Tom Jones

@Ole_is_right Nothing about that is really to do with Capitalism, other than the domination of the market by fewer big companies.

There are twoo very funny element to this: First, I know its surprising for anti-capitalists to understand this. But, it is possible to have so much food, delivered so efficiently, that marginal differences (like spice blends, or minor batter and bun differences) genuinely make a difference to consumers. But, ya know, no other economic system in history has delivered that type of abundance, so I understand why they find it strange. But, on a more fundamental level, consumers also have a say in where their money goes under capitalism. You may want to eat at the restaurants in which you hold shares, if they are publicly traded. You may go to one with a franchisee, who you know to be particularly good at managing his business. You might just want the one with the best ingredients. Hell, you can even choose on moral grounds. Chic-Fil-A was, very famously, boycotted because their CEO made some homophobic remarks. At the same time, they are often held in a positive light, because they donate a shit ton of money to nonprofits, which help combat food insecurity (donating 25K to local food banks for each location that they have opened since 2020). Individual franchisees also, very frequently, go above and beyond-- partnering with local churches, food banks, and schools). Capitalism has made us so spoiled for choice, that we can decide which fucking chicken sandwich is reflective of our values. For 99% of human history, food insecurity was ever-present. Even today, malnutrition is the leading cause of child mortality across the globe. Meanwhile, capitalism has solved this problem to such an extent, that I get to decide if my chicken sandwhich is woke enough for my liking, or if I like the spice blend of one more than the other. The idea that different entities selling a similar product (all at low prices, and in high quantities) is anything but amazing-- is a position so privileged that it beggars belief.

@tphillips115 @VeryBrexitProbs

@VeryBrexitProbs No wonder the Democrats love him. They would love to suspend any news channel/service that doesn’t consistently kiss the liberal ring of impropriety.

New Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar finally appeared as a guest on state television M1 for the first time ever. Here’s what he told the journalist. “We will suspend this channel's news service. This isn't about me; I'm not seeking revenge. Our people deserve journalism that reflects the truth.” “We will nationalize the assets given to businesspeople and foundations during the Orbán era.” “The Mathias Corvinus Collegium Foundation, close to Orbán, was transferred 10% of MOL (oil company) and Gedeon Richter (pharmaceutical company) for free. We will take back these shares.” “After 16 years of the Orbán era, 400,000 Hungarian children in this country are living in deep poverty.” “President Sulyok is no longer the president of this country in my eyes or in the eyes of the people.” (In response to the host asking about his meeting with Zelensky as a counterpoint) “I get your joke, and I even like it. But your references no longer carry any meaning.” “According to you, Germany has collapsed, there's no internet there, people aren't even having sex. The Hungarian people were laughing at you.” “It was said on this channel that even my young children won't talk to me, when in fact my children live with me.” (When the host interrupted him) “No host in this studio ever dared to interrupt Hungary's most corrupt and most lying prime minister.” (When asked about the legal basis for closing the news service) “For someone on this channel to accuse me of breaking the law looks like a thief accusing the police.”

@AdamCrafton_ The saying is famously "goals do not change games", after all

The red card was not a red card but if Man Utd players or coach think they lost that game because of a referee, they need shaking.

@Synk556 @WeTheBrandon

@_Siaynoq @WeTheBrandon Oh no! My gas went up a whole dollar! Meanwhile it's doubled in europe.

The reason Trump’s counter-blockade in the Strait of Hormuz seems comically absurd is because it is born out of raw desperation. You see, Trump expected Europe and others to send their navies to reopen the Strait, figuring that those regions rely upon trade via the Strait more than we do. What he didn’t figure was how utterly intransigent the Euros and others would be to his pressure campaign. Once he realized that the Euros, Japanese, etc., were simply going to pay the Iranian toll to move their goods through the Strait rather than risk a war, Trump panicked, understanding too late in this affair how dreadfully exposed to the disruptions of Iran’s blockade the US economy was. Now, Trump is scrambling. Desperate to pressure the rest of the world into supporting his bid to reopen the Strait. He still doesn’t get it. Which is why he will keep getting this thing wrong.

@didopich @KieranMaguire The difference is City are an arm of a nation that are sportswashing, so the money doesn't really matter to them. Chelsea are a hedgefund experiment, so this is madness.

@KieranMaguire If Man City can get away with it for a decade what do you expect?

Chelsea parent company BlueCo 22, which owns both Chelsea and Strasbourg, and strips out all the transactions between group companies, lost £630m in 24/25, taking total losses since the company formed in 2022 to £1,675 million, or £10.4m a week since the acquisition date of Chelsea

@Synk556 @WeTheBrandon

Wrong on every level, genius. The US is the world's #1 oil producer & net exporter thanks to American energy dominance (which Trump helped turbocharge). We don't "need" the Strait like Europe, Japan, China, or India do—they're the ones getting hosed and paying Iran's pirate toll like cowards. Trump's counter-blockade is leverage: it squeezes Iran's economy without firing a shot or risking US ships in missile range. Europe hiding behind "intransigence" just proves they're free-riding paper tigers again. This isn't desperation—it's chess while your side cries about checkers. Cope harder.

@Ole_is_right $1bn buy backs in 2024. 36,000 employees, so $27,777.77 each. Economics of greed indeed.

@Ole_is_right How much profit did they make? How much was returned to shareholders? How much was spent on stock buybacks?

This comment is a great lesson on the economics of greed— and not in the way the author intended. If Kimberly-Clark paid their CEO $0 annually, and redistributed his salary to each employee equally (amongst 36,000 employees), each worker would get $455.55/year, which comes out to $8.76/wk, or just under $.22/hr. It is an amount that would make no difference in most people’s lives. However, one idiot did something heinous. He caught fire to a building with 20 innocent people inside. He burned diapers, tissues, and hygiene products that people need. Because of him, the workers who relied on that job to feed their families, don’t have a facility to clock in at tomorrow. On the bright side, he will now get to experience the closest thing to true socialism that there is— the prison system.

@Richard89022768 @ChrisO_wiki @SpencerGuard @WSJ How's that £145bn broken down?

@ChrisO_wiki @SpencerGuard @WSJ Not really the problem in the UK is spending 145bn on working age benefits to people who cant be bothered to put a shift in not the cost of a still small pension to the older population who turned up worked and paid tax

"Why Britain Can’t Afford a Navy." from @WSJ Editorial Board. Personally I hated seeing the political decisions that led to the shrinking of the British Army and Navy to almost nothing. wsj.com/opinion/nigel-… If you’re wondering why the United Kingdom apparently can’t afford a navy anymore, ask Nigel Farage. The insurgent politician, who leads a party called Reform UK ostensibly committed to making Britain great again, on Thursday promised voters . . . more social welfare. This kind of welfare recklessness has consequences, and in Britain an embarrassing one is the decline of the military. London’s struggle to deploy the navy to the Mediterranean to defend British assets during the Iran war—let alone help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—exposes the national security price Britain is paying for social handouts. It’s a recipe for continuing British decline.

@jdleggcan @SchrodingrsBrat Don't be ridiculous. As if God would write a book that I've made up.

@_Siaynoq @SchrodingrsBrat Now you're doing what you accuse Christians of doing: making stuff up.

This tweet changed my life. I remember when I tweeted this one random evening years ago while waiting in line for the bathroom at the ballet during intermission, I had ~5k followers at the time. When I next checked my phone, my Twitter was blowing up and I gained like 500 followers every refresh. Every opportunity I’ve had since then, professional and otherwise, has come from writing online and sharing my ideas publicly. My idea of what was possible expanded. I published a book. I met my heroes. It still blows my mind that people pay money to read my thoughts on my blog, and that every time I hit “post” a sports stadium size audience accesses it

@jdleggcan @SchrodingrsBrat But in my book here that God's written it says the Bible is wrong. He specifically says in this one that the first bible was a little practical joke he played.

@_Siaynoq @SchrodingrsBrat Not at all. God - in the Bible - is quite clear that he is God and there are no others. Astrology and other forms of divination are consistently condemned in Scripture. Billions of Christians have understood this. I don't know why atheists claim it's so difficult.

@jdleggcan @SchrodingrsBrat Presumably he wrote every single holy book and every book on astrology too

@_Siaynoq @SchrodingrsBrat Laugh all you like. I know the God who wrote the book.

@jdleggcan @SchrodingrsBrat Wouldn't want to get drawn in by a centuries old scam based upon manipulative fiction, eh? 😅

@SchrodingrsBrat Honestly? I'm delighted that you got your audience, but some of us are looking to meet a lady who believes the Word of God and follows the Spirit of God, not some astrological charlatanry. Your horoscope will only ever tell you what you want to hear. But Jesus won't lie to you.

@Ole_is_right The federal government does a lot. Some of the stuff they cut, since they couldn't find any waste, was increadibly harmful - in terms of costing extra money, resulting in people dying, preparedness for disease/natural disasters etc.

@_Siaynoq If you had to deal with the federal government as much as I do, you’d be happy too.

Finally, some good news.

@C_Slomski At least it's not the current fuckers that have gutted motability.

@Perky_43 @ukhomeoffice gov.uk/government/pub…

@ukhomeoffice Do you have the figures of how many doctors or dentists arrived this year via small craft? At this stage you are completely taking the mick out of the public. Quality migration I can deal with, the dinghy dwellers and like should not be here - do your job,protect the nation.

Net migration is down by nearly 70%, with visa numbers continuing to fall. By introducing higher salary thresholds, stronger English language requirements and preventing visa abuse, we're building a system that backs British workers while attracting high-skilled labour.

@Ole_is_right @mi0minmio At some point that thin sliver of yellow will have enough.

If by "works just fine," you mean "relies on VAT, which is a regressive, not progressive tax"-- then you are correct. On the US side, wealth tax is likely (and thankfully) unconstitutional (or, at least, unworkable) at the federal level, because it would be a direct tax under Art. 1.

This conversation is good insofar as it adequately describes the self-defeating nature of tax policies, which tend to punish productivity. But, the funniest part to me, will always be that any policy beginning with "tax every dollar over X amount at an extortionate rate, so nobody else has to pay taxes" just ignores that it would take 5 decent lawyers, two accountants, half an afternoon, and a couple of beers, to completely rip through. In the example below, just defer the income; hire yourself as a consultant via an LLC (taxed as a C corp so there is just a 21% tax on profits); keep income > 2M as retained earnings; throw in a ton of expenditures with articulable business purposes to prevent any tax shelter arguments; and rely on individual taxation being cash, not accrual, basis. Progressive tax systems only work to the extent that it is not profitable for somebody to pay lawyers and accountants to do the work to escape additional taxation. The moment it becomes cheaper and more convenient to hire those professionals-- than it is to pay those taxes-- is the moment those taxes stop getting paid.

@Miguel640283347 @adamndsmith @domdyer70 They are all nonsense buzzwords that don't actually mean anything. I guess that's what you've missed.

@adamndsmith @domdyer70 The issues u outline, asserting fearmongering, are all central tenants of today’s Green Party. Sure, there are more palatable bits in there, but the list u have so kindly outlined is not made up & a wee bit troubling….or am I missing something?

No mention of the Green Party’s actual agenda, of course. Just vague fearmongering to the right-wing audience. “Critical Race Theory, anti-Zionism, gender ideology … anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Britain” Maybe that’s because they know if they wrote about the Green’s actual agenda - nationalising water, energy, and the railways, stopping pollution, taking Palantir out of the NHS, a national wealth fund, expanding social housing - they would find that even their readers actually support it.

@CyberHermetics @NewLeftEViews If we take capitalism to mean all these things that aren't capitalism then maybe capitalism existed before it actually existed.

@NewLeftEViews Whether that means capitalism existed bronze age depends on how it's defined but typical definitions such as private property and profits, wage relations, etc did exist then, thus the difference between capitalism then and now may be one of scale rather than kind

Pointing out that capitalism is better than feudalism doesn’t take talent, and it’s laughably obvious that capitalism creates both great freedoms and unfreedom at the same time. But the main point is that not all capitalisms are equal. These people conflate all forms of ‘markets’ and ‘commerce’ with ‘capitalism’ and avoid any substantive questions about how and when markets do and do not work. They’re more concerned with erecting some anti-capitalist left straw man by way of Soviet or Cuban communism or whatever. Deeply unserious incel twitter warriors.