What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

No - agreed, it's not going to happen any time soon - but in the words of the song 'the times they are a changing', and before very long the advent of new tech, if nothing else, is going to start to erode away at those traditionally well paid 'high skill' jobs just as much as the ground-level unskilled work. And when that starts to happen it will suddenly be a different story. Then universal benefits will all of a sudden seem like a really good idea.

[Avatar]

Suspect it will take the low level jobs first though...maybe first by a significant margin too.

--A

[Kizza]

The number balance between the "haves" and the "have nots" sees the latter growing rapidly.
I find that a chicken processing plant is a good metaphor for a skilled labour debate. There are machines for nearly everything to support a humane death and dismemberment of the bird, however there are still jobs which are not yet automated and only humans can do them...... for now.

The G20 protests recently - particularly the zombie one where the marchers were in clay from head to toe - illustrated to me the considerable responsibilities which are not being catered to. I don't support the violence or terror of some of the protesting, however clever "marketing" like that will catch fire some day.

[peter]

In the last few days I have seen Jerry Springer talking about running for President of the USA and heard that Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson is also considering a tilt for the job. What a run off that would be! A Trump - Springer - Johnson race for the White House! Would you be able to smell what the Rooccck is cookin'!

[Avatar]

Guess the reasoning is that if Trump can do it, anybody can.

--A

[peter]

The press is fixated once again on BBC pay levels to its top presenters which have been recently disclosed for the first time (officially). There is outrage at a perceived gender gap but no mention that these people all negotiate their contracts individually or via their agents and not one is forced to accept the (very high) figures they take. A second source of outrage is that they are "Still dodging their tax contributions". This is of course bullshit: they are merely doing what the law allows in order to minimise their tax - and the majority of people in work that demands they fill in their own tax return do exactly the same. If you want to stop this, the answer is easy - tighten up the law to make such avoidance illegal. Of less outrage to our media is the fact that by official figures 20 percent of the UK exist at levels of income that place them in 'absolute poverty'. In fact oddly, I don't think I've seen this mentioned on a front page or as a leading story - ever!

[peter]

The Charlie Guard situation has been (in it's own small way) as sad a story to dominate the headlines as any for many a while. The Great Ormond Street Hospital have been painted by the media as somewhat the villain of the piece, sticking as they have to their line that the kindest thing in Charlie's best interest (and in the face of his parents legal battle to do otherwise) is to cease supportive treatment and turn off his life support, thus allowing nature to take it's course. Now having agreed to this, a second legal battle has been fought as to where and when this should be done, with his mum and dad insisting that he should be moved home for a few days of final 'peace' at home, and the hospital saying that this is not practical due to his extensive needs both in terms of nursing and equipment.
All in all this has been a sorry affair, and I hope that in the long run the final victims will not be the terminally sick infants of the future who might find themselves drawn into equally long and pain extending legal challenges to no purpose, or indeed more widely, the children who will fail to receive treatments they desperately need due to the reduced funding from public donations, so important to the hospital's operations, that will almost certainly result from the negative light in which the institution has been portrayed.

[Avatar]

If it's a question of letting him die, shouldn't think equipment and nursing requirements should be a factor...

--A

[peter]

The parents want him to be kept on his supportive treatment/equipment for a week to give them time to say goodbye. This, say the hospital, is not practical away from the ward, given the volume of both that his circumstances demand. A judge has ruled that he is to be moved to a hospice where his life-support will be ended almost immediately. It's been a grueling time for all, and needs to be brought to a resolution for all concerned - but mostly for poor little Charlie.

[Avatar]

Don't know enough about it...what's his state of awareness?

--A

[peter]

They are giving morphine based pain killers so clearly think he is sentient enough to experience considerable levels of pain. He has severe degenerative muscle wasting, blindness, deafness and brain damage [again, I believe - I haven't followed the case closely enough to be sure of all the details, but have heard news reports and seen the daily papers in passing].

[Avatar]

Sheesh, blind, deaf, brain damaged and on morphine. Just let the kid go already.

--A

[peter]

He has died now and seems to have been in a worse way than even I had thought, not even being able to swallow. It's been a tragic set of events from first to last, and very damaging for all involved. I saw a Mirror front page story featuring the parents airing some of their grievances just prior to the baby's death; they would be well advised to stay out of the media spotlight however, because for sure, once the press hounds have milked all of the sales that the story can muster they will undoubtedly turn on the couple with a mock outrage that will equal their current cod sympathy in search of more.

[Avatar]

Ah well, at least the kid is out of it now.

--A

[peter]

I'm back on my lottery/scratch cards rant to make the observation that ever more cards are being returned showing the same return prize as the original cost of he card. Not only does this reinforce the buying behaviour of the scratchee, I also allows the sellers to advertise a much higher winning to loosing card ratio than is actually the case. These large numbers of equal to purchase cost 'winning' cards are topped up with a meager number of true winners,most of which are double the cost figures.
Incredible how many people look at these cards that return their original stake as winners rather than just lucky not to be loosers. One guy the other day returned five cards that were all face value returning cards and was as pleased as punch to be getting his forty quid cost back. How much those five cards had cost him if you factor in his losses God only knows, but this never seemed to occur to him. Strange

Channel 4 is defending it's decision to air tapes of the late Princess Diana revealing intimate details of her relationship with Prince Charles (notably his lack of ability in the sack it appears) on the grounds of it being of significant cultural and historical value. C'mon guy's - let's call a spade a spade! It's a prurient bit of salacious tittle tattle put out with no other purpose than to boost viewing figures in a highly competitive market. I have no interest in the thing one way or the other - I'm sure Diana, were she alive today would be highly embarrassed by these interviews made at the height of her acrimonious and anger fuelled separation from Charles (as no doubt will her sons and ex-husband be) - but undoubtedly the vicarious draw of a pretty lady spilling all will pull in viewers in their millions and so be it, publish and be damned - but let's not pretend that it's anything other than what it is please.

[Avatar]

Well, to be fair, they could broadcast a clip of her reading her shopping list and half the world would tune in for it...

--A

[peter]

Agreed Av - Diana mania remains so widespread they should name a condition after it!

Meanwhile the press is agog about the story of a UK model [now released] who was apparently abducted and held captive in Italy by some guys who wanted to auction her off to the highest bidder as a white sex slave. No doubt her ordeal was a frightening affair, but she seems to have emerged from it remarkably unscathed - sufficiently so at least to make a media appearance yesterday in an eye-wateringly small set of shorts and crop-top that displayed her modelling attributes to the full. Good on her - makes yer proud to be British!

[peter]

At this highly sensitive and potentially dangerous stage in the relationship between the USA and N. Korea the rhetoric is being upped even further by Kim, who has suggested that he is considering the option of taking a missile pop at Guam, the island based site of about 6,000 US military personnel and 163,000 civilian occupants. Trump, who had earlier threatened N. Korea with 'fire and fury' has not as yet responded, but when he does we can rest assured that it will be in as measured and balanced a manner as the 140 odd characters of Twitter allow.

[peter]

In a truly chilling program about what is actually going on in Silicon Valley and how it will impact our lives whether we like it or not, the BBC interviewer spoke with a young tech billionaire (said to be one of the real 'movers and shakers' of that exalted place) about the ramifications of what they were doing. He seemed somewhat puzzled about what he called the interviewers 'negative view' of the world his tribe were creating and tried to answer it like this. "Perhaps we have to start really rethinking what it is that we do: like, how about if everybody was just given an income, given what they needed to live as a matter of course." He could not seem to see the potential for debasement of people's lives, the dystopian possibilities of a world crammed with an unproductive resource hungry population controlled by a small number of have everything oligarchs at the top in such a system - and it was very unnerving. A case of beware of geeks bearing gifts if ever there was one!

[I'm Murrin]

Basic income is a core platform position of the socialist left these days.