He wants to increase the threshold of where you start paying 40%. The title of this article makes it sound like it’s 45% but it’s not. Currently this threshold is at about £50k. So this would make the biggest difference to exactly the middle classes.

This is almost certainly nothing to do with gaming but rather with preventing China from building up their own chip industry and using US chips in things like AI applications.

It looks like it’s all orchestrated by Iran. Hezbollah, under Iran control, Hamas and Yemeni rebels. Hamas shooting at Israel in a way that they clearly knew would necessitate a massive response. What I’m wondering is what they gain from this. Perhaps solidarity from other powers in the Middle East, causing hatred of Israel? I’m also wondering if this is all covering action for China to tie down the US while China attempts to take Taiwan. We might be living through what in the future textbooks will be under the heading of factors leading up to.

Fitting them with cameras makes it look like another profit protection measure.

I was nodding along till here. Wouldn’t fitting employees with body cameras making it easier to prosecute the criminals? Lack of evidence is probably the issue in most cases.

I use Google Play Music and it’s been pretty good. Haven’t noticed any shenanigans, no ads or anything of the sort.

Ah right, but how is it a privacy issue?

Genuine question, can you explain why this is an issue? You’ve got to type something in either way…

If they were to apply to rejoin, as well as joining the Schengen and the euro, I’d want them to have a minimum 60% in favour in a referendum (not just in the polls). Something like a membership of the EU, a political project, requires strong public support.

If junior doctors are paid so badly wouldn’t a better response to this be to quit and do something else or move to a different country? You help yourself and eventually the NHS has to realise that only paying a gazillion bureaucrats whilst having too few and too badly paid doctors isn’t going to work out. To be fair this is already happening, many doctors have left and we have 22 month waiting times… Time is approaching where NHS, the huge bureaucratic behemoth, is dismantled and replaced with something better.

We really don’t have disdain for the Americans. Most Americans I’ve met have been great.

I don’t really see how having a nuclear base in Taiwan eliminates MAD. Similarly having 60% of the navy in the Pacific. It seems to me these mostly work well in case of a conventional conflict.

Yeah indeed strategic ambiguity has been the approach they’ve taken so far. If they decided to they could change the approach though. I think it’s unlikely China would carry out the threat if a formal alliance was actually announced since in that case they’d be starting a world war. I think it’s more likely they’d express outrage, protest and perhaps fly some fighter jets over Taiwan, take some steps short of actual war. My worry is that if the situation remains ambiguous China might conclude that the security guarantees are not real and that US would not respond. Having strong credibility there is essential for maintaining peace I think, especially if the intention is to actually respond.

Nuclear base… Talk about hyperbole. Hope the weather is nice in Beijing this August.

Sure I agree when it comes to admitting them to the EU. NATO is only a military defence alliance though. If they’d been in NATO this war would never have happened.

Sometimes I think driving licenses should require regular revalidation in the form of a driving retest. People acquire bad habits and begin to ignore rules, people age as in this case and their abilities are no longer up to the standard they were when they got the license. Doing this every 5 years and maybe reducing it to every 2 years once over 70 or some such.

Yeah it would require congressional approval. But that’s not beyond the realm of possibility as there is bipartisan support for Taiwan in the Congress.

I’m doubtful that it would trigger a major conflict. More likely China would express public outrage but not do anything about it. But it has to be done swiftly so they don’t have time to react before it’s in force.

If we’re really learning from mistakes in Ukraine then Taiwan should be recognised as an independent country and admitted into a formal alliance. Not admitting Ukraine into NATO was the mistake we made there and it’s being repeated in Taiwan.

He’s afraid Prigozhin will run.

Chinese government nowadays is just as fascist as Mussolini was back in the day. Revanchist and extremely nationalistic tendencies are strong. They think they are the future superpower and are salivating at the thought of oppressing the entire world under their yoke. I’ll take that they call “US hegemony” over the Chinese oppression any day, don’t need to think about it.