Do you want to discuss boring politics? (14 Viewers)

[Brighton Sky Blue]

I think it’s valid to ask why so many kids are SEND(?) now. When I was at school it wasn’t a thing, which obviously wasn’t the case it was just not considered. Have we gone too far the other way and now have an education system pumping out kids not ready to play a role in the workforce.

Having said that I’m sure absolutely destroying mental health services in the last decade or so hasn’t helped.

There's a better understanding of these issues than there was in the past which leads to there being more information and thus more diagnoses.

 

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[Brighton Sky Blue]

Throw in mobile phones (plus social media) as one of the main reasons for starters. Crazy that there doesn’t seem to be proper recognition of this. I’ve noticed with a fully formed brain (some might argue with that) how my attention span/focus has dropped off, god knows what it’s doing to kids. Frightening

It does concern me a lot to see toddlers and very young children out and about glued to screens and then crying when the screen is removed. Likewise seeing families out to eat and the children have to be prompted to put down devices and eat something.

 

[tisza]

I think it’s valid to ask why so many kids are SEND(?) now. When I was at school it wasn’t a thing, which obviously wasn’t the case it was just not considered. Have we gone too far the other way and now have an education system pumping out kids not ready to play a role in the workforce.

Having said that I’m sure absolutely destroying mental health services in the last decade or so hasn’t helped.

COVID didn't help some of these kids. My youngest niece was flying pre-COVID, top marks etc. Then after COVID couldn't get her back to regular school attendance (100s thousands kids apparently the same). Then she was diagnosed with a form of autism which hasn't helped. The final straw was some charmer spread rumours of having under age sex with her - this led to some vicious bullying (online and direct). teacher reported the sex claim to the police without informing her parents and that led to even more stress for her. Said charmer then turned up at school and held a knife to her face threatening to scar her for life - penalty for that 3 day exclusion as he had issues!! So that was it for school attendance for her plus there were the 2 overdoses she took trying to kill herself during all this- all this before she was 15 years of age.
Could only get child counselling for her after the 2 suicide attempts for a month or so as child services overloaded/underfunded .
So 18 later this year no qualifications, to access counselling her mother has to drive her 10 hours every 2 weeks for a 1 hour appointment (Lincoln to Cornwall and back), not in school. No mental health support/feedback for her parents who are too scared to push her to do anything in case she makes another suicide attempt.

 

[Captain Dart]

It's probably generational, I'd bet their parents have never done a day's work so now they aren't.

Being send isn't an excuse, obviously if somebody is severely disabled they can't work.

Serendipity, this just popped up, can't tell you anything about this organisation but at face value the situation described is bonkers.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I don’t think austerity is necessarily the root cause of changes in pay & benefits, at least not in my sector.

It’s a convenient excuse used by those at the top. The amount of work the companies I have worked for has never dropped as a result of austerity or any other crisis yet they’re constantly referenced as a reason to need to cut staff, stop pay rises, stop bonuses & benefits etc. Not to mention the trend of cutting staff and expecting those remaining to take on the additional workload.

As for benefits think we need to stop obsessing over the minority who have no desire to work and instead concentrate on the large number of people who would love to play a more active role in society. Support for those people is non existent and they never seem to be spoken about when people talk about the need to have less people on benefits.

11% on incapacity benefits is no longer a minority underclass that can be ignored. The approvals for sickness benefit has surpassed 3,000 per day.

The system entraps people into dependency, below, I’ll link an interesting Twitter thread (same guy has done a documentary with more detail, C4) with a testimony about how there’s no incentive for them to work full time.

The modest reforms you speak of planned to take my wife’s PIP. Not ‘modest’ for us I assure you.

It’s ordinary for people to not like it when something is being taken away. The amount of claimants has shot up 200k in the past year, the welfare bill is growing and so is our national debt, and with that, debt repayments is in the region of £110bn. The more this number grows, the less money there is elsewhere for public services and so on.

I’ve not looked into it seriously, but it’s likely that I’d be eligible for PIP but on principle, I wouldn’t apply unless I genuinely needed that safety net.

The welfare state was created as a ‘safety net’ and by definition, temporary.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

It does concern me a lot to see toddlers and very young children out and about glued to screens and then crying when the screen is removed. Likewise seeing families out to eat and the children have to be prompted to put down devices and eat something.

Jonathan Haidt has done some good work on this. iPads/iPhones (and so on) are hugely effective pacifiers. They are genuinely terrible for child development!

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

There's a better understanding of these issues than there was in the past which leads to there being more information and thus more diagnoses.

Generally, we risk over diagnosing and potentially over medicating now.

I hear a lot of anecdotes that children with behavioural issues are effectively allowed to run riot in the same of empathy.

 

[Captain Dart]

Generally, we risk over diagnosing and potentially over medicating now.

I hear a lot of anecdotes that children with behavioural issues are effectively allowed to run riot in the same of empathy.

I don't think there is any risk it's happened & happening.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

In terms of income tax the top 1% pay 30% of all income tax generate. Top 10% pay 60%. We discussed before that unless there is a global tax on wealth the richest will just move where they see fit. I think we’re losing 16k millionaires this year highest in the world (after around 10k last year). I added a link yesterday about Norway, also see Hollande and France.

The tax system ought to be optimised for revenue and the mistake the left often makes is that increasing tax % = more receipts. Labour is finding this lesson the hard way because their non-dom clamp down and private school VAT raids have backfired (3 or 4 x more students left than projected).

Even in the UK, corporation tax receipts increased significantly after George Osborne decreased the rate by 5 or 10%.

The OBR seems to reject the Laffer curve (as do many on here) and multiplier effects of reducing taxation.

As an example, the cost of raising the tax threshold to 20k would probably be offset by increased VAT receipts.

 

[tisza]

11% on incapacity benefits is no longer a minority underclass that can be ignored. The approvals for sickness benefit has surpassed 3,000 per day.

The system entraps people into dependency, below, I’ll link an interesting Twitter thread (same guy has done a documentary with more detail, C4) with a testimony about how there’s no incentive for them to work full time.





It’s ordinary for people to not like it when something is being taken away. The amount of claimants has shot up 200k in the past year, the welfare bill is growing and so is our national debt, and with that, debt repayments is in the region of £110bn. The more this number grows, the less money there is elsewhere for public services and so on.

I’ve not looked into it seriously, but it’s likely that I’d be eligible for PIP but on principle, I wouldn’t apply unless I genuinely needed that safety net.

The welfare state was created as a ‘safety net’ and by definition, temporary.

Then you get the case for increased immigration (appeal of illegal immigration) going up because of shortages in the labour force. Then you get the cost to the NHS in dealing with this. It is just going to spiral.

 

[shmmeee]

I think it’s valid to ask why so many kids are SEND(?) now. When I was at school it wasn’t a thing, which obviously wasn’t the case it was just not considered. Have we gone too far the other way and now have an education system pumping out kids not ready to play a role in the workforce.

Having said that I’m sure absolutely destroying mental health services in the last decade or so hasn’t helped.

My youngest got her autism diagnosis on Thursday. She met every criteria of the DSM and is certainly what used to be called Asperger’s or high functioning autism. Now though there is just autistic and not autistic and no gradiation. Now I know parents with severely autistic kids who are non verbal etc, and officially there is no different between the two which seems mental to me.

The diagnostic criteria themselves seem ludicrous with most of it being defined as “outside the norm” so but quieter than the norm? That’s a tick. Enjoy your own company more than the norm? That’s a tick. I sat there thinking I could probably classify a good 30-40% of people I’ve met under this criteria. And maybe there are 40% of the population are autistic. But we can’t fund that, so is this helping or hurting the severely autistic to be lumped in with loads of others who are just a bit weird.

PIP is similar. I know people with MH issues that absolutely mean they can’t work, but they’re classified the same as me who has GAD and clinical depression but has worked every day of his life.

There seems to be an effort to ensure everyone is classified and it means we go from having to build a system that supports maybe 5% to closer to 50% and that’s just fundamentally a different beast.

 

[shmmeee]

The tax system ought to be optimised for revenue and the mistake the left often makes is that increasing tax % = more receipts. Labour is finding this lesson the hard way because their non-dom clamp down and private school VAT raids have backfired (3 or 4 x more students left than projected).

Even in the UK, corporation tax receipts increased significantly after George Osborne decreased the rate by 5 or 10%.

The OBR seems to reject the Laffer curve (as do many on here) and multiplier effects of reducing taxation.

As an example, the cost of raising the tax threshold to 20k would probably be offset by increased VAT receipts.

If you can draw the laffer curve and identify where any country is on it (backed by a repeatable method) I’ll give you a million pounds.

 

[shmmeee]

Throw in mobile phones (plus social media) as one of the main reasons for starters. Crazy that there doesn’t seem to be proper recognition of this. I’ve noticed with a fully formed brain (some might argue with that) how my attention span/focus has dropped off, god knows what it’s doing to kids. Frightening

I think we’ll look back at the 2010-20s and phones the same way we do now at drunk driving in the 70s. Mental that we ever allowed it.

 

[shmmeee]

Tories *have lowest vote share and smallest parliamentary party for generations*

Also Tories:

https://thecritic.co.uk/time-to-purge-the-tory-wets/

Me:

 

[tisza]

I think we’ll look back at the 2010-20s and phones the same way we do now at drunk driving in the 70s. Mental that we ever allowed it.

When we were kids we were told we couldn't watch too much TV because it was bad for us - certainly no daytime TV even in school holidays. My niece with autism can spend 8 hours + a day on her mobile looking at all sorts. Can't believe that helps her situation. They've prescribed her sleeping tablets to literally stop her spending all night on her mobile/tablets.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

When we were kids we were told we couldn't watch too much TV because it was bad for us - certainly no daytime TV even in school holidays. My niece with autism can spend 8 hours + a day on her mobile looking at all sorts. Can't believe that helps her situation. They've prescribed her sleeping tablets to literally stop her spending all night on her mobile/tablets.

I occasionally find myself mindlessly scrolling short videos before snapping out of it, it's quite something how easy it is to be drawn into.

 

[mmttww]

Budapest Pride goes ahead, defying Orban threat of 'legal consequences'

Tens of thousands have gathered for the LGBTQ march in Hungary's capital, despite a police ban and warning from PM Viktor Orban.

www.bbc.co.uk

Good to see folks putting up some fight vs. fascism.

 

[tisza]

I occasionally find myself mindlessly scrolling short videos before snapping out of it, it's quite something how easy it is to be drawn into.

They are a problem once they find your weak spots - current affairs, music from your youth, certain sports - couple of hours later you realize you've been had

 

[shmmeee]

I occasionally find myself mindlessly scrolling short videos before snapping out of it, it's quite something how easy it is to be drawn into.

I mean let’s be honest here we have some of the richest companies on the planet hiring the smartest people on the planet to find ways to keep you “engaged”.

I was watching Yan LeCun the Meta AI lead saying how they could improve misinformation on your feed with AI but the feed team vetoed it because it would reduce time spent on the site as misinformation was one of the most engaging content types.

There’s whole books dedicated to using psychological tricks like randomised rewards, social proof, etc to hook users into using your app again and again and staying in there. Everything from the wording of the push notification to the time and place it arrives to the colour of the button you click to log in has been A/B tested on a user base of billions. They have data that would make the gestapto blush and scientists that know how to use it.

Yet because it’s software it’s all seen as harmless. If we made it into a gambling machine and stuck it in shops it would be banned. But because it’s your attention and not your cash and let’s be honest because everyone is doing it, nothing gets regulated.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

If you can draw the laffer curve and identify where any country is on it (backed by a repeatable method) I’ll give you a million pounds.

Oh brother… Politics and economics isn’t a game that can be min-maxed, then copied and pasted across all countries. There isn’t a right or wrong answer and there’ll be time and place when ‘centrist’, ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’ policies are correct.

The Laffer curve is not an instruction manual of setting a tax % at ‘x’ and this will maximise revenues. Rather, it’s a very general principle that there’s a point at which you get diminishing returns as you jack the tax rate up.

The last time a chancellor cut a tax significantly, tax receipts went up when Osborne lowered corporation tax.

Meanwhile, our tax burden is the heaviest it’s been since WW2, real disposable income has declined and household saving is going up. So this will invariably cannibalise the tax take.

Going back far enough, you extolled the virtues of charging VAT on private schools. The assumption was that it would raise £1.5-1.7bn a year with only 1.3k or so drop outs. It’s about 3 or 4 times this figure which means the tax will almost definitely not raise the expected sums whilst pressuring state schools to absorb more students. ‘Epic fail’.

 

[shmmeee]

Oh brother… Politics and economics isn’t a game that can be min-maxed, then copied and pasted across all countries. There isn’t a right or wrong answer and there’ll be time and place when ‘centrist’, ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’ policies are correct.

The Laffer curve is not an instruction manual of setting a tax % at ‘x’ and this will maximise revenues. Rather, it’s a very general principle that there’s a point at which you get diminishing returns as you jack the tax rate up.

The last time a chancellor cut a tax significantly, tax receipts went up when Osborne lowered corporation tax.

Meanwhile, our tax burden is the heaviest it’s been since WW2, real disposable income has declined and household saving is going up. So this will invariably cannibalise the tax take.

Going back far enough, you extolled the virtues of charging VAT on private schools. The assumption was that it would raise £1.5-1.7bn a year with only 1.3k or so drop outs. It’s about 3 or 4 times this figure which means the tax will almost definitely not raise the expected sums whilst pressuring state schools to absorb more students. ‘Epic fail’.

Just the formula is fine I’ll graph it myself.

You don’t know it’s a curve. You don’t know the shape of the function so it’s functionally useless in setting tax policy. It’s exclusively used by people to claim we’re at a global maxima and any movement up would lead to reduced revenues.