CurlyHairLikeLuiz

Maybe it's like an option clause rather than a straight 2 year deal. I honestly wish himthe best success, I'll try and watch his games.

Why is socialism the wrong label? A) it's the name of leftist economic policy and b ) it bears all the marks of it; crushing taxes for the rich, the idea that the government can spend your money better than you can, and spending money on public services that have so much waste and misuse that it's simply unsustainable - that is why the welfare system is being cut down to size. It was supposed to be a safety net but is now routinely topping up wages and often gives lifestyles more comfortable than if you worked. It would have been unsustainable unless there was a tax hike, which labour clearly advocated in their campaign. Obviously there needs to be *some* taxes to maintain basic services but government sponsored redistribution of wealth has never worked. By the way, cutting down bloated public services was a key part of the campaign. Osborne wrote it pretty prominently in the manifesto. It was accepted and the current budget which the newspapers are crying about has most people encouraging it because it encourages work over slacking off. By the way, if a healthy middle class is the best indicator for a strong economy then we should be good to go. Osborne just lifted about 1million people out of the 40% tax band. Regarding global warming, the reason why the Tories withdrew subsidies was because it was getting too expensive often because farmers found out they could make more money building massive solar farms instead of growing things on their land, and it's been found a new nuclear fleet is a better way to a carbon neutral future. Which it is. Aside from the high cost of building, during its 50 years of service life the electricity is basically free. Also, the entire European bloc of countries give out 1% of global emissions. China and the U.S. Create about 50% of global emissions. We are not heading towards an energy crisis. Peak oil is a myth. Now shale oil and gas is being extracted we have many more years yet and there is still 200 years worth of coal in the ground *note I am not advocating it should be used* By the way your analogy for the trickle down system is completely wrong. It's more of a pyramid system. You perform well at your level, you get offered a promotion or a better job at a rival firm, you move up a level. And eventually somebody vacates one of the top chairs somewhere and you become a member of the super rich who you despise so much. By the way the reason that worked in the U.S. In the 50s was because it was much harder to hide your money than anything else, nowadays you'd just store it in a tax haven so a 90% tax ( which drives out wealth, not redistributes it) would not apply to your money. Regarding your little Army dig, that's hilarious considering Palestine lets its own people starve in favour of warring with Israel, which is backed by the U.S. Basically to do its dirty work for it.

Actually it was a pretty central part of the election campaign, specifically condemning Labour's most socialist manifesto since the 70s and the people clearly said "No thank you". If immigration was the main worry then you voted UKIP. If the system was proportional rep we would probably have seen a Conservative-UKIP coalition and the SNP would be a non entity as only about 2% of the actual UK Pop actually voted snp. Best interest to pay tax? Seriously? Having more money in pocket is a better thing and also encourages more ambition. CCCP took nearly every penny earned and had a fairly level earning structure and I'm pretty sure the people said capitalism > socialism. The so called 1% tend also to employ thousands of the 99%. Wealth filters through the system via work. You get skills, you get promoted, paid more and then eventually you become the head and become the 1%. The system relies on aspiration which to An extent the benefits system curtails if it becomes a comfortable lifestyle. Finally yes, a war budget. So when the inevitable happens and terrorists come and bomb our people we can go and bomb theirs.

All 3 of them are known to be left leaning. I'm not interested in being convinced otherwise on austerity or not, but for me and the other 45% of the country that voted Tory we believe in austerity and it's working. It worked in the 80s and it will work now. There are no documented instances of socialism actually working, all of which have ended in failed states because that system cuts off the reason to aspire and curtails the ability to buy "stuff". The only case I think is pre war Nazi Germany. Unless you were Jewish. Or mentally/physically disabled. Or another persecuted group. Or an opposition party supporter. Hmm. Personally, I prefer to pay less taxes and for work to pay instead of benefits being a viable lifestyle. NHS is getting +£10bn more funding. Regarding the military comment - I'd prefer to have a defense budget, thanks. Our army is already going to be smaller than New York's police force by 2020.

Hope RLC plays.

I suppose there isn't really anything better available. As long as he gets some discipline in him so he doesn't try and do to us what he is doing now to Liverpool. Because no player is bigger than the club.

It's the same colour used on last season's training kits or is very close to it. Not sure how it'll look on the players. Also not sure how I feel about it.

if he was £30m I'd take him in a heartbeat. But he's not, and £50m is too much for a "maybe" player.

Oh yes, I'm not condoning what Germany and France did to Greece a) to keep its Euro project afloat and b ) to repatriate its money. Ironic in that I'm saying that that was how your point was coming across. Austerity is, imo, the way forwards, but in Greece's case, clearly the brakes were put on too quickly and without enough consultation from Greek ministers to know its effects. It also doesn't help that in joining the Euro it revoked most of its capital controls to the ECB and cannot print its own money - this was a massive factor, because it could not increase the viability of its core markets by depreciating its currency - see tourism. I know you won't be a fan of Farage because you are left leaning, but left or right he makes sense on the Euro and Greece: (and this was 4 years ago, btw, and some of the speeches 6 years ago) "Trapped in the Euro prison" Fiscal union of such vibrantly different economies would never work (I'm confident that had the UK joined the Euro we would currently be in a Spain-sized hole). And giving Greece loans is just giving them further debt to service. Greece should have gone bust early on, it would have saved them much pain now. But Eurocrats prioritised their grand project. The only comparable situation I can think of is the ERM I mechanism, where the pound was linked to the Deutschmark and Black Wednesday of 1992 where it all went tits up. The whole EU is corrupt, many of its Eurocrats come from the CCCP, and it's now just a power grab based on the whole crux that the German taxpayer will pay for the Eurozone, while everything is centralised. Regarding the Iceland way out, I haven't read about it enough to comment on it. But my preliminary view would be that it is a too small scale economy to be able to directly scale that up to an economy the size of PIIGS. Apologies if my point came across in a snobbish way btw - it wasn't supposed to.

?? missed the point completely. At the start of the Euro in 02 there were no poor countries and in fact, Greece should not have been allowed in anyway - it cooked its books.The Eurocrats should have let Greece go bust anyway. It would have been best for the country but they decided giving them more debt to service to prop up the euro for a few more years would be better. All you're suggesting is the poorer countries uprising and literally telling the creditors "Hey, while you're at it you can support our whole state cos we don't want to cut anything" when you live off somebody else's money, you make sacrifices. That's a pretty basic concept. When you live off food from food banks, you don't get to have steak anymore. So I'll turn the argument on its head. Why do they have a right to live off my country's money? It's not like we're rolling in cash to give away.

You are aware that all of the countries currently propping up the EU are all right wing countries ie UK and Germany. Austerity has worked for the UK at least, despite what you read fiscally we are in good shape. What Greece, France, Portugal etc need to learn (and has or will do) is that you don't bite the hand that feeds you, and once you survive on handouts instead of defaulting then you lose the liberty of fiscal choice. Socialism has never worked. France tried it with Hollande, imposing super taxes on the rich and reducing working hours and brought a strong economy to its knees as the rich aka employers fled to other countries where it's cheaper to live and taking their business with them (see the Goodyear debacle) and I think he ended up implementing austerity anyway. If somebody unleashes such a so called wave then all of the countries who are pro austerity will leave those countries to it (and the UK will leave the EU) and stop funding when they beg for a handout.

II honestly don't see why Valdes doesn't become their new No 1. Which is how it will go imo. You got banned from Goonerland? :D congrats

Ok then let's look at a scenario. IN 2020, with a minimum wage of £9, working 45hrs a week (fyi, £405) in a single parent family, or £20,250 per year. £750 pcm for a 2 bed house/flat. Housing benefit (if you're not lucky enough to get one for free) would subsidise that to about £500pcm and that's high. £6000 of your 20,250 gone - or £14,250. The average yearly dual fuel bill is £765. Water = circa £35. £13,450 or £259 a week for food - £100 average shop? £160/wk and including tax you're left with £95 for disposable income. And that's without further variables like tax credits, benefits, and for example your child getting a weekend job. I'd say you're closer to £115 a week accounting for such factors. That's £460 for spending a month.

From memory that restriction was removed. It's remarkably easy to defraud the system, when you think about it. All you need to do is under estimate your income an bin the repayment notices.

That's because we just had the worst recession since the 1929 crash, more than anything else... I agree on that point though. Maybe they should use some of the foreign aid budget to take care of our own before paying for Mubarak's next swimming pool. The whole way student loans get granted should change. firstly on grade at A level and secondly on tax band - those in the lowest tax band but a high grade should get the most favourable offer, and ommits those that would get an unhelpful degree - ie stopping people getting a useless degree at a rough uni that accepted them with 2 Cs and a D at a level. Then again personally I reckon they'd be better off creating a leaving qualification that can get the poorest a job without having to spend £30,000 on a degree. But that's just me. I get that Cons are seen as the nasty party but honestly it's still better than the France/Greece route. driving away the rich, creating mass unemployment and strangling the economy so people earning £40k a year can get their tax credits. The tories are trying to make work pay better than benefits for the first time in about 10 years. And by 2020 the minimum wage for over 25s will be £9 an hour. That's progress.

The reason why they're being abolished is because students (especially foreign ones, as it's easier to do if the govt can't even chase you for payment) took the grants and then never paid it back. If you wanna blame somebody then blame those students who did not wish to pay back in again. Literally the only difference now is that you are now legally obligated to pay for your loans opposed to being able to blow it off. You don't have a right to have it for free. You're part of the problem, just like all the middle class families that think they have a right to child benefit. Regarding the child poverty comment, under the old system it was possible that if everybody earned £1,000,000 a year then a family earning £200,000 a year would be considered to be in poverty. That's not right. Finally I'm pretty sure taking lower earners out of tax altogether is a better plan than taking their money and then giving it back through the benefits system.

CS: Win on penalties and then have arsenal fans tell us all season how we didn't deserve it (and that's the way we like it!) PL: Winners, but I expect the margins to be a lot finer this season. MU 2nd (if they sign Ramos) Arse 3rd, and City 4th. COC: We retain it, fairly easily. UCL: I think we will reach the semis or the final, depending on when we draw Barca. After that, it's down to luck. FA Cup: We knock out Arsenal but we don't win it. Treble. Diego GB, Eden POTY, RLC YPOTY (thanks to a little English advantage), and Courtois golden glove. Biggest surprise: Crystal Palace next season, it looks like they just beat Tottenham to Cabaye. They've got a great little squad going there, I reckon they're destined for an EL spot.

I don't mind selling as long as we have somebody better lined up to replace him. See: Reus, Vidal, Pogba, Koke etc etc.

MvG is a b2b though, isn't he? Actually maybe keep Mikel for one more season. See how Pasalic gets on at Monaco in his DM role (unless they find space for him to play b2b) and look again next summer.

OR REUS

...but he's fine to close a game down. And Zouma will improve if he plays there more. I'd like Schweinsteiger so he can play alongside Matic and Cesc can go up or rotate with him - I'm sorry but the fact that Mikel is being linked to Al Ain explains his quality, or lack thereof. Even young Zouma can pass sideways and sit in front of his CBs. If we wanted a proper back up to Matic then I'd be thinking about somebody like Song.

why can't we just use Zouma to do that?

Both Coles, GNev was still going strong and Beckham was still in the RM team in 2006. Lamps was in his prime. Ferdinand too. Terry was in the team. Carrick was too - my mistake, I should have posted him instead of Scholes. Owen was in his prime at that year's WC. 10 of that 11 (Hart being a big exception) could or did play together at Japan 06.

The only team that could have matched that on paper was Spain's 2008-2012 nearly all Barcelona team. Because it gelled. To be fair, Carrick should have played instead of or behind Gerrard and/or Lampard. We would have ended up coming a lot further in major tounaments, our all action midfield (as Real Madrid discovered when Modric was injured last season) destroyed us. A balanced midfield would have been Carrick (holding) Lamps (b2b) and Gerrard (10).

Even if you swap him out for Carrick it's still a pretty mighty team.