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Showing content with the highest reputation on 29/10/19 in all areas

  1. Debatable penalty? Did you see it from the back angle. It was a stonewaller all day every day. The only thing to debate is who should have taken it.
    4 points
  2. As the title suggests Dubai for January break & Hamburg friendly is being discussed whilst out there ??
    3 points
  3. Are you seriously trying to compare their stats when Polster's game time has been against St Joseph's, Accies and East Fife ? WHilst Tav has played against Feyenoord, Porto, Celtic, Aberdeen etc ? Hardly a fair comparison towards Tav when the standard of player he is up against is far, far higher than that which Polster has been up against. I am not anti-Polster and think he offers us something - but that comparison is grossly unfair to Tavernier.
    3 points
  4. I fancy there might be more chance of tactical voting on the subject of Brexit than of unionists vs the SNP. Be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
    2 points
  5. You may want 4 defenders defending but nobody in the management team does. They want the full backs charging up the park. That's the way that most successful teams do now and we're not going to stop that approach. Against Porto we had our non-central front 2 playing narrow, our full backs bombing up the park and our non-central midfielders covering the full backs. We haven't played with "4 defenders defending" since Ally and we're not going back any time soon.
    2 points
  6. Often with players at this stage, a new contract triggers a loan move since we then retain an option on their services should they kick on. I fancy he will move to a 6 month loan in January.
    2 points
  7. @ian1964 When cutting and pasting text from external sources, please either: a) Reduce the font size after pasting (edit the post if necessary), or; b) When pasting, selecting 'paste as plain text' to remove the external source's formatting.
    2 points
  8. I disagree. I've met some 15 year olds who are so clued up politically you would not believe. I'd have no problem with them voting: on thje other hand there are many 65 year olds whom I wouldn't let near a ballot box. The ignorant and uninformed are unlikely to vote anyway.
    2 points
  9. Cuba is a bad example. The idea of 'socialism in one country' invariably results in a parasitic bureaucracy remaining static while enjoying immense privileges. I am reminded of the old joke: "What's the difference between Soviet communism and American capitalism?" "In America man exploits man while in Soviet Russia it is the other way round."
    2 points
  10. 2 points
  11. I hated this attitude and still do. It stinks. Under this schema, Cubans were not people but props that allowed others — who usually lived in great comfort — to retain their mental model of the world. It was revulsion at this hypocrisy, which I saw everywhere in western leftist circles, that prompted me to question my own worldview. Later on, after I had thrown out the Marxist books about Cuba I owned, I began to discover a rich tradition of exiled Cuban writers. The most fearless of these was Reinaldo Arenas, author of Before Night Falls, an autobiography of his time inside Castro's prison system. Arenas eventually escaped from Cuba. But when he did, he began to encounter a type of person he came to refer to as a “Communist Deluxe”. These were western academics who would relativise away Cuban suffering as either an acceptable price to pay for the triumph of socialism, or a consequence of United States aggression. Arenas recounts one such encounter in his autobiography: I gained very little from my brief phase as a teenage communist. But I did glean insight into the psychology of changing one's mind. A denial phase is common in cases where a person loses their faith. Paradoxically, the more doubts I had about socialism, the more vociferously I would defend the Cuban Revolution. As I began to doubt, my initial reaction was to double down. Arguing with political opponents who understood the reality of the Cuban system better than I did, I would aggressively trot out the phrases I had heard other communists using: Cuba had great education and health care, Cuba was under attack by the United States, there were different versions of democracy. I held onto my pride, but I was losing my ideological footing. The rhetorical arguments of my opponents were registering somewhere in my brain. Underneath the bluster, seeds of doubt were germinating. And I had many Cuban friends telling me the reality of what was happening in their country. It would have been grotesque to lecture them about the system they had grown up in. Was mine another of those journeys from Left to Right that have become a tedious dinner table cliché? Perhaps. But it wasn't much of an 'awakening'. That would imply a Damascene conversion of some sort — the exchanging of one set of ideological certainties for another. My own change of heart represented instead a loss of faith — a weary acknowledgement that no single political doctrine was ever going to answer all the questions I had about the world. I imagine that most politically conscious people go through something like this. It is a necessary pre-requisite to political maturity. It feels especially depressing, then, that today it is certainty — the conviction that I am right and you are wrong— that is popular among political activists of all parties. To want to think about things, with a curiosity about what works and what doesn't, has become synonymous with weakness, vacillation and a lack of authenticity. It would be wrong to view the recent past — the supposedly 'non-ideological' age that preceded this one — as an abode of good sense and reason. I've already mentioned some of the disasters that turned me away from the mainstream as a teenager — Iraq, Blairite spin, a supposedly Left-leaning government constantly kowtowing to the tabloids. Yet all of that said, it does feel like we've collectively immatured with age in the decade since the financial crisis. Perhaps it's time for a mass political awakening. If so, I hope it resembles my own in one sense at least: I hope we'll see a loosening of those ideological bonds which delude us into thinking we already have all the answers. Someone called James Bloodworth writing for unherd. https://unherd.com/2019/10/cuba-killed-my-communism/
    1 point
  12. You may not know that you are doing it?
    1 point
  13. My favourite list is very different from my top players list. Isn't that a different thing?
    1 point
  14. Nah, apparently those with at least some level of knowledge and experience of the said topic must be wrong because it simply doesn't fit in with what the other person wishes to believe. I have witnessed people leave the UK for tax reasons. I have acquaintances in Bermuda who left the UK for tax reasons. I have prepared the tax returns of HNW clients in one of my former lives. But I clearly know nothing, or at least not as much as Briton, about tax revenues or the tax strategies of people and businesses
    1 point
  15. Yes I developed the idea but have not got any mention in the Wiki
    1 point
  16. Fact-checker alert: the Labour leadership is democratic socialist (whatever John McDonnell might have tried to claim in the past): in Portugal or Scandinavia they would be considered centre-left. Portugal's economy is doing quite well right now - I would take some of that.
    1 point
  17. I've kind of bucked the trend becoming more left wing as I've grown older. Funnily enough a spell abroad, where I was paying no tax at all, had quite an affect on me.
    1 point
  18. An improvement it may be, but the bar wasn't set particularly high by Batista in fairness.
    1 point
  19. https://havanatimes.org/diaries/miguel-ariass-diary/cubas-abundant-land-and-food-shortages/ As recently as July.
    1 point
  20. Cuba has had to injure the US sanctions from year 1, which would be bad enough but the US also threatens other nations not to trade with them.
    1 point
  21. Many talk about tax but few have any experience of managing it as part of corporate strategy, which probably explains why so many posts in this topic do such a good job of advertising that ignorance. You are (I believe) in corporate finance and will have seen the diverse tax strategies of many companies. Until recently I was owner and CEO of an international company and used many accountants as advisors and ”financial mechanics”. As a result we at least have some credible perspective and some practical knowledge of how national tax arrangements can and do influence corporate strategy - and of the destructive effect of harsh tax policy on both businesses and the exchequer. Just as important however is the effect on the investment arm of the financial sector, which is almost always ignored by advocates of high tax. Money is instantly mobile and possesses almost no inertia - and it’s continually looking for a better home. Investors of pension funds, for example, are immediately discouraged by an economic environment that doesn’t favour business growth and profitability. Less investment inevitably means less tax revenue, smaller balance sheets, higher unemployment, fewer exports, etc etc etc. And on a personal level, any sensible person with wealth to invest will have placed a lot of their money offshore, out of reach of the U.K. taxman, simply because it means paying less tax. Anyone who thinks an economy can be run on ideology is a danger to themselves and everyone else. The basic problem of course is that socialists believe tax is a punitive instrument of government and a means of enforcing a false financial equality that cannot possibly exist in reality. Capitalism has outperformed and outlasted socialism on every occasion and it always will.
    1 point
  22. So, I’ve to get the law books and work it out for myself to see if they’re right or not? What must I do if the plumber tells me my boiler’s about to break down or if a doctor tells me I’ve got measles??
    1 point
  23. It was nowhere near good enough under Labour but it has been made much worse under the Tories but you are obviously dyed-in-the-wool over this. Projection. I don't hate 'all things Tory'. I hate the fact that the NHS is under attack and many of the people who have benefited from it's creation are now assisting in it's demise.
    1 point
  24. If Amazon want to do business here they need facilities and staff. Their business model means they need distribution centres here. Paying a reasonable tax rate on that business will not stop them doing business and making money here. Just like they do in other countries. There are Fulfillment Centers all over Germany and France (for example).
    1 point
  25. Well you weren't involved. I apologised to Bluebell because it was his word I doubted. I will apologise to you though. As long as that works both ways. A very tiny abuse of power maybe ? Fairy nuff though. An argument from authority is a fallacy.
    1 point
  26. If what she says is true, and there is the suggestion that she is helping him politically by saying it was solely her decision, then I guess he has back to face. Not that it makes much difference; the issue was divisive enough to end the relationship.
    1 point
  27. You don't have to be completely opposite politically to disagree over private education.
    1 point
  28. She insists the decision was hers alone.
    1 point
  29. A hypocritical politician what a shocker! I currently support Labour but it's not because I like them all, or all their policies.
    1 point
  30. I believe he's on his third but no idea what you deduce from that. Being married to someone with completely opposite political views is not a good recipe though.
    1 point
  31. This may be some of the issue BD - some people on here won't know the line of business you and I work in or the jurisdiction I am located - I am sure Gribz would also know a few having been in Singapore. But given our backgrounds and the types of path we cross, there are numerous people who have relocated for tax reasons - I know a number of them personally as do you - our line of work has us see these type of people. Briton, for example, wont know too much about us so can disbelieve us, as is his prerogative - others who know us wouldn't even think to question the point being made.
    1 point
  32. You think I'm going to start naming people on here? You think it's appropriate to disclose people's private affairs in public? They'd be people you'd never have heard of anyway so what's the point? If you're suggesting that you don't believe me then that's obviously your prerogative, but there's some on here who know me and know what I do who wouldn't have any reason to doubt me, and I'm sure that Craig, for example, knows a lot more than me. Of course I do. I'm not saying that all companies or individuals will relocate but there would be some. It happens all the time.
    1 point
  33. It will always need modernising. No party has privatisation of the NHS as a policy because it would be electoral suicide. This might come as a shock to you but people will not always be honest in these situations. Look at the way Farage was made to squirm as he tried to hide his dislike of socialised medicine. Anyone who doesn't understand that the Tory Party is ideologically opposed to the NHS is deluded.
    1 point
  34. That is bad news for Rangers. Lets hope they don't appoint a Steven Gerrard before we get there.
    1 point
  35. And not even necessarily re-located in any physical sense. Many companies maintain separate tax identities in different countries that makes tax relocation a reasonably simple affair. For example, I used to own a UK company that owned 100% of the equity of a US subsidiary. The UK company normally took and fulfilled orders from Europe, Middle East, Far East & Australia while the US company processed orders from North and South America, with Africa being allocated on a country-by-country basis to suit supply chain convenience. Then one day the UK reduced corp tax rates dramatically and the US went from being a low to a high tax regime in relative terms. So, overnight I ran all new contracts through the UK company with the sole exception of the US market itself. Guess which country benefited - it certainly wasn't the high tax regime and there wasn't a single trade agreement in sight either. Later, business in Malaysia grew to the extent that a significant local presence was necessary, resulting in an "established presence" and a local tax identity. That gave me a third tax option in the Asia-Pacific theatre, to employ whenever the balance of respective tax rates made it beneficial to do so. The moral of this story is that, with the right professional advice and sufficient business activity to make it worthwhile, there is almost no resistance to tax mobility and there are always countries willing to provide businesses and investment with attractive, competitive conditions. That may change in the future but I strongly doubt it. The fundamentals don't change. High tax regimes are unattractive to business and always result in lower tax revenues. The tax take from fully domestic businesses may initially improve but this is always short lived as those businesses find it harder to grow or even survive. On the other side of the coin, low tax regimes stimulate business activity, improve profitability and generate improved tax income.
    1 point
  36. Haha! Yeah, we could both give loads of examples of companies and individuals who we know personally who have relocated for tax reasons.
    1 point
  37. Frankie, I can’t remember exactly what I posted at #25 that you had to edit out. What I intended was to express regret at buster’s absence so apologies if it seemed otherwise.
    1 point
  38. What am I deflecting? Has she called for others not to use private education? As I said, if so, she is definitely a hypocrite. I do not know if that is the case or not.
    1 point
  39. No of course it wouldn't but it could wreck our title aspirations. For example, I think most people would concede that Tav didn't play that well yesterday in the first half and then missed a crucial penalty. He did, however, improve in the second half and still created the winner with a sublime corner kick, along with the penalty he also won. Now, I've quite liked the look of Polster and Flanagan has been largely reliable when he's played too but I don't think either would provide the same key benefits to the team that Tav does. Sure, we won't know unless we try them but, all things considered, I can see why the manager wants to stick with his captain.
    1 point
  40. And another season after that. Couldn't happen to a nicer club. Karma's a bitch.
    1 point


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