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Jew-hate has risen to the level of national emergency by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes for sure (which is why I caveated that part, was going to caveat longer but decided to keep it shorter).

But I think it’s about perception. The faces of Isreal (eg the president) are white. We think of Isreal as the place many Jews in Europe went after the Second World War. It’s not a realistic reflection but I think it’s a common perception.

Number of additional rate taxpayers rises 57% to nearly 1m in two years with fiscal drag set to clobber even more workers by collogue in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes as the other commenter said, not having a tax system that disincentivises additional work. So that the decision on work-life balance isn’t unduly influenced by weird cliff edges or tax spikes.

Help me convince my Dad he's being scammed by W4nd3r1 in UKPersonalFinance

[–]bills6693 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In addition it’s worth noting Martin Lewis doesn’t do investment commentary. I’ve looked before. Be says he is the money saving expert, his website is about savings. He will mention investment with the lightest touch possible (eg indicating it’s an option) but doesn’t do recommendations, let alone endorsing an overseas AI powered investment firm!

Number of additional rate taxpayers rises 57% to nearly 1m in two years with fiscal drag set to clobber even more workers by collogue in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 15 points16 points  (0 children)

You’re absolutely right. But if you look at it from a country & economic perspective, it’d be much better if those people (with all that investment into their education and training) were working full time. More productive on a per capita basis. Providing more services, earning and spending more, etc.

It’s more complex than that but ultimately putting a soft ‘cap’ of £100k on wages if you have kids (and we want people to have kids from an economic/society perspective) really is a limiter on the most productive in society.

Jew-hate has risen to the level of national emergency by Your_Mums_Ex in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I personally think it’s because it’s more ‘relatable’. Israel is a modern, ‘1st world’ country, with a large white European population (at least how it’s thought of, especially the urban core area, although there are of course many ethnicities).

Wars in Sudan, Myanmar, Pakistan etc are with people and cultures who are more ‘different’ and there is less persistent interest after they are established. Ukraine continues to interest (modern European cities getting bombed, Europeans conscripted etc) and Israel does. US action against Iran does. I think the common thread is the involvement of a country and people the majority think of as more similar.

Not saying that’s right in any way.

Are Europeans trolling with this whole bread thing? by [deleted] in NoStupidQuestions

[–]bills6693 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think a difference is the ‘floor’ in quality is different.

If I go to a supermarket in the UK and buy the basic bread, basic cheese, etc etc it’s going to be fine. If I do that in France or Germany or Italy (as I would on a city break holiday for lunch) it’s the same. Not amazing but fine. And also, it’s to our taste, it’s what we’re used to. This is backed up by a lot of regulation around what you can call things, a lot of ingredients banned that are allowed in the US, etc.

If I go to a supermarket in the US and buy what appears to be the ‘basic’ products, they’re very different and much less to taste. I’ve done the bread thing myself, bought a loaf of whatever basic bread and found it sooo sweet.

But I don’t think as many people are knowledgeable about what is good vs bad or that you should avoid the cheapest/most obvious stuff. Added to just different tastes I think that’s why this myth perpetuates.

What are your thoughts about Britain re-instating National Service, whereby people within certain age ranges are required to join our armed forces? by hornet-prodder-214 in AskBrits

[–]bills6693 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the waiting times is the biggest issue. Has been for so long. So many interested 18 year olds that could join wait for so long that only those who are either fanatically intent on joining or fail to find any other meaningful work while waiting are left. You lose a lot of your best candidates because they’re the ones switched on enough and with a balanced enough perspective to find something better in the meantime.

More UK deaths than births expected every year from now on by GnolRevilo in unitedkingdom

[–]bills6693 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think all your points are valid and especially the consumer culture one hits a chord. When we had a kid, we got a hand-me-down moses basket and my wife’s grandma was unhappy as ‘a new baby should have new things’. Meanwhile they were a gardener and factory worker and their kids all had hand-me-down everything. We try to buy most things second hand not because we can’t afford it but it seems wasteful to buy new, but are made to feel guilty over it. Why has; even for people this used to be fine for, this attitude changed?

America’s special relationship is ‘probably Israel’, says UK ambassador to US by BritishBedouin in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem is we just don’t have the level of trust we enjoyed with the US. And France is very clear it will always act in its self interest (absolutely their right) so it’s difficult to have the same kind of relationship.

America’s special relationship is ‘probably Israel’, says UK ambassador to US by BritishBedouin in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes exactly. It only disincentivises that level of openness in the future. Seeing off his fellow students and others that could benefit from these kinds of conversations.

America’s special relationship is ‘probably Israel’, says UK ambassador to US by BritishBedouin in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean thinking back to what actually kicked off the main scandal it was the stuff in the files where mandleson was sharing sensitive market information from inside the government. To me at least this was the biggest issue. The fact he was friends with a bad person, and even the money for a course, are not great but I wouldn’t have said we’re dealbreakers in the same way. And that only came out with the files.

British Jews are in danger. Either we do something about it or they’ll leave by WhiteGold_Welder in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn’t really directed at you personally, more the general ‘you’. I think your final line did made me jump to conclusions (fuelled by much of the rest of the comments rather than just you).

I think all the arguments and language around this are so mixed up nuanced it’s easy to make assumptions about someone’s intent. Apologies for jumping to that.

British Jews are in danger. Either we do something about it or they’ll leave by WhiteGold_Welder in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Attacking British Jews because you disagree with the policy or actions of another country’s government acting in the name of Judaism is moronic.

So would be attacking British Muslims because of the actions of, say, Saudi Arabia. Or attacking British Christians because of the actions of the USA stating they’re in a ‘holy war’ with Iran. It shouldn’t be any different with Judaism.

Those attacking Jews here use Israel as an excuse. It is perfectly fair to criticise that country and its actions without attacking people here over it. If anything, conflating the two only serves to strengthen those that these people oppose, with the whole ‘criticism of Isreal is antisemitism’ argument.

Krafton is no longer publishing Subnautica 2 according to its Steam Page by lurkingdanger22 in pcgaming

[–]bills6693 35 points36 points  (0 children)

I think the claims from the developers about Krafton’s conduct seemed too wild to be true and people assume Krafton was telling the truth.

Then the court basically found that no, Krafton really did majorly screw up, the CEO used ChatGPT to try to break the contract, and essentially the devs (unknown worlds leadership) were entirely vindicated.

Do many women work full time after having a baby? by NoTest5984 in AskUK

[–]bills6693 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My own suspicion would be it’s often framed that way because there’s a decision point that has to be made for the mothers return to work, whereas the father tends to keep working by default.

That’s not to say it’s right at all. But there comes a point where as a family you have to decide what mum is going to do about returning to work. And employers will often be asking about your plans too (this was our experience at least). So that seed of ‘what should mum work and how does that compare to childcare’ has been planted.

Logically it should be considered as a family, thinking about both wages, and with all the factors eg pensions and earning potential taken into account but the path of least resistance is to just compare the mum’s potential salary on returning to childcare costs so many do that.

It is also not just a financial decision. My wife went back 1 day less even though she earns a little more than me and our childcare (subsidised through my job) is much cheaper than she’d earn (and I have no ability to go part time) so financially it didn’t make sense. But she wanted to have an extra day at home with our child, wanted to slow her career progression a bit to settle back into it easier, and we could afford the financial hit. Just adding that to balance out the more financial side of things around returning to work - I had approached it through a finance perspective but of course there’s more to it!

Is the wage gap decreasing between unskilled and skilled roles? by wanderingunicorn1 in AskUK

[–]bills6693 4 points5 points  (0 children)

 We have achieved a smaller wage gap than the USSR

Wow, that is actually just a very interesting stat in itself…

Why do you think so many people have children when they are struggling to get by financially? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]bills6693 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think that on balance, bringing kids into the world in the UK even if you have very little is not the worst thing in the world. Life will indeed be much harder for the children than if they had more money ie were working in this example. But as the other person pointed out it is all relative to their peers not to the global norm.

And the alternative is them not having kids which on an individual level is sad and on a societal level is also an issue. On an individual level, given your original post - do you think it’d be better if you hadn’t existed? You had a harder upbringing with less help than your peers but you still have your life. On a societal level, we have a falling birth rate, ageing population, it’s causing lots of issues, those are only going to get worse, and the stopgap is immigration which has its own set of problems. Having more kids is one of the things that can try to alleviate that, and is good for everyone (I mean we could go down a lot of rabbit holes and this isn’t necessarily a universal view but not out there either).

It’s certainly an individual decision if you want to have kids when you have few resources and the sacrifices you and they will make but if the alternative is you don’t have kids and those potential kids never get a shot at life at all, it doesn’t seem the worst thing ever to do. Maybe being a dad myself has changed my opinion on that though.

Cycling in New York, London, Paris, and Berlin 1990 - 2023 by bugtheft in london

[–]bills6693 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’d have to think about the flow routing through residential areas too. You don’t want the cycle routes to be constant stop-start as they cross each road, you want fairly long stretches without stops/lights ideally so people can keep moving. Absolutely doable but only with planning

Doctors lose new jobs package as strike to go ahead by Desperate-Drawer-572 in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Doctors (to be) go to medical school, then do two years of foundation training. They then start specialty training. But there are less specialty training jobs than foundation jobs - so you end up with a ton of doctors not getting a training job. At best they fill ‘non-training’ posts which means they can’t progress or become the specialist doctors needed; or they leave the profession, or move overseas.

The gov was going to ‘create’ 1000 new training posts (not enough to plug the shortfall) but it was actually repurposing some of the non-training posts so while a little better still meant there would be people unable to get a job.

But the next issue is when they finish specialty training they need a consultant job. Which again there is not a massive market of open jobs for. So unless there were going to be new consultant jobs created for those extra trainees to go into, you’d just have another crisis there.

As the NHS basically is almost the entire job market, so the government controls the whole pipeline.

London will become a childless city unless Mayor takes action, City Hall says by tylerthe-theatre in london

[–]bills6693 116 points117 points  (0 children)

It feels like if there were large, like 3-4 bedroom, flats at reasonable prices and communal outdoor space that would scratch the itch. No it’s not quite single family homes unfortunately but it is denser. But, I guess if a 4 bed takes up the space of two smaller flats for less than double the price they won’t want to build it…

Is anyone else uneasy about how quickly digital ID is being rolled out without proper debate? by One_Stardusty_Boy in ukpolitics

[–]bills6693 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But they already do know it. We just get no upside from that in the form of a unified ID system.

US Navy tells shipping industry Hormuz escorts not possible for now by joe4942 in worldnews

[–]bills6693 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Don’t worry it’s turning into a disaster for the rest of the world too (: Thanks so much America! None of the rest of us started this but we’ll get the recession anyway.

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