Interesting Links for 18-01-2014

[andrewducker]

• Scottish independence: Seven other visions of self-rule
  (tags: independence politics scotland )
• Fascinating to see poll results on how the voters for different parties view coalitions.
  (tags: coalition uk politics )
• Scientific Errors in the Tobacco Products Directive: A letter sent by scientists to the European Union
  (tags: europe nicotine

Comments

[gonzo21]

Yep, for me at least the strongest reason to vote Yes is what is happening in England, the horrors the Condems are committing, and the unrelenting march towards fascism.

[alitheapipkin]

Me too. I'd far rather live in an independent Scotland that might struggle a bit financially for a while but has its heart in the right place than a UK that seems to want to return to Victorian values of the poor knowing their place and being utterly dependent on the charity of the few rich people who still feel any sense of responsibility to those less fortunate than themselves. I might like watching Downtown Abbey on the TV but that doesn't mean I want to live there.

[gonzo21]

I do have a moral problem with this though, that is it really right to cut ourselves off from the sinking ship that is the UK, when really Scotland provides the only socialist balance? Well, Wales too.

It's just I kinda feel a yes vote is throwing our southern Comrades under the bus.

[del_c]

It's nonsense about England being ineluctably Conservative. All that happens is that when the election comes and the Conservatives are thrown out, it comes a little bit sooner than it would if Scotland weren't there, and a little bit later than if England weren't there. You'll see.

Why stopping the next financial crash is an impossible dream

[cartesiandaemon]

I kind of agree with the point he's arguing against, and his own point. It seems like the idea I get from economists is something like:

1. We may never be able to make financial crashes go away entirely, but it's still good to make them less frequent and less bad, eg. by removing the incentive on banks to turn risks into larger risks by gambling heavily and relying on someone else to pick up the mess.
2. There is a natural boom and bust cycle, and the classic Keynsian idea is to damp it out by storing grain in the good years (by taxing heavily and building infrastructure, etc), and spending in the bad years. But we would ideally do that IN ADVANCE, not just only after a crisis.
3. However, whether or not we do #1 and #2, it would still be better to have a sensible response to a crisis.

[gonzo21]

And one of the things that I think Brown deserves more credit for is during the 2008 crash, nobody had a plan. The world was running around like a headless chicken. And it was Brown that came up with a plan, and got world leaders to sit down and enact it.

And okay the plan was turn on the printing presses and lets print our way out of trouble on our credit cards. But hey. It was a plan. And it was better than nothing.

[apostle_of_eris]

right
Bubble and crashes Just Happen, and that's all there is to it. Keeping crooks from bleeding the country? What's that, and what does it have to do with anything?

[andrewducker]

The article didn't say that, and frankly you're not actually adding anything to any kind of useful discussion.