bmck

i must admit, i didnt hear it.

i wouldn't do anything that would get you in trouble and cut of a decent cash source man. when i used to have any spare money i paid for share tips, which was going ok till i realised that i knew better and lost all my cash. i agree with the taking risks sentiment, man, life's too short. if only i had the money to take risks with though.

talking of things that may force murray's hands. thanks to the media (for a change) your average record-reading bear thinks we've as got as got these two young guys, and if they end up going elsewhere - especially Over That Way, there will be a definite feeling of being vastly second fiddle.

craig, outstandingly well done in being 3k up m8.

i dont think anyone is forgetting that, to be honest.

its madness. madness. not good for mental health.

actually meant to say Boyd. thought i had. had to do a double-take on why you had said that. meant boyd and novo upfront.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! stop it man! i was being sensible there!

I'd take that team, swapping Buffel for Prso, and making it a front two.

ah the blessings of being too skint to properly afford to stick on a bet at the moment anyway. 'tis for the best.

depending on the cost. a replacement for burke perhaps? says he's a striker but i'm sure he played right wing against us.

its just the money that gets me. i see "tenner gets me 152" and automatically think its a good deal. a gambler in the making.

you dont strike me as an existentialist calscot. a humanist, aye, but no an existentialist.

its not quite a phoenixian rise though is it? its more like we're fumbling around in the ashes.

aye, i think you're right frankie. when i used to be into shares i remember looking into how honest they had to be in the release of their figures, and it seems to be pretty strictly regulated. anyone with shares in either rangers or mih should have a pretty full outline of the figures.

moved it over here m8.

good stuff frankie, cheers!

i think mills is a decent shout. i've never liked him, but he could do a job while we regroup. has that bit of dig about him too.

yup, i think this would be a fairly good idea. del made a good point though that this kind of investigation into murray may lose all the ground the RST has gained with him.

true, but you could still consider everything up until now, and make decent projections on what he would get. for instance, "if murray gets 50 mil for the shares, he would lost 5 million in his tenure here" or whatever.

calscot, think you pretty much summed it up in the other thread hwen you said (like frankie, alanmidd and others before you) all formal treating of the subject aside, this is the simple common sense of the matter.

it was a horrid disappointment of a football game. man u were extremely disappointing. i was looking forward to some nice football from both teams, but it was abject pish.

This seems to have been another slight of hand. You, like most of us, got the impression that the JJB deal "that was to rock scottish football" was to be invested in the team and turn our fortunes around. However, it turns out that we get the largest part of 14 million in dribs and drabs over as many years, and the rest went to paying off the debt.

Frankie, i dont know what you think of this, but there seems to be a lot of confusion between pro-murray and anti-murray groups (surely represented in the RST's members) as to exactly how much murray has put in and taken out of rangers. there's loads of speculation, loads of strong feeling - but very little in the way of fact. would it be worthwhile for the rst to get in a forensic accountant just to clear the whole issue up, with a view to safeguarding murray's name or whatever? something that was clear and factual so there would be no more debate between rival factions who think murray is our saviour and those who think he's the anti-christ. has he single handedly given us all his money, or has he turned a profit from rangers? this would clear all that up.

"To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions." - Kierkegaard Murray is clearly a master politician. Like most politicians, and men of his intelligence, he is no stranger to logic and rhetoric, and certainly is not ignorant in the art of manipulation of human passions. What he says, he says convincingly, and eloquently - saying all the right things, it would seem, at all the right times. You are left with the impression that to disagree with him is to have a petty minded grudge, or to have ill thought out your position. This isn't even a criticism - without these attributes Murray would not be the immensely succesful businessman that he is. Without these attributes I would suggest that we would have not enjoyed a great deal of the success we've had in years gone by. But these attributes immediately shift the burden on us to analytically consider what he says, so that we may be sure that we are not being hoodwinked. I've spoken to many fans who "have this feeling" that we're being done over, or think Murray is clearly at it, but who can't state clearly what the problem is. So, in the next few paragraphs I'm going to consider Murray's statements, and argument, on what I consider to be the main issue surrounding our team: the lack of quality players in the side. I just don't think a great deal of the players playing are good enough, and that no amount of formation tinkering is going to change that. This sentiment has been expressed by fans and the media in asking "is there going to be significant investment?". The rest of the post considers this in a little more detail. Murray, in response to questions of investment, answers along the lines: "Would you rather see us in millions of debt like last time, or would you prefer, as I suggest, we only spend what we earn?" This is intricate rhetorical craftmanship, and to properly unwrap it, it is helpful to be able to clearly, clearly state what is wrong here. To be able to say precisely where the misdirection lies. To this we turn to logical fallacies, formal and informal. 1. The bifurcation fallacy Now, I've crafted his response in the form of a question in order to highlight this point. I think I have fairly represented his argument, so can't really be said to be setting it up in a certain way to knock it down. Basically, the bifurcation fallacy asks you to accept one or two options, when there are more options available. They are often emotionally loaded, and are used by politicians quite a lot. For example, Tony Blair might say "Would you rather let Saddam kill innocent children than go to war with him?". Basically, it says that if we don't want to go to war, we want innocent children to die. But the question is crafted in such a way as to rule out other options that may equally stop Saddam killing inoccent children: assasinating him covertly, applying international diplomatic pressure, or a whole host of things. The point being, that the only two options the question presents are not the only two possible options. Bringing this back to Murray, he forces us into two options: either spending what we earn, or spiralling back into uncontrolable debts. He sets it up so that those who oppose his vision (spending only a percentage of our profits) wish to see the club in hopeless debt. But these are not the only two options - the economics of business must account for being able to reasonably speculate to accumulate. Even if it turns out that this is not feasible in our current condition, we should be shown how and why it isn't possible without having to accept on faith that some decent investment in the team is going to bankrupt us, by being forced under faulty logic. 2. The non-sequitur This is another way of stating the above, but Murray basically asks us to believe the following: 1. Spending causes debt 2. We should not be in debt 3. Therefore we should not spend The non-sequitur fallacy means, in latin, "doesn't follow". That is, we can believe 1 and 2 without neccesarily believing 3. A quick example of a valid argument would be: 1. If I'm human, I'm a mammal 2. I'm not a mammal 3. Therefore, I'm not a human This is valid, because 3 clearly follows from 1 and 2. There is no room for ambiguity. However, this is not so with (my outline of) David Murray's argument. Spending does indeed cause debt (well, overspending), and we, indeed, shouldn't want to be in debt. But these things do not necessarily combine to mean we shouldn't spend. Why? Because you can agree that spending causes debt and that it would be ideal not to be in debt, while still thinking that the best way forward is to spend. As above, this is common in business, and may best suit us (or may not). Conclusion I'm not saying that spending some hard cash to improve the team is the best way forward. I'm only saying that the rhetoric that comes from Murray is not air tight. He could very well be right on both accounts - perhaps only spending what we earn IS the only option other than steamrolling back in to debt, and perhaps in practice we SHOULDN'T spend. But the talk, the arguments themselves, the words that come out Murray's mouth are not enough to prove this. Without the supporting evidence and adaquate explanation of the facts and figures we are left with nothing but rhetoric that is persuasive to the passions (no rangers fan wants to see us so badly in debt), but logically unsound.