Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 08:39:34 PM

I agree with your post in general, but wanted to submit the following idea in response to this part: we need to figure out ways to get the money to sustain our social models. States need to get that money where it actually is these days, and increasingly it is not (barring the odd trillionaire) with the general population. We need to tax financial transactions and we need to tax corporations more.

Something like this could be a start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_financial_transaction_tax

So I'm not totally sold because I think the level of revenue to sustain a social democratic system is far higher than you can get from soaking the rich, or corporations. And what worries me is that I think there is less buy-in for the broad based, everyone pays sort of system you need to sustain it - in part, I think, because fewer people feel like they benefit. I'd also add that the estimate for that FTT tax is that it'd raise €55-60 billion a year which is not nothing but split between states is not huge - it's also significantly less than the €150+ estimated revenue EU states could generate by ending the internal tax shelters (Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta). I think building new complex taxes may be more work than it's worth, especially compared to reforming and properly enforcing existing ones (but this is my answer to everything: build back state capacity).

But I also think the bigger challenge is that it slightly hits into the challenge of globalisation. Because we've spent the last 40-50 years encouraging the free flow of capital - it is one of the EU's four freedoms - and part of moving to an economics-dominated world. So in the same way as I don't disagree with the idea of a wealth tax, taxing corporations or financical transactions - all of that seems sort of meaningless if we're still committed to allowing the free flow of capital. It's like using a sieve to bail out - we need less free flowing capital, more control by states with coercive powers to police and punish.

I'd add to the point with Valmy - as I think this is true across Europe - that our discourse is very Americanised on this (it reminds me of the campaigns in the US pushing for a $15 minimum wage, which got pickd up by campaigners here who wanted a £15 minimum wage ). In the UK, income inequality has basically plateaued since the 80s. Wealth inequality for longer - so the share of wealth held by the top 1% in the UK is just over 20%, it was at about 20% in 1980. In the US it's gone from below 25% to over 35%.

#2

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by mongers - Today at 07:17:46 PM

Man this place is dying, yours and Norgy's post are the only ones today, in like about 10 hours.

I was busy today, with a movie/blu-ray/DVD fair and a screening of Boorman's Excalibur in one of the last cinemas in the Champs-Élysées. 

 

Nice.

#3

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Zoupa - Today at 07:00:13 PM

I don't think there's a way out of that. But I think the "left" is broadly so committed to the social and cultural aspects of a neo-liberal globalised world, they are not able to even imagine alternatives that could meaningfully address the economic effects of that system.

I agree with your post in general, but wanted to submit the following idea in response to this part: we need to figure out ways to get the money to sustain our social models. States need to get that money where it actually is these days, and increasingly it is not (barring the odd trillionaire) with the general population. We need to tax financial transactions and we need to tax corporations more.

Something like this could be a start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_financial_transaction_tax

#4

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by viper37 - Today at 06:35:11 PM

A judge rejected the Alberta referendum on sovereignty as inconstitutionnal.
But apparently, there's another one coming that will be ok? (not in the newspiece)

Text in French

[The Killer]

#5

Off the Record / Re: TV/Movies Megathread

Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 05:10:50 PM

This one is for Savonarola

The Killer (1989)

Another great restauration, no AI-cleaning crapfest/adulteration à la James Cameron and his tech bros (hello True Lies), of the 35 mm movie.
Comparable to Hard Boiled for the quality of the DCP.

I remember a screening with reels jumpings every now and then, with some breaks literally, a dozen years ago or so in an arthouse in the Latin Quarter.

4K Blu-ray scheduled for March over here. The French DVD I had was good for its time, unlike the Criterion  , but that was 20 years ago.

Movie is arguably John Woo's most famous.

#6

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 05:01:14 PM

Man this place is dying, yours and Norgy's post are the only ones today, in like about 10 hours.

I was busy today, with a movie/blu-ray/DVD fair and a screening of Boorman's Excalibur in one of the last cinemas in the Champs-Élysées. 

#7

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by HVC - Today at 04:54:09 PM

Still licking my wounds after Miami beat Vancouver in the final

Twice in as many months American money beat Canadian passion.

#8

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 04:40:57 PM

"The Left" is in shambles everywhere across the West. My 2 cents is that every generation post Boomer feels they are worse off than their parents. Economic indicators lean that way. The left does not propose a clear vision to solve that, apart from a brief interlude with Obama's Dream and Hope, which turned out to be bullshit. The Right promises to turn back the clock and does politics of nostalgia. It resonates a lot more with ppl these days.

My crystal ball tells me a worldwide conflagration is gonna happen in the next 20 years, after which a reset on income inequality is due to emerge.

I really hope you're not right.

My two thoughts on the wider problem for the left though - which I think are connected - are that it's maybe impossible to "solve" the economic issue because it is a product of an increasingly globalised world.

I don't think there's a way out of that. But I think the "left" is broadly so committed to the social and cultural aspects of a neo-liberal globalised world, they are not able to even imagine alternatives that could meaningfully address the economic effects of that system.

Relatedly generally the period the far and radical right are nostalgising for is the period of peak European social democracy, the short post-war order, the trente glorieuses. But again that is a period that was pre-globalisation and neo-liberalism. I think broadly they are willing and able to imagine alternatives that unwind a lot of that economic model - perhaps because the rise of the rest is starting to fundamentally challenge the position of local elites too not just, as it has for the last 25 years (and will continue to) the position of the rich world's middle and working class.

#9

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 04:26:05 PM

You have made this point about the international brotherhood of xenophobes for a long time. The key is these are all populist movements with general complaints for their compatriots in other countries can get with. For technocratic mainstream center left parties like Labour what they have to say doesn't even make sense to Americans, even those who support the center left mainstream technocratic parts of the Democratic Party. Because you really have to understand the British system and their specific issues to understand or care.

If they had a bunch of powerful ideological points about social values or whatever then some Democratic voters might feel solidarity and start working closely with British center leftists. But they don't so there is nothing really to attract their attention.

I think I'm not expressing myself particularly well on this because I don't think it's necessarily a question of popular support or getting voters to care about other countries. Policy is the least important thing in politics and the least important bit of policy is foreign policy - no-one cares. There are three voters deeply invested in it and they all work for think tanks in our national capitals. What I think this Nationalist International is really good at it is observing, learning from and sharing knowledge about technique - about how to do politics. They don't agree on everything - Meloni is very pro-Ukraine, Orban is very pro-Russia; Trump is all about protectionism and state capitalism, Milei is Menemist neo-liberalism on steroids (the Latin American far right is really interesting). They're not united around policy or even necessarily ideology so much as they are around affect and style. But also, as I say, working out what works and applying it and sharing those experiences and that knowledge. They seem far more open to learning from each other's experience.

FWIW I think there is maybe something similar on the populist/radical left - perhaps just because they're generally less bound by established party structures. It's very new and a UK case but I find it really interesting that the new Green leader (who positions himself as an eco-populist) has done a thing with Hasan Piker. But more broadly his campaign was really galvanised by really slick social media videos. So it's not necessarily a surprise that apparently the Greens and Mamdani's teams have been in close contact and are sharing what they know/their experience.

There's always been a tradition of this in the mainstream parties - I think from a purely UK perspective it's more of an Anglophone thing just because most people don't have foreign languages. So Clinton and Blair shared teams, Labour people embed in Labor and Democratic campaigns in Australia and the US (Canada is a little more tough because technically their sister party is the NDP, but there are staffers going back and forth with the Liberals) - and the opposite is true for the mainstream right. I slightly wonder if part of what's happened is that they've shifted from there being a shared perspective/point of view underpinning it to a consultancy class. So Keating's Labor, Clintons Democrats and Blair's New Labour share a lot of DNA - it makes perfect sense that you have aides and staffers circulating between them. Skip forward 20 years and you have Obama's two key aides working for both the Labour and Tory campaigns for a fee. I know someone whose company did a lot of work for Labour in 2024 - they've since worked on (successful) campaigns for progressive in Portugal, Australia and Canada. But it's a for-profit consultancy. Maybe that goes to the wider authenticity challenge the mainstream has - like writing, political campaigning has moved from something you do for a few close friends to something you do for money.

I also would mostly exclude the US from this I think there are distinctive and particular angles to what's happening in the US. But also fundamentally everyone in the world has to care about what's happening in American politics - I think too much sometimes and it can suck the oxygen out of our own political systems, particularly in the age of the internet and particularly if you're in an English speaking country. For better or worse, we all live in America's internet. The line about if America sneezes the world catches a cold is I think now really true about cultural and political issues as well as the economy.

Also generally I don't think there's anything particularly exceptional or unique about any country's politics. I don't think any of it matters. We are seeing the same thing across Europe (I think the US is different) - I think it has similar causes, similar symptoms. Given that I think it is the same pathology and our superficial differences are a distraction. There are some aspcts of political systems that have a particular structural effect - for example, I think voting system matters in terms of the politics it produces. But in terms of particular issues or ideologies - I just don't think they matter. That's just local flavour.

#10

Off the Record / Re: Who's Hottest (Renaissance...

Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 03:55:56 PM

Due to her efforts small and perpetually broke Mantua not only survived (in an era when everyone and the Pope was beating on each other) but also managed to become a leading art city. 

True but very harsh on the poison sellers.