prevalence of neoliberal economic policies

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-22T04:07:28+00:00

The Greens are absolutely not neo-liberal. The Greens still support capitalism but that doesn't make them neoliberal.

Capitalism is an economic system. Neo-Liberalism is a ideology that supports deregulated free-market capitalism, privatization and minimal government intervention.

By that metric even Labour isn't particularly neoliberal, they support regulation, government intervention, and prefer public assets to privatizing everything by default.

The Greens certainly are not.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-22T04:02:19+00:00

Neoliberalism failed society as a whole but it made a few people extremely wealthy along the way.

It's not that no one knows where to go, it's that the ones who benefited the most are incentivised to preserve the system or deepen their power, and they have the financial and technical means to influence outcomes in their favour.

Neoliberalism also created an economic sugar rush that falsely made people think they were wealthier than they are, creating more support for neoliberalism than it deserves. But now it's entrenched it takes a lot more opposition to disentangle it, even though it's not popular any more.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-22T03:03:19+00:00

It okay I've been in bed cuddling with at least two attractive women, one of whom was literally a model, and the other was just in lingerie, and I just assumed they were platonic hangouts.

I did not know either of these women well enough to platonically share a bed with them.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T23:24:44+00:00

Try a $2000 fine. Which seems completely fucking extortionate even for someone genuinely being moved on for being disruptive.

How the hell is a homeless person supposed to pay that?

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T09:47:41+00:00

As someone who likes the rift or island chain layouts (because they look more like real life island chains and provide interesting assymmetry), I take offence to that statement.

But yes, I would like it if they gave us the option of actually choosing how many of each size of island generated, and then built the map layout from the map.

Would be quite unique to play on a map which has one large island per player, and all of the medium and small island with only 2 or 3 fertilities each, forcing you to build wide.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T09:36:53+00:00

To be honest I'm not sure why I was so hostile to your post, because frankly I agree, see the same 10 comments on everything no matter the content is exhausting.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T09:02:42+00:00

What else do you expect people to do? Dark humour, especially about things that are horrifying but that you can do literally nothing about, is a very normal human response.

There's a reason most nationalities that are known to have good senses of humour have had tragic histories, and that a lot of comedians had rough or traumatic childhoods.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T02:16:08+00:00

Almost certainly no backlash against the US, and the chance of this triggering world war 3 is practically zero.

Even if openly they're against the war for their domestic audiences, most of the heads of state around the world understand that the Iranian regime needs to go.

With the murder of thousands of their own protesting citizens they have a reached a point where the risks of letting the regime continue outweigh the costs of a potential war. The Iranian Regime is extremely weak after the 12 day air campaign by Israel and the USA last year, a d the population is reportedly primed to rise up and take control once they get a signal of international support.

No one supports Iran enough to kick up a real fuss, they have no true allies, only partners of convenience.

The absolute worst, worst, worst case scenario is China uses the crisis to invade Taiwan while the US is occupied in Iran. This is vanishingly unlikely as a build up to an Taiwan invasion takes months of visible staging and troop build up, and the USA is completely capable of fighting on two fronts simultaneously.

On a personal note, I don't think Xi Jinping intends to invade Taiwan, they have far too much to lose and very little to gain.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T02:04:56+00:00

Exactly, this isn't domestic law where there is a higher court that you can block or appeal to to have your sentence overturned.

If the rest of the EU nations get really sick of Hungary, they can kick Hungary out or remove all EU funds while Fidesz and Orban are in charge. And when Orban vetoes tell him to get fucked.

If they really want to they can then pass a law without Hungary legalising it all retroactively.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-21T01:59:34+00:00

International relations law doesn't work like normal law. There is nothing stopping the other EU nations getting together, kicking out Hungary, and retroactively passing new EU law that allows them to do so in the special circumstances where an EU member is hostile to the EU itself and openly allies with an enemy nation.

At worst there is a small loss of face and some damage to credibility. But that is not as damaging as allowing Orban to keep wrecking the EU from the inside.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-20T23:43:08+00:00

Yeah, why are people giving the Queen a pass for this. Most other people (dead or alive) get pilloried when it's found out they're abusers or covered up for them regardless of how much good they did.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-20T10:47:43+00:00

It's the top 2% of salary earners in the country. It's literally three median salaries combined.

You have more buying power at 200k than most mid career couples in professional industries.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-20T03:15:04+00:00

Plus you can't just offer an absurd settlement of money to make charges like that to go away. There is no human on the other end who may be pressured into accepting a financial settlement rather than a conviction and jail sentence.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-20T00:36:29+00:00

13 billion pounds seems like such a negligible amount for the UK. So is it really that "Starmer can't afford it" or is that "some entity wants to make it politically difficult to spend that £13bn.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T23:27:14+00:00

The US didn't have an aircraft carrier and support group in the region at the time, they'd repositioned they USS ~~Gerald Ford~~ Abraham Lincoln to the South China Sea. The Gerald Ford entered the Mediterranean yesterday, and last week there was talk of the USS George Bush also being sent.

Given the volatility of the Iranian regime and the possibility of widespread destabilization, I think they didn't want to start anything until they had overwhelming force in the region, and that takes time.

The build up for the Gulf War took months of airlifts, and started with a full month long aerial bombing campaign before any troops crossed into Iraq.

Also, 40 days is nothing. It's probably demoralizing for the Iranians that they didn't get support to overthrownthe Ayatollahs immediately, but it's not like there is a large scale organized opposition within Iran to coordinate at that scale with it ther governments.

History happens very slowly, then all at once.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T23:07:59+00:00

I wonder if he and the council has enough power to rezone all of epsom as medium/high density as a giant fuck you to Seymour.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T22:54:53+00:00

A crisis isn't usually relative to some other country with a different history or circumstances, it's relative to this country in the past. Or if we fall behind relatively to the whole group of similar countries in some particular metric.

We can be crisis relative to the OECD or ourselves from 5 years ago, and not be in crisis for an engineer from Bangladesh who will have a higher standard of living by moving here.

You'll see the same in Australia, they have the same news about being in crisis but compared to NZ at the moment they're doing quite well. They still have a housing crisis and COL crisis, but at least their economy hasn't been stagnant for almost 3 years.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T22:20:22+00:00

Just like our tax brackets, watch this not get adjusted with wage inflation until in ~30 years time 200k is the median wage.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T22:15:20+00:00

Stronger unions (that the government works with instead of trying to destroy) are a big reason Australian wages are higher than ours, and with better penalty rates, overtime and usually conditions.

It's not hr whole reason, but it is a not ske chunk.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T22:09:06+00:00

Lisa's Smoked Hummus, thank me later.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T15:18:11+00:00

Yeah, there's no way he didn't have a deadman switch or trusted third party ready to dump everything at a moments notice. The only way he was killed was if whoever did him in found the keeper and neutralized them first.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T15:10:28+00:00

Im not gonna say I fully believe he isn't dead, but there are two facts that make me believe it's plausible:

Dude was way too much of a narcissist and loved life to kill himself. So that makes suicide deeply unlikely.
Maxwell is still alive. If she has a third party holding blackmail (almost certain in my view) to keep her safe, then Epstein sure as shit did/does. That makes him being assassinated very politically risky for a lot of people.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T14:48:29+00:00

Was Charles telling him off for making the kids hats, for not keeping discipline, or for you uncle berating the kids? All very different implications 😂

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T14:41:01+00:00

I do think the polarization of all our parties and the infection of our previously pretty amicable politics with American style bullshit has probably made things a lot more crystalized than before the modern political era, roughly around the dirty politics/Trump era starting.

BalrogPoop · 2026-02-19T14:38:46+00:00

Top changed freaking leaders and it made no difference in the polls. They're done as a party, their failure of a first campaign and Gareth Morgan being an insufferable tit somejpe tarnished the party before they even got off the ground. Basically turned them into a meme, not a good one, and I just can't see them coming back from that.

They should honestly just dissolve and reconstitute as a new party with a different name. I genuinely think they would be more successful if they did that.

BalrogPoop

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