I know what Any Questions is and I have just switched it on but the program is about to end. What was the interesting point ?
"Responsible capitalism" has no more chance of working than communism, and for remarkably similar reasons. Anyway ... As soon as influences not directly related to the profit motive are "introduced" into a capitalist economy, the system is no longer capitalism. This is aside from the fact that both businesses and consumers will and do resist such influences most vehemently. And there is simply no way that "intelligent consumers" or whatever you might call them, will become a force that steers businesses in the direction of green policies, social enterprise or ethical practices. They will not and more importantly, they cannot. The vast majority of consumers within the free market economy haven't the wealth to be able to consistently chose higher cost consumables and commodities over cheaper suppliers, in order to reward ethical/green/socially responsible businesses. Please note that a capitalist, free market economy can only function if ordinary consumers, on average, do not possess wealth over and above a certain level - this being somewhere around the subsistence mark, I suspect. Inflation, the raising of interest rates and taxes - these aren't accidents or by-products, they are tools. Every pressure, every positive or negative vector, associated with capitalism and market economies, both those acting on suppliers and those that drive consumers, works to push down costs and maximise profits. There are no compensatory features whatsoever acting in the other direction. There is no getting away from that fact and there's no arguing with it. There has to be another way of doing business and when the growth bubble finally bursts, anyone surviving might possibly see it. But I doubt it.
What was the economic theory that was used prior to WWII and the high inflation that followed? If it worked back then,would it work now? Or is the every country so indebted to each other that we can never go back to the days of low inflation? I can't be the only one that remembers a time when there was a feeling of certainty,that a bike that was for sale in the window in 1968 would be a similar price in 1969,and that there was not an expectation that you would get extra in your pay packet simply because you had worked for another year. My very first experience of feeling robbed by politicians was when decimalisation was introduced: the rise in retail prices was eye-watering,and no one said,or could do, anything about it. Since then it's been one damn thing after another,including VAT,(just a way of the government getting a good screw out of everything ever sold through trade,even bloody second hand cars have a marginal rate of non-reclaimable VAT on them). Someone somewhere must have an alternative theory that works.
Economics is not science. Its guesswork. Well, so is science but it has the mechanism of trial by experiment which economics does not have. Economic 'theory' is closer to the colloquial meaning hypothesis than the true scientific term Theory which is a hypothesis that has passed a certain minimum trial. Often it's not even that since a scientific hypothesis has the requirement of being at least falsifiable.
who to? no ones interested dude. there is only so much you can say about an exhaust. there is only so much you can say on how to clean a chain. there is only so much talk with anoraks i can handle.
i do for a living what you guys do for a hobby.. it's nice interesting even to watch a conversation develop. deffo contributed to the success of this forum.
talking of exhausts. :Hilarious::smileys:. i see your MP was on the news this afternoon jv. (are you sure he is Scottish) looks like your area got hit hard 3rd time in ten years. did you get hit by the flooding?
I saw it at the show. All i can say is it gets less offensive the more your eyes heal. Its still shite
