That is a fun fact.

I honestly wonder who was pushing this nonsense.

So, there’s this pair of removed called the Koch brothers. They have a business that extracts shale gas by fracking and then turns it into plastics for the US domestic market. They’ve done very well out of this business and out of fossil fuels in general.

Somewhat predictably they’re right wing shitheads. They seem to be behind a lot of the bollocks in the Anglosphere at the minute. The distribution network seems to be that they fund various think tanks including a few of the Tufton Street metastasis and also fund Steve Bannon, Turning Point USA and Turning Point UK.

The goal is to keep them and their dynasty on top.

Once the money gets to the UK, usually through Turning Point UK, it funds efforts to distort people’s thinking using social media.

Fifteen minute cities encourage walking and so if people can leave their cars behind that’s one of the major use cases for fossil fuels reduced. Can’t be having that.

Liz Truss was probably my favourite PM. Hear me out.

Every day of her premiership I got up out of bed in a good mood, couldn’t wait to hear the news about how she’d fucked the dog the day before. Through various circumstances that I’m not sharing with the internet she did cost me a considerable amount of cash when she crashed the economy but she was just so entertaining. And she didn’t hang around like a fart in a space suit like certain unelected PMs I could mention. The moment when the lettuce outlasted her and a hand came from off-screen and placed a tiara on its head is one of the lasting delights of the last few years.

Pleading won’t do no good, try a brown envelope stuffed with readies.

There’s a lot of people who don’t like the label fascism but just fucking love what fascism does. I think the problem is that a lot of people don’t understand how complex the world is and fascism always tells them that their stupid, lazy thinking is correct. Universal suffrage is the only way to that democracy can work in this day and age and I would literally fight to save it… but boy does it come with some downsides.

If I were a venal and corrupt politician and I were in an easy job that paid extraordinarily well I would hold onto that job as long as possible.

I am going to say that that we’ll be going to the polls in January '25.

Those costumes are only worn on the State opening of Parliament (which is kinda like Halloween for politicians) and even then only by certain people fulfilling certain ceremonial roles e.g. Black Rod.

Where wigs and gowns were a daily occurrence, until recently, was Crown Court where serious criminal trials were held. The rules changed a couple of years ago.

Now that’s a Jod I could jet behind.

And even if there were a mechanism, the Kennedys are Democratic royalty.

Always. If inflation runs away, the poor suffer. If we get stuck in a deflationary cycle the poor suffer. Apparently it is impossible to construct an equitable system that works without gross inequality (spoiler: it isn’t but some people love inequality and will do anything to prevent things being distributed more equally.)

Yes, this is true but you also have to factor in the marginal propensity to consume, or in plain English, the poorer you are the more of your income you have to spend on necessities like rent or groceries.

There are always high interest investments available to people with a large amounts of spare cash floating about even when inflation is low.

If your rent + utilities + food = your income then you ain’t hoarding money even in a deflationary spiral.

Ska is simple, fun music that cares little for anything other than being fun, and is often gleefully immature.

Ska, as youngsters know it today, was reinvented by the 2-Tone movement in the UK (specifically Coventry) in the late 70s. The scene was overtly political and as @NuPNuA has stated was a deliberately multicultural movement, hence the name.

If you want to hear some original ska from Jamaica then have a look for songs by Prince Buster but beware you will find some historical attitudes.

This is because inflation isn’t a bug it’s a feature.

Anything that transfers wealth up the chain, from working class to middle class and from middle class to upper class, is a feature of the western economic system.

For example, in England and Wales the Bank of England is charged with keeping inflation at a target of around two per cent. This means that the pound in a workers pocket is supposed to devalue. The advantage is that the government borrows money in its own currency so inflation means that its debt goes down (in real terms) when inflation goes up.

To quote Livia Soprano, the streaming services are like a man with a Virginia ham under one arm crying the blues 'cause they ain’t got no bread.

I was here to say…

Spotify pays pennies to all but the most popular artists

That’s what the strike is about, getting paid a fair wage from streaming. The streamers can afford it, leastways they could when there were essentially two large streamers. The biggest driver behind this whole thing is Disney, which has always been a removedish entity, and the fact that with their acquisitions from Murdoch, another removedish entity, have decided they can push everyone around and digitally recreate their voices and likenesses in perpetuity and pay them fuck all for the privilege.

Film production is continuing in the UK as it is cleared through Equity the UK actors union. Could be that the top tier of US actors will still be able to work.

When is the sequel to Industrial Society and its Future coming out?

Just FYI, the CEO of Fable Studios is one Edward Saatchi. His father is Maurice Saatchi whose advertising agency was partially responsible for ten years of Conservative rule under Margaret Thatcher. The family absolutely has previous with union bashing.

Make Medium Readable Again

Thanks for that, I shall install it if I find a lot of interesting content is posted on here from there.

Thanks, I didn’t see it and now have read it :) That Medium sign in method really sucks though.