Comments by "dixon pinfold" (@dixonpinfold2582) on "John Talks 2"
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@asgard5281 Tbh, I see the last four years as a drive, mostly successful, to confront and challenge, meet no real resistance, energetically suppress dissent, declare victory, and thus leave little anyone can say. Act like sanctimonious bullies the whole way, and get your way.
But yeah, they would almost equally welcome the chance to win in a more hardcore and dramatic fashion. They don't know history or much of anything, but they do know movies.
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@V_for_Vovin Blanchett lives in the US now but has lived in Britain and comes from Australia where, at least in the social milieu where and when she grew up, British ideas of social class prevailed. And middle class to them means something far different from it does to Americans. Just accept that, please, because it's a fact.
Americans are stunned to learn that a rich and decidedly 'classy'-seeming person is considered middle-class in the UK but that's just the way it is.
It's middle in the sense of middle-rank, not literally close to the 50th percentile of wealth of income.
Think of it this way: In an army having 10,000 officers, a colonel may rank about 300th, with 9,700 majors, captains and lieutenants below him. But he is still a middle-ranking officer in the sense that there are five ranks above him and five ranks below him.
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@V_for_Vovin Economics I love, but here we're concerned with social class, which is properly in the domain of sociology. And not American sociology either, but British-Australian. They have their own quite different system whether Americans like it or not. Brits and Australians know just what she means and would nod their agreement.
A married couple comprising a teacher and a personnel manager would be considered middle-class in America, absolutely; but not in the UK or Australia. What are called middle-class Brits are top professionals like doctors in major metropolitan hospitals, London bankers, well-reputed barristers, very successful and well-educated entrepreneurs and the like.
Kate Middleton before marrying William was middle-class despite her parents having made tens of millions of pounds, despite going to the same university as him, despite her posh manners and tastes, despite even having traces of nobility on her father's side. His first career was in British Airways' operations nerve centre and then he made his own money by starting a business, therefore he is middle-class. He is thoroughly rich now, has a marvellous large old house, and his daughter is to be Queen of England, yet he will always be middle-class and he would be the first to tell you that. End of story.
Stop struggling and have some respect for the facts.
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@Smj1303 Elite, yes. But 'elite,' for all the significance of its meaning, is not a social class.
She's actually thinking and speaking in the way members of her class are raised to do: namely, to consider that she's a member for life of the class she was born into, rather than thinking she's risen in social rank through financial and professional success. The latter belief would be considered objectionable, conceited and quite impossible anyway.
Her parents were middle class according to the conventional class system, her mother being a property developer and her father an advertising executive. If you think those occupations smack of being higher than middle class, they likely would in most places since they would tend to place one in the top few percentiles of income and wealth. But they don't in Britain. There they're considered middle class, never mind if the people concerned have a considerable pile of money, received a good education, live in an expensive and tastefully-appointed house in an upscale metropolitan area, speak marvellously well in a good accent, never behave with vulgarity, and all the rest.
Let's put it this way: the overwhelming majority of British people would love to be middle class but know they never will. But they hope that their children might, if they are taught to conduct themselves well, attend an elite university, move in higher social circles, become successful barristers in Westminster firms or specialist doctors in top hospitals, vacation on the Côte d'Azur and go skiing in the Alps, send their children to Oxbridge, and so on. Yes, all that is still middle class.
Do not be thrown off by the word middle. It's not middle in the sense that the quantity 'six' is in the middle between one and eleven. It's middle in the sense that an army colonel is a middle-ranking officer between 2nd-lieutenant (the lowest officer rank) and field marshal (the highest): that is, that there are five ranks below him (or her) and five above. The 6th rank out of 11 ranks is square in the middle. It ignores the flagrant fact that out of 10,000 officers only 300 outrank him and 9,700 are below (8,000 being lieutenants), and that's just the way it is.
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It's no secret. Most export bans don't work well. A target country having good relations with any neighboring country can route most things through them. Sales of iPhones to Armenia, e.g., are now surprisingly high for a country of less than 3m people.
But the intermediary country earns a mark-up for the service, so sanctions are inflationary for the target country. (Also, obviously, after-sales service, warranties, parts, and software updates can be a problem.)
Of course, export sanctions are not the only sanctions. Import sanctions are far more damaging. Russia has lost hundreds of billions of dollars due to lost European gas sales and much lower prices for its oil.
(It turns out that if your market shrinks because of sanctions, the remaining countries can offer you a fairly insulting low price and there's not much you can do. India and China are both laughing all the way to the bank.)
Then there are sanctions related to the international financial system which are also hurting Russia.
Things like this are part of why the Russian bank rate is 16% and (according to the Russian govt.) inflation is 7.4%. The year before the war, 2021, the bank rate averaged 6% and inflation was 5%.
So sanctions are slow poison, not a sword thrust. This isn't news, it's always been true. Carlson isn't blowing the lid off anything.
Be very, very careful taking anything Carlson says at face value. I was burned a couple of times and started checking out everything. Most of the time his story doesn't check out worth a damn. He's a sneak. As far as I'm concerned he's good on social issues and nothing else.
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@WompWompWoooomp Birthright citizenship isn't "incredibly rare." It's the law in 21 countries with a combined population around 1.5 billion, including the US, Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Pakistan and Australia.
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