And so I read Fandom as Femdom and went "Wait what."
+1
Options
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2015
I have a friend (a US expat) who is living in Japan right now, and he is basically my hero. He works for a post-Fukushima project called "Save Minamisoma!", and literally all he does all the time is drive food and clothes and clean water to thousands and thousands of people. They are living in houses practically made of cardboard since the government said "hey, everything's okay now, it's no one's fault!" and the country forgot them.
He drives, hands out food, helps organize, advertise, and attend fundraisers for the charity, and he doesn't let anyone he knows forget about those people, putting up all the evidence that runs contrary to government statements. He always, always carried a geiger counter on his person because he needs to. The numbers he records are often much higher than reported, and people still live in those areas. They have nowhere else to go, and no one wants to take responsibility for cleaning it up.
I told him he was my hero, and he was just like "it's not really anything special, I mean what else am I going to do?" He was living in Tokyo when the tsunami happened, it's not like he had a large personal investment prior to that.
Knowing him puts a lot into perspective for me, and I'm glad for that.
ceres on
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
+28
Options
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2015
He actually had a more personal project that is really cool, though I don't know where he is with it now. He's a very, very good photographer, and it's really his passion. He and his friends were inspired by a photo they found that was washed up with a pile of junk somewhere, and it was in terrible condition. They picked it up, restored it, and tried to find the person to whom it belonged.. it looked like an old picture, of a girl in a traditional kimono. I don't think he ever found them, but he and some other photographers he knew started going through some of the wrecked, abandoned houses and collecting photo albums. They would restore what they could, and bring the albums with them to the people from the area, to see if anyone recognized them. I know he'd reunited few with their memories, but I don't know if he's still doing it, since it was so long ago now.
I know at the very least he kept an archive of what he found before and after, and I think he put it up somewhere. I should really find out what happened with all that.
ceres on
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
Just because some people have forgotten doesn't mean we all have
I assumed he meant crazy in the sense that very few other countries have figured out it is a good solution to the woes of a shrinking population when the American example is right there.
In America, we have to manufacture economic crises from whole cloth!
While I'm staying here in Japan, I'm working part-time at an English conversation cafe. Basically people come in and pay a couple bucks for food and drinks, and can talk to us about whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and a guy came in and all he wanted to talk about for four hours was politics and the economy and the military and holy cow.
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
While I'm staying here in Japan, I'm working part-time at an English conversation cafe. Basically people come in and pay a couple bucks for food and drinks, and can talk to us about whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and a guy came in and all he wanted to talk about for four hours was politics and the economy and the military and holy cow.
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
Well you have to figure that Japan hasn't seen any military action at all since WW2, so, the younger generation pretty much is entirely disconnected from what war actually entails. But yeah, the young, pro-military, conservative subcurrent that is growing in Japan definitely worries me.
While I'm staying here in Japan, I'm working part-time at an English conversation cafe. Basically people come in and pay a couple bucks for food and drinks, and can talk to us about whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and a guy came in and all he wanted to talk about for four hours was politics and the economy and the military and holy cow.
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
Well you have to figure that Japan hasn't seen any military action at all since WW2, so, the younger generation pretty much is entirely disconnected from what war actually entails. But yeah, the young, pro-military, conservative subcurrent that is growing in Japan definitely worries me.
Sounds like the US and the anti-vaxxer movement.
@ceres Does your friend have a blog that we can look at? He sounds like an awesome guy and I'd love to learn more.
There were three potential measles cases that came up around NW Ohio.
They all tested negative thank goodness but the simple fact that we need to be so scared of it now is bonkers.
I remember my Stepbrother almost didn't get to go to JR High one year because he was late getting one booster that they had just started to require at the time.
0
Options
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
While I'm staying here in Japan, I'm working part-time at an English conversation cafe. Basically people come in and pay a couple bucks for food and drinks, and can talk to us about whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and a guy came in and all he wanted to talk about for four hours was politics and the economy and the military and holy cow.
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
Well you have to figure that Japan hasn't seen any military action at all since WW2, so, the younger generation pretty much is entirely disconnected from what war actually entails. But yeah, the young, pro-military, conservative subcurrent that is growing in Japan definitely worries me.
Sounds like the US and the anti-vaxxer movement.
@ceres Does your friend have a blog that we can look at? He sounds like an awesome guy and I'd love to learn more.
I'm not sure he does any blogging; I keep up with him on Facebook. I'll look into it tonight, though.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
While I'm staying here in Japan, I'm working part-time at an English conversation cafe. Basically people come in and pay a couple bucks for food and drinks, and can talk to us about whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and a guy came in and all he wanted to talk about for four hours was politics and the economy and the military and holy cow.
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
Well you have to figure that Japan hasn't seen any military action at all since WW2, so, the younger generation pretty much is entirely disconnected from what war actually entails. But yeah, the young, pro-military, conservative subcurrent that is growing in Japan definitely worries me.
Sounds like the US and the anti-vaxxer movement.
Not to hijack your comment but stepping in to say that the anti-vaccine movement has definitely moved beyond worrisome because diseases that by rights should have been eliminated from the continent are coming back, most recently measles.
Yeah, it's not a Japanese thing, Canadians would rather forget we tried to annihilate dozens of Native cultures by shoving their kids into boarding schools, disbarred British Citizens from entering Canada (Hint: They were from India), put Japanese, Italian, and Germans in camps during both World Wars, and various local racist/discrimatory policies.
And we're considered one of the 'Nice' countries.....
You can crash with @Houk
Nah, but the Japanese only want you there short term, and they WILL make it a pain in the ass for you to live there beyond 3 or 4 years.
You can crash with @Houk
Nah, but the Japanese only want you there short term, and they WILL make it a pain in the ass for you to live there beyond 3 or 4 years.
what do they do after 3 or 4 years
Lock down your retirement withholding for like a decade, make it harder and harder to extend your visa.
I'm not very familiar with Thatcher beyond 'mining communities hate her'. Surely the shutting down of mining is just economics? Mining isn't a sustainable thing, it has to end sometime.
A lot of it was the way she shut the mines down and broke up the unions. They were state owned mines, which she ideologically disagreed with, and her government pushed through privatisation that was very damaging to the economies of smaller towns and cities, especially in the north. Others will know a lot more about it than I do, but from what I know there was a lot of underhanded ways her government pursued its goals. They definitely lied to the public about their plans to close the mines, which rather than being a reaction to some unprofitable mines, was ideologically driven and had been planned from the start of the government's term but was lied about because the extent of the closures was going to be unpopular.
All of the Thatcher government policies were very deliberately structured nastiness to entities the tory old guard felt were enemies; the breaking the financial power of urban councils with the council housing sell off was structured, the changing all the corporate and financial system rules to benefit employers and the City at the expense of employees, the spending the oil windfall on tax cuts.
Basically the people who do like Thatcher were those who received (or the children of those who received) the benefits of the sale of national assets that had been built up over the proceeding 40 years, and either didn't realise (buying right-wing economics/idiots) or didn't care (fuck you got mine) that a) it was a sell-off rather than sustainable policy, or b) that substantially hurt communities both north and south with no compensation offered.
Edit: Stupid drafts function vomiting up old things.
Dis' on
+9
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Eh, I've never really trucked with the whole "Thatcher was worse than Reagan" thing, because in both scale and magnitude, Reagan was much more heinous.
Yeah, it's not a Japanese thing, Canadians would rather forget we tried to annihilate dozens of Native cultures by shoving their kids into boarding schools, disbarred British Citizens from entering Canada (Hint: They were from India), put Japanese, Italian, and Germans in camps during both World Wars, and various local racist/discrimatory policies.
And we're considered one of the 'Nice' countries.....
The disconnect between our popular image of this country and, well, large swathes of its history prior to the mid-1960s (and into the eighties re: the attempt to exterminate the First Nations) when we made a point of manufacturing said image is pretty stunning when you first spend awhile really digging into it. The official antisemitism (into the fifties!), panicked, frantic purging of the immigration department when Laurier found out a dozen black Americans immigrated perfectly legally, etc.
I like (most of) the image we currently try to cultivate, but it has a lot of trouble meshing with the mindsets that are still around. You don't have to scratch the surface very hard for a lot of those attitudes to hurl themselves right back into the open. There's a reason a lot of Canadian news sites disable comments on any article involving the First Nations, for instance.
A lot of countries are going to have a stack of that sort of crap going on - something we can also be decent at forgetting, unless the stuff they're forgetting offends our own sensibilities.
+2
Options
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2015
For those interested, this is the response I got:
I haven't really put many SMP pics up on Flickr (altho' there may be some up- been so long since I've used Flickr regularly). If there were some there you were thinking of specifically, no problem at all linking to them.
Don't have a blog, but do have tons of FB albums about the SMP runs.
Ok, so only fandom adjacent, but I am getting pretty tired of tumblr posts claiming "The mainstream media isn't reporting about [thing that is literally on every mainstream media channel]." Watch the news people! You might think it's propaganda to brainwash the masses but at least you wouldn't be so ignorant.
This was talking about the ISIS execution of 16 Egyptian Christians and the subsequent airstrikes by Egypt on ISIS. Sure, it's brown people dying, but Muslims killing Christians is like Mainstream News 101. They'll play and are playing that report as much as they can. Like, if you're complaining that a news report that Fox News is eating up is under reported then you probably don't know what you're talking about.
Obviously there are news reports that aren't covered by mainstream media. But, and I'm not an expert, maybe when a news item is on the front page of nearly every major news site it's mainstream news? Maybe? I don't know.
edit-and the post I'm talking about was one that complained that people would rather talk about Kim Kardashian than the execution followed up by a reply saying the reason for that was because the mainstream media aren't reporting it. It wasn't misinformation that was being complained about, it was a lack of any information, which is simply false.
This was talking about the ISIS execution of 16 Egyptian Christians and the subsequent airstrikes by Egypt on ISIS. Sure, it's brown people dying, but Muslims killing Christians is like Mainstream News 101. They'll play and are playing that report as much as they can. Like, if you're complaining that a news report that Fox News is eating up is under reported then you probably don't know what you're talking about.
Obviously there are news reports that aren't covered by mainstream media. But, and I'm not an expert, maybe when a news item is on the front page of nearly every major news site it's mainstream news? Maybe? I don't know.
I don't think the main complaint there is that it's being under reported, it's that the story is being grossly misrepresented to serve a rhetoric that has absolutely nothing to do with reporting world news.
All mainstream media does it, and spreading misinformation can be just as damaging as failing to cover a story, if not more.
My first experience with adam baldwin's craziness was ages before I knew much about him, and was listening to the season five dvd commentary of angel from an episode he's in
David boreanaz and the episode director are joking and laughing and being silly, and the whole time adam Baldwin is the biggest stick in the mud, like kind of sullen and refusing to laugh and joke along, also when the other two reminiss about stuff that happened on the set, adam Baldwin would be like "yeah everyone was unprofessional that day" and make the other two super awkward. Eventually despite starting out as a fun commentary Baldwin makes the other two so uncomfortable the commentary eventually gets silent and all the laughing stops, as you can just tell the director and boreanaz are just waiting to get the hell away from this guy
Going back on last week's discussion about Thatcher, while I'm a staunch critic of Thatcher and absolutely despised the way her Government operated, I'd at least say it's pertinent to provide a bit more background on why those policies were introduced rather than simply "she was evil" (she was evil though).
Going back to the 1970s, inflation was nearing 25% in the mid/late 1970s. That is war-time level inflation and causes incredible instability in an economy. Inflation targeting wasn't really a thing back then. If you read the news now, you'll read all about the Chancellor's x% inflation target blah blah blah... Proper inflation target setting wasn't even established until 1992, after the Thatcher Government. It took decades before Governments decided it was necessary for fiscal policy with inflation at the centre, rather than as a by-product of other economic models.
So when Thatcher came into power, the Conservative Government's primary aim was to do something about inflation. The thing about inflation is that once it gets out of control, it'll keep spiralling worse and worse forever until you can re-establish equilibrium. Unions see the rate of inflation going up so they bargain for higher wages to keep the real value of their wages in-line with higher prices. As supply costs go up because wages have increased, prices increase: repeat forever. The strength of the unions only added to this. You're trying to set fiscal policy that keeps inflation steady, and keeps wages stable, all the while coping with unions who don't look at where things are going but what has come before (i.e. inflation constantly rising) and use that as a basis to demand higher wages. It's counter-productive to what is best in the long-term. Thatcher was aware of the problems encountered both by the Callaghan Government and the Heath Government and didn't want the same again so decided to take action (way too much fucking action beyond what was necessary, fyi).
You have to actively seek to reduce inflation, primarily by reducing aggregate demand. There are several ways to do this, e.g. through monetary policies such as raising interest rates. If interest rates rise, people save rather than invest. the same goes for business, which in turn leads to a reduction in output. A side effect of reducing inflation is that unemployment tends to go up. It's all a balance that needs to be sought. It's difficult to reduce output without unemployment rising (unemployment trebled during Thatcher's first Government and pretty much stayed there). It's all down to the policy setters on how you choose to cut inflation. It can be done, gradually over time or rapidly. Thatcher being Thatcher decided for the slash and burn method. The result of the policies introduced was a massive recession (the economy was purposefully shrunk to reduce output) but would eventually recover in full force during Thatcher's second term. Also remember the Falklands War came right at the end this recession and effectively saved her Government. Thatcher had a dismal time of it during her first administration and it was only really the War that changed the majority of peoples perception of her. War has a weird affect on mentality. You hate Thatcher? Blame Argentina, maybe.
The UK economy was shit long before Thatcher came to power. It wasn't a land of Hope and Glory many seem to claim (see: Three-Day Week, Winter of Discontent). Regretfully, Thatcher was the necessary evil many thought we needed. There's a reason why every successive Government since has followed the trends Thatcher started, whether it be Labour, Conservative, a coalition whatever. It created growth (however unsustainable it provided to be) in the economy for about 20 years. It also creates wealth gaps (pretty fucking large ones) but Governments don't care because you can't do anything about it without the fear of going back to 1970s Britain.
There was a fuck load wrong with Thatcher (I didn't even talk about renationalisation, council house sell off, liberalisation of the financial markets etc...) but there were reasons why these decisions were taken. It wasn't just that a nation randomly decided to turn to the Dark Side. The country was shit and people wanted stability after that post-war funk.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to recommend people read Dark Heart by Nick Davies (same guy who did that book what did in all those papers and such). It deals with the effects of Thatcher's policies in the late 1990s and explores a part of Britain that was long forgotten.
I just came in here to say that I agree with the OP. People who nerd out over things, speak in quotes, draw fanfiction, role-play, and gather with groups of other nerds in costume are really the worst.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to see to a call about a class 2 non-corporeal roaming vapor downtown.
I just came in here to say that I agree with the OP. People who nerd out over things, speak in quotes, draw fanfiction, role-play, and gather with groups of other nerds in costume are really the worst.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to see to a call about a class 2 non-corporeal roaming vapor downtown.
Back before I knew Adam Baldwin was a goose, my wife and I got some really nice Firefly prints. Package deal, so we have a 5 foot Mal, Jayne and Kaylee hanging on our wall.
Sometimes I worry that people who know he's a goose will get squicky about it. I dunno. I guess I'm alright divorcing him from that character.
Back before I knew Adam Baldwin was a goose, my wife and I got some really nice Firefly prints. Package deal, so we have a 5 foot Mal, Jayne and Kaylee hanging on our wall.
Sometimes I worry that people who know he's a goose will get squicky about it. I dunno. I guess I'm alright divorcing him from that character.
Posts
He drives, hands out food, helps organize, advertise, and attend fundraisers for the charity, and he doesn't let anyone he knows forget about those people, putting up all the evidence that runs contrary to government statements. He always, always carried a geiger counter on his person because he needs to. The numbers he records are often much higher than reported, and people still live in those areas. They have nowhere else to go, and no one wants to take responsibility for cleaning it up.
I told him he was my hero, and he was just like "it's not really anything special, I mean what else am I going to do?" He was living in Tokyo when the tsunami happened, it's not like he had a large personal investment prior to that.
Knowing him puts a lot into perspective for me, and I'm glad for that.
I know at the very least he kept an archive of what he found before and after, and I think he put it up somewhere. I should really find out what happened with all that.
In America, we have to manufacture economic crises from whole cloth!
It's a real shitty situation in ways that never, ever got reported on, and especially not in the West
He was a nice enough guy, but he was very pro-military and thought Japan should become more active, partly because of what happened with those Japanese citizens and ISIS, and also because he thinks China is a realistic threat to Japan, and he thinks they should be able to attack if needed. Kinda surprised at his enthusiasm for all that.
Tonight they're running a maid cafe theme, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter...
Well you have to figure that Japan hasn't seen any military action at all since WW2, so, the younger generation pretty much is entirely disconnected from what war actually entails. But yeah, the young, pro-military, conservative subcurrent that is growing in Japan definitely worries me.
Big fans, little fans, electric or handpowered
Fans, what you summer be like without you.
Sounds like the US and the anti-vaxxer movement.
@ceres Does your friend have a blog that we can look at? He sounds like an awesome guy and I'd love to learn more.
They all tested negative thank goodness but the simple fact that we need to be so scared of it now is bonkers.
I remember my Stepbrother almost didn't get to go to JR High one year because he was late getting one booster that they had just started to require at the time.
I'm not sure he does any blogging; I keep up with him on Facebook. I'll look into it tonight, though.
Not to hijack your comment but stepping in to say that the anti-vaccine movement has definitely moved beyond worrisome because diseases that by rights should have been eliminated from the continent are coming back, most recently measles.
Also fuck those fucking idiots.
Have you seen those fans with no blades?
Just a hole in the middle and cool air miraculously comes out.
Sorcery I say, sorcery.
Usually hottish air, though.
Heh. I was raised with that belief re Japan, being Chinese and all.
And we're considered one of the 'Nice' countries.....
WoW
Dear Satan.....
what do they do after 3 or 4 years
Lock down your retirement withholding for like a decade, make it harder and harder to extend your visa.
Just death by a thousand cuts, really.
All of the Thatcher government policies were very deliberately structured nastiness to entities the tory old guard felt were enemies; the breaking the financial power of urban councils with the council housing sell off was structured, the changing all the corporate and financial system rules to benefit employers and the City at the expense of employees, the spending the oil windfall on tax cuts.
Basically the people who do like Thatcher were those who received (or the children of those who received) the benefits of the sale of national assets that had been built up over the proceeding 40 years, and either didn't realise (buying right-wing economics/idiots) or didn't care (fuck you got mine) that a) it was a sell-off rather than sustainable policy, or b) that substantially hurt communities both north and south with no compensation offered.
Edit: Stupid drafts function vomiting up old things.
The disconnect between our popular image of this country and, well, large swathes of its history prior to the mid-1960s (and into the eighties re: the attempt to exterminate the First Nations) when we made a point of manufacturing said image is pretty stunning when you first spend awhile really digging into it. The official antisemitism (into the fifties!), panicked, frantic purging of the immigration department when Laurier found out a dozen black Americans immigrated perfectly legally, etc.
I like (most of) the image we currently try to cultivate, but it has a lot of trouble meshing with the mindsets that are still around. You don't have to scratch the surface very hard for a lot of those attitudes to hurl themselves right back into the open. There's a reason a lot of Canadian news sites disable comments on any article involving the First Nations, for instance.
A lot of countries are going to have a stack of that sort of crap going on - something we can also be decent at forgetting, unless the stuff they're forgetting offends our own sensibilities.
His facebook album recording what he saw after 3/11 is here. Let me know if they aren't accessible and I'll link some individually.
but what I understand about, say, Ferguson
and violence against trans women
have ENTIRELY been through social media
I don't trust popular media to do my sisters any justice
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Obviously there are news reports that aren't covered by mainstream media. But, and I'm not an expert, maybe when a news item is on the front page of nearly every major news site it's mainstream news? Maybe? I don't know.
edit-and the post I'm talking about was one that complained that people would rather talk about Kim Kardashian than the execution followed up by a reply saying the reason for that was because the mainstream media aren't reporting it. It wasn't misinformation that was being complained about, it was a lack of any information, which is simply false.
I don't think the main complaint there is that it's being under reported, it's that the story is being grossly misrepresented to serve a rhetoric that has absolutely nothing to do with reporting world news.
All mainstream media does it, and spreading misinformation can be just as damaging as failing to cover a story, if not more.
David boreanaz and the episode director are joking and laughing and being silly, and the whole time adam Baldwin is the biggest stick in the mud, like kind of sullen and refusing to laugh and joke along, also when the other two reminiss about stuff that happened on the set, adam Baldwin would be like "yeah everyone was unprofessional that day" and make the other two super awkward. Eventually despite starting out as a fun commentary Baldwin makes the other two so uncomfortable the commentary eventually gets silent and all the laughing stops, as you can just tell the director and boreanaz are just waiting to get the hell away from this guy
Going back to the 1970s, inflation was nearing 25% in the mid/late 1970s. That is war-time level inflation and causes incredible instability in an economy. Inflation targeting wasn't really a thing back then. If you read the news now, you'll read all about the Chancellor's x% inflation target blah blah blah... Proper inflation target setting wasn't even established until 1992, after the Thatcher Government. It took decades before Governments decided it was necessary for fiscal policy with inflation at the centre, rather than as a by-product of other economic models.
So when Thatcher came into power, the Conservative Government's primary aim was to do something about inflation. The thing about inflation is that once it gets out of control, it'll keep spiralling worse and worse forever until you can re-establish equilibrium. Unions see the rate of inflation going up so they bargain for higher wages to keep the real value of their wages in-line with higher prices. As supply costs go up because wages have increased, prices increase: repeat forever. The strength of the unions only added to this. You're trying to set fiscal policy that keeps inflation steady, and keeps wages stable, all the while coping with unions who don't look at where things are going but what has come before (i.e. inflation constantly rising) and use that as a basis to demand higher wages. It's counter-productive to what is best in the long-term. Thatcher was aware of the problems encountered both by the Callaghan Government and the Heath Government and didn't want the same again so decided to take action (way too much fucking action beyond what was necessary, fyi).
You have to actively seek to reduce inflation, primarily by reducing aggregate demand. There are several ways to do this, e.g. through monetary policies such as raising interest rates. If interest rates rise, people save rather than invest. the same goes for business, which in turn leads to a reduction in output. A side effect of reducing inflation is that unemployment tends to go up. It's all a balance that needs to be sought. It's difficult to reduce output without unemployment rising (unemployment trebled during Thatcher's first Government and pretty much stayed there). It's all down to the policy setters on how you choose to cut inflation. It can be done, gradually over time or rapidly. Thatcher being Thatcher decided for the slash and burn method. The result of the policies introduced was a massive recession (the economy was purposefully shrunk to reduce output) but would eventually recover in full force during Thatcher's second term. Also remember the Falklands War came right at the end this recession and effectively saved her Government. Thatcher had a dismal time of it during her first administration and it was only really the War that changed the majority of peoples perception of her. War has a weird affect on mentality. You hate Thatcher? Blame Argentina, maybe.
The UK economy was shit long before Thatcher came to power. It wasn't a land of Hope and Glory many seem to claim (see: Three-Day Week, Winter of Discontent). Regretfully, Thatcher was the necessary evil many thought we needed. There's a reason why every successive Government since has followed the trends Thatcher started, whether it be Labour, Conservative, a coalition whatever. It created growth (however unsustainable it provided to be) in the economy for about 20 years. It also creates wealth gaps (pretty fucking large ones) but Governments don't care because you can't do anything about it without the fear of going back to 1970s Britain.
There was a fuck load wrong with Thatcher (I didn't even talk about renationalisation, council house sell off, liberalisation of the financial markets etc...) but there were reasons why these decisions were taken. It wasn't just that a nation randomly decided to turn to the Dark Side. The country was shit and people wanted stability after that post-war funk.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to recommend people read Dark Heart by Nick Davies (same guy who did that book what did in all those papers and such). It deals with the effects of Thatcher's policies in the late 1990s and explores a part of Britain that was long forgotten.
/end
If tl;dr: lol animes.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to see to a call about a class 2 non-corporeal roaming vapor downtown.
and like yeah, bareback is the best but you gotta exercise caution sometimes anyway
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a ham.
Rommel, you magnificent bus stop.
Sometimes I worry that people who know he's a goose will get squicky about it. I dunno. I guess I'm alright divorcing him from that character.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Re: The Greater Tom Cruise Policy
A somewhat dim, amoral arse who's only out for himself?
I don't really see the disconnect.
Electronic old men
EDIT: goddarn it, this thread was dead for multiple days. Darn my slow reading time@