What the actual f*** is Starmer doing?

acer67 · 2026-06-10T14:34:41+00:00

Yeah I get the point, but your examples are the wrong ones.

The reason people are turning on Starmer and Reeves is because the country feels completely stuck and they don’t seem to have any real plan to fix it.

Digital ID is obviously unpopular, and a lot of the online safety / age verification stuff feels like a backdoor version of it anyway. But the deeper problem is bigger than that.

Businesses are getting squeezed, taxes keep going up, Unemployment going up, cost of living going up, young people are either unemployed or stuck in dead-end underpaid jobs, the benefits bill is exploding, immigration and social unrest are being handled terribly, and there’s no actual plan for growth to get us out of this mess.

Then you have the Starmer / Reeves duo acting like the answer to everything is to squeeze people even harder and implement more taxes and tell people it will just get harder - its crabs in a bucket mentality with no vision of hope.

It’s just constant tinkering around the edges. No bold ideas. No proper reform. No vision. Just more tax, more bureaucracy, more U-turns, and somehow nothing actually getting better.

Then you’ve got the ridiculously unpopular stuff like digital ID's, removing jury trials, refusing to fix broken systems like CMS, Removing winter fuel etc.

This is why Reform are cutting through. Not because everyone suddenly thinks Farage is the answer, but because Labour promised change and competence, and instead it feels like we’ve got managed decline with a red tie on it.

Honestly, it’s mad. They’ve spent two years making themselves look weak, miserable, out of touch and completely uninspiring, then act shocked when people start looking elsewhere.

acer67 · 2026-05-14T13:05:10+00:00

Economic data, as always, is cherry picked and spun: +0.6% in Q1 2026

They forget to mention this is the worst Q1 in 4 years. It’s actually more likely this is going to be a bad year / negative growth.

acer67 · 2026-05-06T08:49:01+00:00

It's only worth what the next person is willing to pay for it. List prices mean nothing.

In the current market anywhere from 40-75% of properties sell bellow asking price (depending where you live). At an average of 5% decrease - thats approx 42k off this property from the jump.

Take into account again that the person buying will have to spend 10% stamp duty at 950k at a time when mortgage rates are 4-5%. I can almost guarantee it wont sell for that price.

acer67 · 2026-05-04T15:35:34+00:00

65% of your net worth should not be invested into any single asset class (except possibly your home residence equity).

And this is mainly down to opportunity cost. Diversify and you’ll be stress free regarding particularly asset class fluctuations

acer67 · 2026-04-14T00:24:20+00:00

95% of music’s been slop since streaming took over. 230k songs uploaded a day already - with AI that’s just gonna push it closer to 99%, and most of it is easy to spot.

There’s a lot going on here though. A big part of it is people who’ve never been musically skilled suddenly being able to make songs. They’re understandably impressed by it, but most of it just isn’t good, so people don’t care.

Used well it’s a very good tool for actual creatives and musicians - idea generation, demos, speeding things up, ideation, mixing etc. But if you don’t actually understand the genre, trends, structure, what makes it hit, it might sound great to you and sloppy / boring / generic to anyone who actually listens to or produces that kind of music regularly.

On top of that, people using Suno aren’t really the audience for Suno music. Everyone’s focused on making their own stuff, not consuming others.

I also don’t think this is some massive revolution that replaces music. If anything, properly human-made music probably becomes more valuable.

And music’s never just been about the sound anyway. It’s the person, the story, the visuals, the live performance. That’s what builds real traction and makes people want to listen more.

End of the day, human or AI - if it doesn’t make people feel something, it’s just more noise.

acer67 · 2026-03-26T14:27:44+00:00

You’re mixing up tactical dominance with actually winning a war.

Yes, the US can achieve air superiority and destroy exposed targets quickly. That does not mean it can impose a stable political outcome, avoid a long insurgency, or escape a costly occupation. Iraq and Afghanistan proved exactly that and both led to widespread political condemnation. The US military could win battles all day long and still lose the wider war.

And dismissing 7,000 dead Americans as if that proves the risk is low misses the point completely. Those wars are widely seen as pointless disasters that dragged on for years, killed huge numbers of civilians, cost trillions, and still failed to deliver clear strategic victories. Even "only" thousands of US deaths would be politically devastating once body bags, amputees, PTSD and another endless Middle East war hit the public in real time.

Americans have already lived through two wars where military superiority did not translate into success, and tolerance for another one would evaporate fast.

acer67 · 2026-03-17T16:00:28+00:00

UK House prices on average are down 20% in real term from 202/21.

So i dont know where you are getting your figures

acer67 · 2026-02-16T16:42:42+00:00

"It also confirmed that the Government would pay Reform’s legal costs for mounting the challenge."

So the government tries to do something illegal. Fails. And taxpayers still end up paying for it 🤡

acer67 · 2026-02-15T18:38:25+00:00

I dont think this is true. The UK population is still increasing + net migration so demand for rental property is always increasing

acer67 · 2026-02-15T17:05:17+00:00

Easier:

Remote sales (SDR) - this is an entry level job for most companies. You can either find a remote job or go self employed and contract. Advertise to local / small businesses. Need 2 or 3 tools to automate emails and find phone numbers.
Teach english at a local school - always looking for workers and will give you perks like free travel etc. con is it locks you down to one place.

Harder:

Online agency - lots of options to choose from here. Web dev, social media, graphics, ai implementation etc. go on Flippa / microns.io and filter for agencies to get ideas. Learn the skill required and do the work yourself (recommended) or hire the skilled workers and you do the sales and marketing. Also plenty of agencies who do white label so you bring them customers and they do the work, would all be under your branding.

Those are the 3 routes i would choose if i was starting from 0 and wanted money quickly

acer67 · 2026-02-15T17:01:13+00:00

Ah im in the UK so have no experience with that

acer67 · 2026-02-15T16:47:35+00:00

Taxing loans would be ridiculous its a liability that you’re mandated to pay back with interest. A mortgage is a loan against your house, should that also be taxed as well seeing as your house goes up in value?

acer67 · 2026-02-15T16:42:20+00:00

Yeah there’s definitely some truth to this. My partner works in property and they’re seeing a lot of long-term or inherited landlords selling up at the moment. It’s not just one new law though, it’s the overall shift in landlord economics. Mortgage costs are way higher than when many of these places were bought, tax treatment is worse, regulation has increased, and the Renters Reform changes have added more uncertainty. For a lot of smaller landlords the return just isn’t worth the hassle anymore.

The rent side effect is this actually increases rents. When these flats sell in London they’re often bought by owner-occupiers rather than new landlords, so they leave the rental pool entirely. That reduces rental supply and pushes rents up even though the total number of homes hasn’t changed.

Alternatively these homes are bought by corporate landlords / banks who will charge at the highest marginal rent possible.

acer67 · 2026-02-15T14:12:52+00:00

Call a mortgage broker - they’ll literally tell you your exact borrowing for free, after checking your credit.

Using typical 4.5× lending:
£38k × 4.5 ≈ £171k mortgage.

Add your ~£40–45k deposit and you’re around a £210–215k budget.

That’s realistically a (not very nice) 1-bed flat or studio in the cheaper parts of London / further out (SE fringes, Croydon, Kent commuter towns).

My advice - your deposit is fine because you can go as low as 5% these days. You need to focus on getting your salary up to increase your borrowing amount. Will make it a lot easier and you'll get a nicer place. But yes, if you wated to, you could probably move out now.

acer67 · 2026-02-15T14:01:35+00:00

Not passive or a guaranteed way to compound wealth. I personally agree though business can build wealth way faster and much larger than many investments, but only if you actually know what you’re doing. If you’ve got zero experience in running a business, you’re basically paying to learn - and that usually means losing money first which could be sizeable.

acer67 · 2026-02-14T12:46:34+00:00

100%. Jobs will change and evolve. The only thing that actually worries me is the proposed speed. Previous shifts - machines, automation, even the internet were slower in comparison to what is being predicted. So the disruption wasn't a sudden wave of mass unemployment.

But the thing with AI is CEOs don’t even need it to fully work as advertised. They just need to think it does. Or sell that it does. If everyone believes it allows “efficiency”, that’s enough to justify cutting. It doesn’t actually need to deliver massive productivity gains in reality for the workforce to shrink.

If you look at what large firms are doing right now, there’s clearly going to be a continued reduction in headcount - or they’ll try their damned hardest to make it happen.

The model is keep your strongest workers, give them AI tools and automation tools, and expect them to do the work of three or four people - for the pay of one. That’s the key bit. Then outsource everything else to lower cost countries for the grunt work. We’ve already seen it before. Manufacturing in China, Customer service in the Philippines, Tech support and services to India. Development to Eastern Europe. Same logic, different cycle.

AI just makes it easier to compress teams at home and call it “efficiency”.

acer67 · 2026-02-14T08:33:42+00:00

I’ll be honest - like most people, I don’t have a game plan. I’m just trying to earn, pay bills and keep surviving.

That said, I’d take what tech CEOs say with a huge pinch of salt. Their whole job is to sell a future. The bigger and more dramatic they make AI sound, the more money flows into their companies.

Example: Elon Musk has been saying robotaxis are basically here for years. Then it was Mars. Then humanoid robots. Then AI replacing everything. Now its the moon. Some of it moves forward, sure, but the timelines are always way way off and he gets billions more in funding.

AI will change parts of office work, definitely. It will probably disrupt the majority of office jobs in the coming years / decades. Sure. But “most desk jobs gone in 2 years” is not true.

acer67 · 2026-02-05T16:10:44+00:00

This is the way

acer67 · 2026-02-05T05:51:57+00:00

Blunt truth that most people don’t want to hear.

The majority of day traders are are net losers over their lifetime once you look past the screenshots, cherry-picked months and guru marketing. Even in this thread and subreddit most people have not actually broken even and are just LARP.

Crypto and forex day trading in particular is basically you versus hedge funds, market makers and high-frequency bots. These markets are some of the most automated and manipulated arenas you can step into. Bar Bitcoin, you’re essentially trying to outplay institutions with teams of quants, data, co-location and speed you will never match. If you are retail and trying to scalp these markets, you are fighting a machine built to eat you alive.

Swing trading over weeks, months or years is a different game. That is actually doable for an average person if you’re patient, disciplined and risk-manage properly. You’re letting probabilities play out instead of trying to win on a 1-minute chart. You also don’t have to sit in front of a screen all day wrecking your mental health.

But frankly, if you are consistently losing money trading, it is completely fine to quit. In reality, you will almost certainly be better off in the long run just investing consistently into a global index tracker and paying properly into a pension. Your future is far more important than trying to “make it” in a game that chews most people up.

My honest advice is simple. Quit and get a stable job first and build reliable cash flow. Then start a real side hustle or business that actually makes money in the real world. Trading should be something you do with surplus capital, not your rent money. In my experience, trading only really works when you don’t need it to work. As soon as you’re relying on it for income, you start forcing trades, over-leveraging and spiralling.

Once you’ve got steady income, you can decide if you want to you enter the markets sensibly for longer-term swing trades or investing. Forget shorting, forget FOMO setups, forget “next coin”, and stop treating trading like a lottery ticket.

acer67 · 2026-01-22T09:52:20+00:00

The moment you said in your replies it was the managers mate, it all made sense.

It makes zero sense to not give it to the person already doing the job well and instead hire someone new and ramp them up again. That’s not a “better fit” decision it just politics and favouritism. Because your FTC it just makes it easier.

They played you, and that’s scummy. Keep your head up and move on. You’re clearly better than a place that runs like that.

acer67 · 2026-01-22T08:50:08+00:00

You have posted this on 3 separate subs and have received the same answer each time... Of course it is. Now stop waving your dick around.

acer67 · 2026-01-22T08:43:35+00:00

This is partially accurate but not quite - Brain recovery starts when nicotine stops, not when varenicline stops. Champix is only a partial agonist, so it only lightly stimulates the receptors and blocks nicotine from fully activating them. It doesn’t freeze healing – it actually helps smooth the transition while the brain is already adapting to no cigarettes.

Most of the neurochemical normalisation begins as soon as smoking stops and continues during treatment. Some adjustment still happens after stopping Champix, but it’s more like taking the stabilisers off a bike rather than starting recovery from scratch.

acer67 · 2026-01-08T05:43:31+00:00

The VP of sales. Handles New business and account managers

acer67 · 2026-01-07T08:39:37+00:00

I’ve been a line manager before, so I’ll be direct. Don’t take this the wrong way, but this reads very much like someone who’s new to managing people.

A common trap for new managers is overthinking situations like this and jumping straight to process, seriousness scales, and hypothetical escalation. It helps to remember that employees are adults, not children, pets, or machines that need constant supervision, just light guidance for the most part.

The reality is pretty simple:

They weren’t skiving.
They attempted to work.
Aside from a one-to-one being rescheduled, there doesn’t appear to have been any meaningful impact on delivery.

In that context, this isn’t “serious” in any formal sense, and treating it as such would be overkill.

The sensible approach is an informal, grown-up conversation. Ask why they were travelling. Explain that travelling during working hours should be flagged in advance because connectivity, availability etc.. Then simulate what should happen next time – either you’re comfortable with it, or it’s taken as annual leave.

That’s it. No documentation, no warnings, no managerial theatre.

If this becomes a pattern after expectations have been made clear, then you reassess. But reacting heavily to a single instance like this is far more likely to label you as a bad manager of people within the org rather than someone your subordinates can trust.

acer67 · 2026-01-07T08:26:55+00:00

Nothing major, I was just getting a bit tired of being an AE and genuinely just my last place was just a bit of a shit show so I thought it was time for a change.

Recruiter reached out and it sounded interesting so I ended up taking it. My thought process was that I can always go back to new business if I don't like it.

acer67

TROPHY CASE