Leaderboard

Editing out an anti-Apartheid message in order to score a cheap blow for the Tory party, who very actively supported Apartheid, is pretty racist. Edit: I'm also very annoyed that I took the time to re-read that rambling and economically illiterate screed of an analogy about beer and taxes by some no-name American mid-Western lecturer - who by the way actually denies he wrote it . I think I'll stick with the academic near-consensus forming that deflationary economics has persisted for far too long, and that it serves no purpose in either reducing national debt, or promoting economic growth. In fact, you don't even need to read the academic opinion - its common sense. There's a reason that interest rates are fucking rock-bottom - there are fucking piles of money lying around that people literally can't think of uses for. There are hoards of savings floating around looking for returns, but the investment opportunities literally don't exist, because overall economic activity is slowing and stuttering. It's basic supply and demand - interest is the cost of borrowing money. If there's lots of money lying around and not many people looking to borrow, interest rates will be low. One of the happy side-effects of this, is the massive financialisation of the housing market. Everyone with any savings realises that one of the easiest ways in the world to make money - since just keeping it in the bank isnt very profitable, and there's no actual productive activity to invest in - is to hoard housing, rent it at insane prices, and then vote Tory to make sure the housing supply never meaningfully increases. Lots of profit, very little real contribution economically - in fact in many ways it hampers growth. All the while, there are innumerable societal issues that actually desperately require money. So many communities, especially outwith the South-East, where a small injection of money could actually create a massive, productive, material economic benefit. But who wants to invest in Northumberland or Wales, potentially creating real value, when you can get guaranteed returns by investing in the London buy-to-let market, and essentially just playing economic hostage-taker? So it seems we have a bit of market failure here. Resources are evidently not being allocated effectively - some areas are over-invested to the point of ridiculousness, most are gasping for investment. Apart from a small lunatic fringe, economic theory has basically always had a role for the state stepping in to correct these kinds of market failures, and in fact the ability of the state to do so is the foundation of the modern capitalist welfare state which we all take for granted. The New Deal in America, Labour in 1945, the West-German Soziale Marktwirtschaft, the Scandinavian model. To pretend that somehow its illegitimate for the state to correct these kinds of inevitable blockages and quirks of the market, is to deny the very thing that has essentially made the West so socially and economically advanced.

A black Labour MP fudges a number - becomes a meme forever. Tory MPs like Truss, Gove and Morgan relentlessly fuck-up their random made-up numbers on air - nobody cares. What a coincidence.

If Silva does get sacked my preference for his replacement from those who have been mentioned go like this: 1. Benitez or Arteta. 2. Any other unknown quantity that I can convince myself might be good. 3. Moyes until the end of the season. 4. Unsworth until the end of the season. 5. Literally any other person, dead or alive. 6. Mark Hughes.

I didn't even know they held rap battles in Argentina, but they are c lass. good to see them over beats as well. When are we gona see @Berserker get on that stage?

Absolute madness how she kept trying to defend it by repeating the same bloody thing. 'because it's more!' 'But how? How is it more?' 'Because there's going to be 50,000 more!' 'It's 31,000 more and 19,000 retained'. 'it's 50,000 more nurses'. 'How?' 'there's 50,000 more nurses'

Sorry about the sad news. It sounds like he was a great chap. 65 years old is too young to go in this day and age. My condolences go out to all his friends and family. May he rest in peace.

There's plenty of photos of Corbyn out there. Even if you particularly want a photo of him holding a sign, there's loads. Picking one which specifically refers to a major racist force in history, and literally erasing it in order to put your own hysterical agenda centre stage, is an actively racist choice.

If Rodgers managed to sign Sterling from City I reckon Gonzo would have a heart attack before the seasons out

Yeah I reckon Poch would definitely prefer to commit to a massive rebuild project at Everton instead of walking into Bayern, Madrid or Man Utd. Nailed on.

When you have to concentrate 100% trying to keep a straight face...

Just showed the wife this @Tommy, we both laughed our arses off, that's wee Kaiden to a tee when he is in one of his moods, have to show the daughter.

@Stan

Totally agree!

They shouldn't be allowed to earn this kind of money for kicking a ball around a field mate, it's obscene ..for me, no player should get more than 10k a week then clubs could lower ticket prices to £10 a game

And smoke some of the funny stuff with his Spec-Savers glasses on.

I've been on paternity leave for the last 3 weeks... A lot of modern workplaces now are encouraging men to do this and my work offer up to 14 weeks paid leave inside the first year of the birth. So for the last 3 weeks I've woken up to this beautiful little face beaming up at me, and am planning my days around making sure she's getting cool experiences and challenges and mingling with other babies. It's been great tbh. I thought I might've been totally rubbish at being the lead parent but I think I've fared pretty well so far.

3 years of the current status quo would totally reshape peoples perceptions of what is a fair and reasonable decision though mate. I swing around on this topic but as the season wears on my patience has faded. It's a contact sport and I think if you slow it down and watch replays you'll find 100 little bits of Argy Bargy between players and I'm getting the impression that VAR will only result in a further increase in hypersensitivity that was already pretty bad with standard calls etc. At the moment I would prefer it to be scrapped for the rest of the season and send some people back to the drawing board to work on how it can better reflect common sense decisions. "Because technology" is not a good enough excuse for the current system with its actual increased levels of variability and microscopic precision offsides...

Lost one of my old friends this week. Wolfgang had been an 04 fan since his teenage years and left is sadly on 65 years old after a life of hard mining and then jazz band playing in one of the local Gelsenkirchen bands. Great Guy and sadly missed. Maybe 04 will remember him in the next programme! https://www.waz.de/staedte/gelsenkirchen/dieser-gelsenkirchener-blues-service-ist-ausgezeichnet-id212373009.html

@True Blue with an early morning Tweet... Looking good mate!