police are bastards" stuff on the radio the other day. I anticipate that there will be a certain amount of "it must have been planted" in response to this, as we always get. But whilst we have no details of exactly how the shooting came about, a silenced pistol being found in his car does suggest that the police might have had at least some vague reason to consider him dangerous to the point where the men on the ground felt he was an imminent threat rather than this just being some excuse to be violently racist. Unless you believe, as many will, that this simply must be a stitch up. Either way, I'll wait until the IPCC investigation is finished.

Thanks for the explanation - I hadn't thought about it that way.

Occam's razor suggests it is not a stitch up, and the gun was his. Yet still a man of colour has again been killed by police - wasn't the last person in the UK to be killed in police custody also black or Asian? And that was deemed to be not suspicious for some reason. I can understand the discontent within these communities. It never seems to happen to white people.

Single deaths by the police according to wiki just looking at the names, it could be guessed some where white.

Yassar Yaqub (about 18:00 GMT on 2nd January 2017 near M62 in Huddersfield)[1]
November 2016: Lewis Skelton, 31, was Tasered and shot dead by Humberside Police in Hull, amid reports he was "running around with an axe".[2]
November 2016: Josh Pitt, 24, died after being shot by a firearms officer in Luton as Bedfordshire Police responded to reports that a woman had been assaulted.[3]
Dalian Atkinson (15 August 2016 in Telford, Shropshire)
May 2016: William Smith, 36, was shot dead in Goudhurst, Kent, while on bail in connection with the death of 73-year-old Roy Blackman.[4]
James Wilson (29 March 2016 in South Shields, Northumbria)[5]
Jermaine Baker (11 December 2015 in Wood Green, London)[6]
Richard Davies (21st October 2015 in St Neots, Cambridgeshire)[7]
James Fox (30 August 2015 in London, England)[8]
Dean Joseph (5 September 2014 in London, England)[9][10][11]
Anthony Grainger (3 March 2012 in Cheshire, England)
Mark Duggan (4 August 2011 in London, England)
Kingsley Burrell (31 March 2011 in Birmingham, England)[12]
Jimmy Mubenga (12 October 2010, Heathrow Airport)
Olaseni Lewis (3 September 2010 in London, England)
Keith Richards (May 2009 in Shildon, County Durham)[13]
Ian Tomlinson (1 April 2009 in London, England)

lol Kovacs

just seems some don't make the news

Dalian Atkinson

I think it depends what numbers you look at. Out of the total number of people shot by police, I vaguely recall the numbers not being too out of synch with population demographics (although the numbers are so small that one or two individuals will hella skew the percentages) , and for those dying in police custody in total (which is a dodgy name for various reasons) whites were over represented, but I'd need to recheck that. And I'm trying to leave the office so I'm not doing it now. But even if there is a higher number of people of ethnic minority background being shot, is that due to racism, whether overt or subconscious, or is it due to a higher rate of gun related crime amongst certain communities? Or something else? I don't know and I don't feel hugely comfortable making assumptions one way or the other. But I feel slightly more uncomfortable with assuming that something as serious as shooting people is occurring because the individuals doing it care less about the life of the person they're potentially taking simply because of their skin colour. Which, unfortunately, is a position taken increasingly often these days.

Ah - found some numbers:

http://inquest.org.uk/statistics/bame-d ... ce-custody

Which gives the BAME deaths by police shooting as 1 in 2015, 1 in 2014, 1 in 2011, and 3 in 2007. So that's 6 in 9 years.


The same site gives total police shooting deaths in the same period as being 22, with a similar spread.
http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/fa ... -shootings

So yes, population wide, this is a higher percentage than the demographic should represent. But then not only do you need to look at relative crime rates within communities, but also geographies and the relative demographic makeup there - if most of these shootings are taking place in London, then BAME making up 6 out of 22 is not entirely out of line with the demographic split there. And, as mentioned above, one or two individuals will just skew everything as the sample is so, so small.

There are potentially many, many factors that go into explaining these numbers, and I just get a bit despairing of the rather blinkered anti-police Guardian comments I guess (as much as I would the opposite comments on the Mail I expect!). Just because something is affecting ethnic minorities doesn't mean it is related to some structural inequality or individual level prejudice. Sometimes shit happens.

For lols:

Yassar Yaqub (about 18:00 GMT on 2nd January 2017 near M62 in Huddersfield)[1]Asian
November 2016: Lewis Skelton, 31, was Tasered and shot dead by Humberside Police in Hull, amid reports he was "running around with an axe".[2]White
November 2016: Josh Pitt, 24, died after being shot by a firearms officer in Luton as Bedfordshire Police responded to reports that a woman had been assaulted.[3]No pic
Dalian Atkinson (15 August 2016 in Telford, Shropshire)Black
May 2016: William Smith, 36, was shot dead in Goudhurst, Kent, while on bail in connection with the death of 73-year-old Roy Blackman.[4]White
James Wilson (29 March 2016 in South Shields, Northumbria)[5]White
Jermaine Baker (11 December 2015 in Wood Green, London)[6]Black
Richard Davies (21st October 2015 in St Neots, Cambridgeshire)[7]White
James Fox (30 August 2015 in London, England)[8]White
Dean Joseph (5 September 2014 in London, England)[9][10][11]No pic
Anthony Grainger (3 March 2012 in Cheshire, England)White
Mark Duggan (4 August 2011 in London, England)Black
Kingsley Burrell (31 March 2011 in Birmingham, England)[12]Black
Jimmy Mubenga (12 October 2010, Heathrow Airport)Black
Olaseni Lewis (3 September 2010 in London, England)Black
Keith Richards (May 2009 in Shildon, County Durham)[13]Can only find pics of the Rolling Stone
Ian Tomlinson (1 April 2009 in London, England)White

White: 7
Non-white: 7
Unknown: 3

Even if I charitably say that the three unknowns were white too that still makes 42% of the above fatal police shootings people of colour, when the general population of non-whites in this country is 12.9% according to Wikipedia. The fact is that this is too small a sample size to gain any information from, I just wanted to show you how foolish your post was.

To play devil's advocate:

Surely if there is increased gun crime, or crime in general, or increased poverty, etc within a specific ethnic group, that is suggestion itself of structural inequality? The only other conclusion is that those people are in some way 'lesser' than other ethnicities.

Don't do this. Own your comments, dude.

That is 17 shootings in 8 years.. That is not a large number. the page has alot more but only grabbed a few

Oh I dont necessarily disagree, I was making the point that "minority is affected by something" does not automatically mean "something racist is going on". It might do, but it might not. In this case, there may be an explanation for an overrepresentation in police shootings that is as simple as "sample size too small for meaningful statistical conclusion".

In the UK, obvs. In the US they're all racist rednecks with guns and the numbers prove it.

Sadly the US provides wildly larger sample sizes.

Yes, that was my point.

You're a point.

A very well made one.

Great job breaking the NHS, Tory scumbags.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/38538637

I'm sure Cavey will have a great explanation as to why everything is just fine