Young Master Smeet
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Interestingly, Varoufakis talks about his time in office and how top people in the IMF etc. were admitting they knew their poliocies couldn't and wouldn't work, but they had no choice, they were too committed. Also, he notes the big mistake, the idea that political union coiuld follow currency union, rather than vice versa. He also suggests that the ultimate target of the austerity is France, and brining it to heel, it's a fascinating account. he also mentions his movemnt to Democratise the EU:https://diem25.org/Which looks interesting. It seems he hasn't given up.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/nov/02/is-uk-winner-or-loser-european-councilThis is an interestign one dug up, the UK is on the winnign side of European COuncil votes 87% of the time, now, obviously, there may be some contrained voting to keep partners happy, but it does kind of putthe lie to the uidea that we aredominated by Europe…
The short version is, "if you tax us, we only have one place to get the money from: our employers." Our position doesn't assume we will be able to raise wages, taxes can be succesfully 'imposed' at a loss to workers, but that reflects our weakness in the labour market, and suggests wages were due to fall anyway, all the state has done in that case is seize the profit that would have gone to the employer. In some cases, this money is returned in the social wage…
Is this related to the market efficiency hypoothosis? Whatever price the market pays is the 'right' price, because markets have all the best information available? It's certainly a very incurious empiricism at best. I suppose economists have to shy away from philosophy…. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis
Quote:Meanwhile, lower short term interest rates will hurt bank profits. The only way banks can recover these profits is by lending at higher rates, while offering lower rates to savers. The sad irony is therefore that neither savers nor borrowers would gain from Brexit.A world of higher short term borrowing costs, higher long term borrowing costs and lower savings returns looks an all too plausible outcome. At the same time, investment in jobs is choked off, economic growth declines, and inflation starts to raise its head again. All combined with a worsening balance of payments position and a sterling crisis.https://theconversation.com/why-mortgage-rates-will-rise-with-brexit-59179It would take a certain sort of genius to achieve that outcome, highr mortgage rates, lower savings rates, oh, lordy…
Quote:Finally, it should be borne in mind in considering the various forms of manifestation of ground-rent, that is, the lease money paid under the heading of ground-rent to the landlord for the use of the land for purposes of production or consumption, that the price of things which have in themselves no value, i.e., are not the product of labour, such as land, or which at least cannot be reproduced by labour, such as antiques and works of art by certain masters, etc., may be determined by many fortuitous combinations. In order to sell a thing, nothing more is required than its capacity to be monopolised and alienated.Marx, Capital IIIMarginalism treats each commodity as if it were a unique instance that can be monopolised, and so arrives at the view as per Marx above. beause Marx goes into the system behind the exchange events, he derives value from a social system. absically, all exchanges are what the buyer and seller are willing to pay (the libertarian fantasy) when seen at that precise moment. The question is how we got to that moment. Nor does it account for the infinite ultility of money, there is no marginal utility of money, more money can always buy more and do more.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0513/788145-brexit-ireland/The Irish certainly have a dog in this fight, and they can add clout (and spend) to the remain campaign, and of course, Irish citizens can vote. At least one has been taking part in this thread.
Quote:Mr Kenny, who was speaking at a debate in Dublin organised by Bloomberg, warned that if the UK left the EU it would result in extra "bureaucracy and extra red tape". He also said that if the UK left the EU it would damage Ireland economically.Meanwhile, British expats living in Ireland have until this Monday, 16 May, to register online for a postal vote in the referendum.British citizens in Ireland are entitled to vote if they have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 yearsTicktin wrote:As Marx makes clear in the Gotha Programme and elsewhere, value and so price and hence money is abolished under socialism. This does not necessarily mean that there may not be tokens used for items which are not yet in sufficient supply for all or may never be, like Mediterranean homes. The society will gradually distribute more and more goods on a free basis, beginning with those items which are communal because they are natural monopolies or so costly that they require the intervention of society to ensure provision like transport, housing, water and power.What will a socialist society be like?Hillel H. Ticktin Critique Vol. 25, Iss. 1, 1997
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-donations/electoral-commission-statement-on-application-to-the-high-court-for-the-conservative-and-unionist-party-to-disclose-documents-and-information?Classic scandal trajectory, now the Electoral commission is going to court for disclosure. Silly of the Tories to even remotely allow this to happen, since, as one of our guest speakers once told us, it's the cover up that kills, and the perception of malfeasance.This is in additional to several police investigations.Doubtless they will all clear the Tories on technical grounds, but the smell will remain…
Tristan,Your points are good, and valid, though nothing you raise is, to my mind, insurmountable.It occurs to me what I am basically modelling the approach on is the way we organise conference, one branch can move a motion without seconding, the reports are collated and distributed at the start of the meeting, and voting takes place afterwards.So, we'd have an agenda that went:Agreement of chairMinutes, reports and items of businessDiscussionVotingThe chair could collate a single 'ballot paper' and mark out where items/motions conflicted. As for seconders, a different approach is one person can put forward a motion, and if no-one else even discusses it, it is deemed to be dropped. However, the channel limitations of a face-to-face meeting are absent, muiltiple 'conversations' can be had at the same time (with suitable threading). SO's could make clear that only one contribution is allowed per thread, to prevent flooding by one member. Stages of a meetign could be recursive, if something needs to go to the vote early, or if a late item comes up. I think I basically need to work this into something meaningful by ADM, I'll try to remember to run a draft past you.(Conference calling is utterly irrelevent to this discussion, normal standing orders work perferctly well with some non-controversial tweeks).
jondwhite wrote:If you've corresponded with someone by letter or e-mail, then would you say you had 'met' them? Probably not, hence why taking a meeting to mean a meeting in real-time only would solve all of the problems of quorum, electing, seconding and voting in non-temporal "meetings".The word 'meting' is a red herring, it is about communicating to achieve group decisions. But a correspondence meeting is just as plausible as a correspondence game of chess.
Tristan Miller wrote:I can't help but wonder whether you may be looking at an older copy of Branch Standing Orders. Are you aware that they were revised in 2013 to include a set of orders designed specifically for bulletin boards and e-mail lists? If you think those new orders are somehow deficient, that's fair enough, and it would be great to hear your suggestions on how they could be improved. But I don't think it's fair to claim that they were not designed to be used for online correspondence.I think I have tried to use the bulletin board version. The main problems I'd suggest are the requirement for an awful lot of phatic communication, it starts with the roll-call, then an election of chair, vote on chair, etc. Before you've even started discussing anything substantial, each person has to make four or five posts, and, of course, not everyone is there at the same time, and we time out before we begin. Plus, most people have not read and digested the long and detailed SO's and that makes it hard to keep them to them.I've tried thinking of alternatives, based on simultaneous threadsFixes I'd suggest are: chair automatically presumed to second all motions (cuts out seconding emails).All voting happening at the end of the meeting (and the voting being the roll-call for attendance).Allowing a volunteer chair (at least for the first meeting, or making a permenant chair branch post, so each meeting doesn't have to spend acres of time electing one).So you'd have three phases: agenda, discussion, voting.This is a rough sketch, but it gets closer to something workable. I'd also throw in raised quorum for online meetings, backed up with either a physical meeting once a year top ratify all business, or a paper referendum.
https://twitter.com/daily_politics/status/727813788230000640The gift that keeps on giving, Andrew neil dissecting forming Tory Chair Grant Shapps. Note how he claims not to shirk responsibility, as a way to shirk responsibility…
Of all the various problems in the world, the small border dispute between Israel and Palestine is not one we should really be flexing much energy about…
