tankplanker

Ive read a large chunk of the books, although only Franks more than once, Brians are to, erm, spicy shall we say to get read more than once.

Not impressed so far as they introduced too many characters in too short a time period with the majority of them not getting defined well enough to stick with who is who, and what they want. I think there was like eight main characters introduced? Contrast that with the Landman premier (which has entirely different problems) that focused on introducing a far smaller number even though it has a wider cast waiting the wings, some of whom are quite big names.

I also did not like that the interesting bit, how the Bene Gesserit actually got first started being trusted by the houses to where every one of them wanted their own was like 2 minutes. Its like they wanted to focus on stuff relevant to the recent movies to keep people interested but 10000 years is a huge time gap to be sitting at the same point all that time. Would have made more sense to start further back IMO.

It just feels like different writers are responsible for writing different characters stories and they being mushed together than than planned as a cohesive whole.

I will give it another episode or two to see how it evolves but at the moment it feels like a space opera version of the Wheel of Time show (not the book) more than anything else.

This is using BMI, which while the vast majority of these people are at the very least overweight it will be missing all the unhealthy skinny fat people.

I wish they would switch to a system that takes account of waist/hip ratio as if you do not have a narrower waist than hips (with a bigger differential if you are a woman) you are carrying more fat than you should be and are also at a risk of a variety of "fat" people illnesses such as heart attacks, diabetes, etc. despite your weight being in a normal range as you lack the muscle mass and/or skeletal mass for your height

The actual number of people who need to sort out their diet and exercise is just shocking.

I already covered over priced areas in my previous post, and the south west squarely falls into that category.

Frankly if you have 500 or more acres in that area and you aren't already making bank from farming then you would be an utter, complete moron not to sell for the £10m+ that you would net from the sale. Any of these premium areas have a far higher return on diversification due to increases in tourism and rich fuckers prepared to pay for farm shops, glamping, etc.

You could even buy a similar sized farm in a cheaper area and bank half of it. Plenty of farmers selling up as they have no family who wants to take it on.

Taxation on the rich should be both on salary and on assets, especially assets that appreciate like land, otherwise we end up with the rich owning everything. The rich have massively larger purchase power than everybody else even if they were taxed fairly. We have to start somewhere with reversing that.

Assuming you aren't living in the Cotswolds or other areas dominated by hobby farmers who over pay and under produce while have significant competition for the price of large houses that pushes up the cost per acre. £5m out side of these areas purchases a good few acres. At £10k an acre (roughly in the upper third for cost) that's about 500 acres with farm buildings.

Even in a shit year with the wrong sort of production you should be clearing £250 per acre per year, or about £125k for 500 acres. Well run farms who pick the right crops for that year clear double that. £40k is significant but its not going to leave them in the poor house, particularly when you can stagger the payments to allow for inflation and also for poor yielding years.

That doesn't include the various subsidies, which while even shitter than ever, they are hardly zero if you pick the right crop. Nor does it include any diversification, which any sensible farmer would already be doing. I don't doubt this is going to result in a number of farms being forced to sell, but then were they ever actually viable in todays market?

The zero inheritance tax rule has to change because of people like Clarkson who have freely admitted to only buying their farm to avoid inheritance tax. Its pushed up the cost of farms as now you are competing against hobby farmers like Clarkson, or those who use a tenant farmer who is now priced out of the market to buy their own farm, or even worse, the farm just notionally farms with tiny herds.

I particularly dislike Clarkson and others pretending that its going to hit 96% of farmers, when the majority are well within the £3m, and with careful planning using the revised gifting rules you can extend it much higher than that. Most of those that are worried have their kids living and working on the farm, by carefully arranging how you hand over their property and some of the land, if done early enough, you can extend that.

They get ten years to pay it, its not subject to payment in one lump sum. Its also half the usual rate of tax, and only on anything over £3m if married and using all the allowances. On a £5m farm its about £40k a year for 10 years, not insignificant but inflation over 10 years will reduce the sting of it and you can even end load it by only paying back 1% initially and more at the end to further let inflation do its thing.

It's 3m of you are married and use all the allowances. Even then it's only on the amount over that and at half the usual rate, then you get ten years to pay it back.

Clarkson was pretty open at the time that his farm purchase was for inheritance tax avoidance as well.

It's a legal requirement of SOLAS. They would be in the shit if they didn't, and the people later died. As the cruise ship has AIS, there would be proof that they were the closest vessel.

Oh that sucks as it starts to kick in for two parents both on full time min wage.

Are they adjusting the thresholds as that's the worst part of it?

Are they going to put up the maintenance loan up as well? Or at least moved the threshold for when ti starts cutting off to account for fiscal drag?

I get that the student loan book is wildly out of control, but it just becomes ladder pulling if you don't address funding for those at or near the bottom of the ladder.

The proper way to address the student loan books' massive gap between what will be paid and what won't be paid back is to significantly reduce student places. It's hugely unpopular, but this debt time bomb can't just be left to fester while they tinker round the edges.

It's the fact that she weaponises it, often using herself as an example of why something isn't needed, such as DEI or maternity pay, ignoring that she ended up in an incredibly privileged position even before becoming a MP.

Couple that with her bloodthirsty desire for revenge on anybody or anything that annoys her, such as her statement that a quarter of civil servants belong in jail means if she did ever get in we would have ideocial purges worthy of any of the most nutty dictators.

I absolutely do not buy her defense that it was just a jolly jape, that's the defense of the far right when they fail to land enough support for whatever hateful shit they just spouted.