Thank you. It feels right that the books go here to someone.

sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Okay, what the heck is going on here?

.......

The most logical conclusion is that the school administrators hired the child as an assassin, & subsequently prevented anyone from stopping the assassin. Nothing else makes sense. Have teachers' unions become so powerful that this is the only course of action to remove an unwanted employee?

I recommend discussion about this event happen on other web-sites and not here if you want to really discuss it.  There's going to be little agreement on this issue. There's a lot going on here, but the administrators hiring this student as an assassin is not likely.  The main thing that's going on is you have a kid with an "acute disability."  Second, you have a family that did a poor job of securing their firearm(s).  Third, you have school administrators who made poor/no decisions about following up on multiple disturbing reports.  Fourth, we live in a country where firearms are easy available to just about anyone.  All these forces and more led to this outcome and the possibility of more reactions and over-reactions.  

Outside of certain criminal circles, every gun has an owner who is responsible for its safety, security, and use. In every instance of a child discharging a weapon and killing another person, the gun owner bears 100% responsibility for the safety, security and use of that weapon. Yet, for some reason, we do not see mothers and fathers jained for the killing of children. One can only surmise that it is that way, becuase in certain states they would rather have dead children than hold gun owners to account for the use of their weapons.

benjoshua wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:I was not practicing what I was recommending.... which is similar enough.  

How about "I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" In any event, the news has provided us with a new diversion:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235310817/
"Hasbro to Lay Off 1,000 Staffers, 15 Percent of Workforce, Amid Cost-Savings Push
The toy giant is also looking to sell its production division Entertainment One as it pivots to focus on gaming."
That's us, right?

Contraction. The company, like all companies, perceives austerity in its future, and less available revenue coming from the customer. So it contracts its workforce, offloads unnecessary and wasteful spending, and squeezes everything it can from its current assets.

Interest rates are not 'high', let alone 'very high'. The average BoE base rate over the past three centuries is around 5%.
When the BoE base rate hits returns to normal and all the pansies start bleeting about 'oh woe is me. I can't handle real life anymore' then we know we are starting to get back to reality.
I'll be happy when the BoE base rate nears 10% and we have a real chance of curbing inflation, but there are a million ways to kick the can down the road, not least of which is WW3 and removal of currencies from the population.
Lots of pain ahead for a lot of the ostriches with their heads burried in the sand.
Good times for those with liquidity wanting housing stock and other assets at bargain basement prices.
'Very high' could be above 10% for some people, as it was for most of the 70's and 80's.
3.5% as it is now is lower than 99% of the BoE's recorded history.
It's gonna be a real wakeup call for the mellenials and GenZ generations who never lived or worked without free money and credit.

shadeun wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:
Thats fine, and over the course of human history we dont have to worry about money because its a relatively recent phenomenon vs Fur Bartering and berry transactions.

I of course meant high vs the recent history.

Also, it is very high vs a large buildup of savers (boomers) who need income to live on - this creates (right now, and we will go back to it) an excess glut of savers vs spenders that creates a naturally lower rate of interest. The reverse was true in the post-war era when developed economies all were expanding their quality of living (physically) in a large manner.

(also, did you know in <3 months India will be the most populated nation, the first time a democracy will hold that title I believe)

Recent history as in the last ten years of so? That's a pretty life limiting view of the world, and that is why most people continue to whine and bleat on about 'the cost of living crisis'. They refuse to live outside of their own entitlement bubbles. Ironically, whenever the Govt. prints more money for them, hands out all their subsidies, and payouts, and pays their fuel bills etc., the additional mony printing just makes the crisis worse and worse. It's the old question, why not just print infinite amounts of money and make everyone a millionaire. Some poeple can see why that doesn't work, most can't, but most of those we do realise the pitfalls cannot extrapolate that to inflating the money supply in general.
 
The problem in the economy is inflation, or more accurately, the effects of inflation, because the inflating of the money supply has already occurred. We already created all the currency units. Wer already devalued our currency. We are in that period of lag where we wait to find out exactly where that inflation is going to occur and by how much. We created 3 out of every 4 GBPs in existence over the fast few years, so every GBP is now worth, nominally, 25p compared to what it was worth 4 years ago. But goods and services in the real world have yet to catch up with the devaluing of the pound. Traditionally (last 30 years or so) devaluing our currency has shown up predominantly in house prices going up disproportionaltely to the rest of society's goods and services. In 2008 and beyond, the devaluing of the currency resulted in dramatic increases in the costs of stocks and shares. But on each of those occassions the treasury just created more and more money and fed it into the system. I don't know if that is what they are going to do this time. I'd imagine it would be easier to just delete all money and hit the reset button, and blame all the losses people suffer on 'the war'. But, rest assured, those with a vested interest in preerving their money know what is going to happen and will not suffer losses the way the rest of society will.

Why does a large pool of savers drive down interest rates? Firstly, the majority of the equity held by the baby boomer generation are tied up in stock portfolios, housing stock, and pension funds. These are things affected more by bond prices if anything rather than interest rates per se. I'd imagine most of them are mortgage free and we live in a country with free unlimited healthcare, and are talking about a generation with more generous pensions than you or I will be entitled to, and a generation who for a large part had final salary pension entitlements. So I suspect your estimate of their requirement for money to live on is lower than what your average young couple or singleton needs to live on in the UK. They are by far the best served and most financially comfortable demographic at present, and they will do really well out of the rising interest rates. Many were starting their working lives in the 70's, lived through high inflation, high interest, high unemployment and national strikes. The intelligent among them will know where this is headed, and how to avoid the fiscal pitfalls. They will not be cashing in their savings or invensments or downsizing their mortgage free homes. They'll be sitting tight I think and making hay whjile the sun shines.

It's the Gen X and Gen Y lower middle classes who have the furthest to fall. Mr Middle Manager, and Ms. Project Architect, with their 450K mortgage, two cars under 3yo, and Timmy and Rebecca in private school. Most of the middle class in the UK lives paycheck to paycheck, and use their credit cards as their buffer to smooth out the bumps in the road. Only 1 in 10 in the UK can lay their hands on £1000 in an emergency without resporting to going into debt. When the economy takes away access to credit, businesses start to delet jobs, and when that happens, and Mr & Mrs 4X4 have no paycheck and no credit, the house and the car payments don't get paid real quick, and they phone CAB for advice of filing for bankruptsy.

I doubt 1 in 100 working middle class families can live for 6 months without an income, or a credit card, let alone a 12-18 economic depression. Most couldn't give a F - It hasn't happened in 'recent history' so its unlikley to happen, right?

I'm just thankful every time I get a paycheck, and hope there will be one next month. But I know not to depend on that paycheck being there, because one day it won't be.

India - Is it really a democracy?

sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Based upon the usual metric, I'd say yes.

I hope your surgery goes well and you have no problem rolling dice in June. Good luck!