But now even the leader of this party has a huge corruption case against him, so he tries to change the laws to save his ass, by making corruption legal. In the last 12 months he changed 3 prime ministers (all from his party, absurd as it seems) because even they were afraid to do the illegalities he demands. He's a joke and we can't get rid of him. Why can't he directly take the PM seat? Because he has already been condemned for corruption in a past case, so he's barred. He can still lead by proxy, though.
Sometimes I think old people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they got little time left and don't care much for the rest of us (the future they won't get to see), so they'll gladly sell our futures for a modicum raise in their pensions. If you vote, you should be held to the reality of what you voted on. It's unfair to vote and die soon (same thing happened in UK where old people voted out and young people are left with the consequences).
Your example of the UK gives away the problem. Lots of young people voted in, because they naively believed the predictions of catastrophe and doom that were being announced at max volume by the academic and governmental elites. Older people who perhaps remembered their long history of failed economic forecasting were less worried. Who was right? The older people were - the forecasts that were made in the run up to the referendum have by and large been systematically proven wrong since then, to the extent that senior members of government and business are openly stating the forecasters at the Treasury and Bank of England have no credibility and should be ignored.
The other elements of the forecast are coming, they're just following on a time lag because they're dependent on choices getting locked in. The not so funny thing about Brexit is that it's like a game of chicken: the market doesn't believe Britain will choose drive off the cliff edge, so it hasn't priced in the damage; but that lack of pricing information makes it more likely Britain will drive off the edge.
It's one situation where markets might ironically be ill-suited to judge because of feedback effects. The worse the outcome, the less likely the market is to believe it, which sustains the delusion that it won't be bad.
But even if you were right about that, Article 50 was invoked and no insta-recession occurred.
Regardless of how you try and slice it the consensus of economists was wrong, 100% and completely wrong. There is no way to deny it.
The other elements of the forecast are coming
Wrong, totally wrong. Go read the Treasury's actual forecast:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-enter-recessio...
New Treasury analysis shows a vote to leave the EU would tip Britain’s economy into a year-long recession.
Speaking at B&Q in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the Prime Minister and Chancellor set out the Treasury’s analysis of the impact on the nation’s economy over the immediate period of two years following a vote to leave.
Do you see that - vote to leave. Very clear. There was a vote to leave. Their predictions did not come true. My point remains.
I’ve heard many arguments on how brexit is not going to be a disaster and many which say it’s going to be great.
The fact is that any exit from the EU will add friction to transactions with its closest geographic partner which it did not have before.
So the best option is that either the brits become a stepping stone for some world power (America/China).
And since recently someone pointed out that “China currently won, America just doesn’t know it yet.” I suspect that the power who finds use in propping up a regime near the Atlantic will be China.
Or it pretends to it’s populace that it’s independent but instead conforms as closely to EU regs to facilitate trade.
Either way, the drop in GDP is guaranteed, it is a matter of how much.
Every drop in GDP Is many thousands upon thousands of jobs that cease to be, its the inability to fund the NHS or repair trains.
Eventually it’s the utter overtake of the country by people who promise the moon but then divide the dwindling spoils.
Now humans think this sounds bad. But it’s not. It’s not terrible/ you aren’t becoming a third world nation.
You just have a GDP reduction. That’s it.
You also get to keep people tout, and fight harder for whatever it is that drove people to vote against their interests.
The population was fed a bunch of lies and rolled with it, complete BS like the 350M that would be shifted from Europe to NHS. How any sane person can still be rooting for Brexit after the truth came out is beyond me.
Did you read my post at all?
Government ministers are saying that its own analysis is suspect and not to be believed. And they are correct because the Treasury and many other economists all predicted a recession triggered by a vote to leave, not leaving itself (due to "uncertainty"). But that vote happened, so did invoking Article 50, and yet no recession occurred. Also all their post-vote predictions about quarter on quarter growth were wrong too, and again, in the wrong direction.
The government's predictions about the economy have no credibility. Young people often have trouble accepting that, but it is fact and cannot be argued with. The predictions were precise, and the real reporting values are also precise. They do not match and are not even close.
That sounds literally crazy to me, and the consequence of individualism run amok. In a healthy society, the elderly should have a strong vested interest in seeing their children and grandchildren succeed.
I'm not sure whether the fact that you seem to truly believe that the elderly just want to acquire as much money for themselves says about the elderly or about yourself — I truly mean that by the way, since I don't have much actual direct experience with seniors here.
But you know, what do I know, I come from a society where the traditional multigenerational family is still considered an ideal to be worked towards.
Wages seem to be awful there compared to the US and northern Europe, but it also appears that home prices are still really high.
Finally, from the few Italians I've spoken with - I've only been there once long ago - nobody is getting married and people live with their parents until their mid 30s, at least.
A lot of the educated Italians hit the road for jobs in Germany and elsewhere, meanwhile you're importing a lot of low skilled migrants from Africa.
Why are things so bad there?
But even despite this the tax evasion rate is really low in rich areas, even if you take into account the rate given by official stats (which are probably fake since those who made the stats need tax evasion to appear high in order to justify the persecutions of entrepeneur), while is a little higher than EU average in poor areas where people either eat or pay taxes (and in Italy there are no food stamps no real welfare for the cronically unemployed).
Also we had hundreds of capable entrepeneurs who were brought to suicide by State persecution, with illegitimate request of money from various government body.
Also, another fun thing is that if you are persecuted by our equivalent of the IRS you can go to a special court, where the judges are people who used to work for the IRS equivalent or similar institutions designed to persecute business (not exagerating). Despite this the IRS equivalent still loses over 50% of the time [3] because it asks for money it shouldn't even in light of our anti-business laws. Just recently they have been found out while bringing fake documents in court [2].
But that's nothing but a hint of the terrible tax situation in Italy, so there you have it
[1] https://goo.gl/images/VjFqaB [2] http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/altro-che-fisco-amico... [3] http://www.linkiesta.it/it/article/2012/03/20/contenziosi-co...
I would note that the EU's Vice President and head of foreign affairs is an Italian woman ... and former member of the Italian communist party.
But fun thing is that after ww2 many communists in Italy didn't really like economic central planning bcause it felt too fascist. So, they were communist but they didn't practice communism to the full extent. Italy also used to have classical liberals like Einaudi who even became president for many years, and kept politics in check. Sadly, I noticed that we are moving towards statist ideas more and more, with people expecting the State to solve everything and regulate all aspects of life. It's scary. Even people like Berlusconi or Salvini, while right wing, still have a lot of statism in them, even considering just what they appear to be.
I don’t know the exact causes: lack of focus on high margin activities (like, in the ‘90 the right was celebrating the small cottage industry in the North East, who was essentially competing with Eastern Europe and China... anyone’s guess how that ended?)
Or if it was staying in the Eurozone, as until ‘90 we were ok deficit-wise. But very uncompetitive so we took a load of debt just to stay in the Euro - and buy German goods for cheap - and not to become competitive.
In the meantime industrial production de-mobilized out of Europe and we’re just stuck with post-industrial parks and nothing to replace them with.
I’ve somewhere read that neo-liberal single market zones develop a trend where human (economic) potential remains constrained by the local macro-zone, hence migrations.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that post-ww2 economic development in Italy was exceptional: powered by the Marshall plan and the need to rebuild a country from scratch after being bombed back into the middle ages, the market boomed. Once that wave was over and public money ran out, the traditional approach came back in fashion and the country stalled.
Here's the broader problem: Italy's economy has not expanded since 1992 on an inflation adjusted basis. On a nominal basis it hasn't expanded since 2004. The population has expanded by about three million since 2004. The demographics have worsened in terms of an aging population, much like the rest of the developed world. That adds up to a painful scenario.
Italy's economic growth has been falling on a ten year averaged basis, since ~1960. That isn't super unusual, that's true of a lot of developed economies. The problem is, in the early 2000s it basically hit a zero growth flat-line, and has never picked up off of that. The significant economic contraction periods of 2008-2009, and 2012-2013, were never countered with bursts in post-recession growth as would be more typical. If you don't have a post-recession bounce of outsized growth, things tend to get super bad, super quick, as inevitably another recession will arrive and make the situation worse. Some meaningful growth is practically a requirement to a healthy society, in the sense that it pays for inevitable mistakes that are made politically and socially, including as it pertains to debt or policy mistakes. Without that, you have to operate at a level of perfection at all times.
At some point Italy has to figure out how to grow again. As a population ages, obviously, things only tend to get more expensive in terms of social welfare and having enough active workforce to pay for it all.
Ultimately there are two choices in that scenario: ration resources more tightly, reduce standards of living, and accept that as a new normal; or start growing again.
So you have more than a billion of people that will soon need to drink on a packed polluted land. And the country has already huge social tensions, a gigantic gap between the legion of the poor and the small group of the rich, plus the nuclear weapon.
China took the himalaya for this very reason years ago. Fresh water is more important than the dalai lama.
But for india, the 3rd world war could very much start here. I wish i was joking, but i have political analysts around me that take this possibility very seriously.
Tibet is a cold desert or tundra. Please don't spin this around. China has an abundant land elsewhere outside of Tibet which provides plenty of rainfall. China's intentions and justification for their relationship with Tibet is largely political and strategic.
Air is already a problem is some parts of China. So water ?
They will eventually need to choose between their industries and water. And they will choose their industries. Their gov knew this, and made a bet on Tibet.
Now, because India gets most of Tibet's water, they had to hide the plan behind something that made sense. And they did had a problem with part of the Buddhist community, so they killed 2 birds with one stone.
A territory, btw, next to india.
Ha, I guess if you can say crossing the Himalayas is next to anything. I’m trying to imagine the trans-Annapurna pipeline right now.
Also, I’ve Nepalese friends who would tell me Nepal is actually between Tibet and India.
About those blue areas though, yeah it has a Minnesota-looking tapestry of lakes spread out over 1000 miles, about 300 mi north of the mountain range.
So at first glance I don't see it. Is the concern that China is somehow going to massively redirect water flows somehow and take water away from India?
You don't need to redirect it though. You can, but you could also pipe it, pump it, bottle it, whatever.
The thing is, when you have no water, cost is no issue, because the stuff is way more valuable than gold.
The only real issue is India getting mad about it. But now that Tibet is China's territory, it has a legitimacy that will be impossible to contest peacefully.
While this is true. The true problem really is the population scale is just too much. At that point everything breaks.
We really are a society of extreme scarcity. There could be enough for everyone, but there are just too many people. People do the obvious and optimize to no end for personal profit. At one point in time people thought the government is corrupt, or that government jobs automatically come with corruption. At that point in time around late 80's there was a sentiment private jobs and enterprises would come along and solve all this. Something like the exact opposite happened. Almost every company I've worked I have seen politics and corruption to no end for foreign travel opportunities, pay rises, equity and promotions. This automatically creates a situation where merit can never win. You can start all the start ups you want but if you can't solve this problem its just attempting to build a pyramid on quick sand.
>>I don't understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the impending crisis.
Why don't you understand this?
Settling in cities is the only hope for a decent job currently. Farming jobs are long gone and are not profitable for a long time. Most farms lands are owned by a few families and the remaining people just slave around on that. For those people the only escape is to start a small shop or get some education and get a job in the city. So those people will keep coming to cities. And we can only develop a few cities as we don't have enough tax collection to build and develop all over. This concentrates people into a few cities.
Now you have a high demand and low supply situation. There fore high rents and property prices.
Ideally if you had good transit then you could expand to outskirts and increase supply. But some 1000 people come to a city like Bangalore everyday, and there isn't enough tax money to build that sort of infrastructure.
>>Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the wealth and could afford buying or renting at today's rates.
If you start early, save and invest well, you could establish unbeatable lead over your colleagues. In a society like India where things are so scarce this is even more so true.
I wonder how you came to this conclusion. In fact, farming in India is very fragmented. Lot of farmers or people in rural areas own very small parcels of land and work on them. Yes, there are people or families which own large pieces of agricultural land, but not in the numbers that you seem to imply.
Also, lack of manpower for working on farms is a very real problem in India. Farming jobs still exist at a big scale in India because we don't have mechanization like western countries(Again because of fragmentation of farms). People are not willing to "slave around" in farms anymore because they get subsidies from government i.e. food at very low cost for people below BPL. And it is very easy to get a BPL card if you live in rural area. This comes from someone(me) who has worked and been around farms and is still involved in farming though not directly on a day to day basis.
>>Also, lack of manpower for working on farms is a very real problem in India.
That's not a problem, that's a solution. Nobody should do a job that doesn't work for them.
That’s really a lot of people if think about it. That’s 365,000 people a year. If a new city was built for all those people, in France it would be the 5th largest city.
That scarcity is completely artificial though. Wealth and income inequality make this obvious and they are the problem. A different social organisation could allow for everyone to have enough and probably make society less wasteful too.
There are probably more efficient membrane-based solutions, but probably more expensive.
Unless you meant to supply the whole country from Gujarat, in which case it's a straw man argument.
but surely Ram mandir will fix all that. The real problem is cow slaughter, and inter-religious marriages, oh and Padmavat[i]
As long as you keep taking sides, you eventually become a part of the problem because every side is fucked up to the core.
That's what separates a leader from a petty peddler.
Its not the case that one hasn't seen such leadership before. But when politics is a career, why would one bother when they get a win with shallow clickbait issues. Leadership that needs sincerity, lets not do that, pimping up some clickbait issues, hell yeah.
As far as better issues there are plenty -- Better, sustainable basic infrastructure, better governance of resources ...
That's a pretty intense number even for India
Uttar Pradesh, the quintessential Indian state that 200* million people call home, along with another 200 million in the Hindi-Urdu heartland, has always had abundance of natural resources but its utter mismanagement has led to an unprecedented ecological crisis that no one in the political setup seems to be bothered about; and that may be since they continue to grapple with challenges of heavy population, unemployment, casteism, and near absence of law and order in every fabric of the society. Most of its major cities are on the verge of collapse, whilst the elites along with the politicians have cornered an enormous amount of wealth for themselves at the expense of the environment and the people; unlike in 2000s China, where the distribution of wealth seemed more fair, in comparison.
I think, India and Pakistan (I was astonished at the very similarity of what's happening to India's biggest states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab; and Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh) and most other tropical countries favouring unabated development at the cost of the environment are going to end up in a very sorry state that's going to get worse along an exponential curve for entities with larger than sustainable populations.
I don't understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the impending crisis. Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the wealth and could afford buying or renting at today's rates.
India is being held hostage in a prison of corruption by greed, will promptly be taken to the altar of doom by ignorance, where civil unrest will have a final swing of the sword culling the Virus, as Agent Smith would put it.
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