Posts by Mad Mike

Re: Wow

@Commswonk

Very true. Gordon Browns raid hit pensions of all types, but especially those with higher liabilities such as defined benefit. Short term moneymaking causing massive black holes in the future.

Re: This is all very well, but........

I'm sure everyone would rather not do minimum wage jobs. But, this is the point. Whilst people would rather not, needs must. Someone must do those jobs and if people need extra income later in life, why not? If you can do the job, why should you be 'severely annoyed' if you haven't saved enough whilst in the non-minimum wage job.

People can make their own choices, but when they decide to spend money and not save for retirement should stop complaining about what they have to do later in life. Problem today is people want it all. To spend all their money now on living life, whilst still expecting others to fund their later life/retirement. Either live life a little less and save more, or accept some compromises later in life.

@Dr Dan.

Absolutely. All this borrowing for today, pay back tomorrow (more likely never) just makes it worse. PFI......bad etc.etc. Even some seasoned politicians don't seem to understand how government borrowing works and that even if interest rates are low now, it doesn't mean they always will be and of course, the more you borrow, the higher the risk, hence the higher the rate.....

Re: This is all very well, but........

@BinkyThe MagicPaperclip

Interesting how you talk about minimum wage jobs. There's a phrase.....needs must. People need to realise this, rather than turning their noses up at some jobs. How do you think people working those jobs now would feel about your considering them somehow lesser?

Wow

@AC.

This is one of the first times I've seen the reality brought up by someone else. The whole NI scheme was largely a Ponzi. Pay today and we'll give you something tomorrow. Some was spent immediately on things related to NI like the NHS, but the vast majority was spent on other things. The idea that tomorrows workers will pay pensions for todays workers is almost perfectly the definition of Ponzi. As average lifespans extend, it was always going to get into problems. When instigated, the average person might have 5 years in retirement (may died before retirement), but now you can look forward to something like 20 years (at least) in retirement. This was obvious as soon as life expectencies started going up. But, the politicians buried their heads in the sand and ignored it. So, left retirement ages the same for decades. In reality, if the retirement age was increased gradually from say 1970 onwards, this wouldn't have been a problem.

The above would also have solved the issue of expectation. People now expect 20 years of retirement, but it simply isn't financially practical. But, having got this expectation are not willing to give it up. Of course, some politicians are more than willing to pretend the issue doesn't exist and pander to these peoples desires, which will work in the short term, but will just make the problem worse in the medium term. People need to wake up, understand the issue and realise that no matter how much they might want and expect something, it doesn't mean they can actually have it.

Alternatively, save an awful lot more into your pension than the current average.

Re: This is all very well, but........

@Evil Auditor

"In the country where I currently work the employers' contribution to their employees' pension funds increase considerably the older the employees get."

Yes, this is often the case. Of course, it's a silly policy really. The pension contributions that have the greatest effect are the earliest. This is because they have the most time to be invested and get returns etc. The last ones are pretty much worth their value and nothing more. So, it actually makes sense to make pension contributions greatest for the young and least for the old............

Re: So... we should do the opposite...

@AC

Whilst I agree with some of what you're saying, you're heading down the path of a totalitarian state there. How far is the state able to dictate your life, including what you eat? It's a fine line. Where does personal freedom end and state enforcement begin? Should rock climbers pay extra for their medical care? What about sports? Fitness advantages for sure, but also injuries. It'll become an incredibly divisive issue depending on what personal choices you've made. The 'fatties' will say leave them alone and tackle those playing sports. The Sports people will say go after the smokers etc.etc.

However, I very much agree with the idea of people working for their benefits (effectively the same as a basic income). After all, welfare is effectively a salary from other people (taxpayers) via the government. Why should people be paid a salary, yet not contribute and work in some manner (obviously assuming they are able). Also, even if they have a disability, many can still do some form of work. In fact, you often get programmes on people who have all sorts of disabilities, but still contribute to society and in many cases, pay tax. The option of sitting around picking up your welfare should be a thing of the past.

Re: One lesson to be learnt frin this (was Wormable holes)

@Richard 12

If you airgap it, how do you get the images off? Today, things like X-rays and MRIs etc.pass the images etc. into your records and can be seen on screens throughout a hospital. Making them only available on a few screens near the MRI etc. is pointless.

Re: How very true

@strum.

"A national economy bears virtually no resemblance to a household budget."

Some parameters are different, but the underlying principles are very similar. If you really think it's a good idea for governments to spend hundreds of years paying off debt, I assume you're a politician and responsible for the mess. That really is passing the buck (i.e. debt) onto your great, great grandchildren. All over those hundreds of years, you've got to pay interest. How much do you pay back in the end?

I assume you think that anyone overpaying their mortgage to end it quicker (and save years of interest payments) is therefore a fool?

Re: Blah blah blah Labour debts

@strum

"There's precious little evidence that tax raises push the rich abroad (they tend to hire more accountants)."

Absolute garbage. They (whethers companies or individuals) find ways round it. This either means moving abroad or hiring lots of suits to find loopholes etc. Either way, the result is the same. The government gets no more tax or often even less. This is well known and established and has been shown to be true for decades. Morals and tax take don't go hand in hand. What we're after is the highest tax take even if some inequalities have to be tolerated. Overall, it's the best 'win'.

Re: Blah blah blah Labour debts

@strum.

I never said I could. I was simply stating that calling everyone who has worked and done well undeserving and everyone who hasn't (whether their own fault or not) deserving is simply not right. I was saying that some people are poor because they don't try. Some are trying really hard and should be helped as much as possible. However, those that don't try shouldn't be helped, as they need to take responsibility for themselves and put some effort in.

Re: Completely scrapping ADSL then

@strum.

Some of the issue now is not even whether they're better off nationalised or not. It's how would you bring them back into public hands if you wanted to. You'd have to buy them back. Confiscation would destroy all business confidence in this country because of the precedent set. So, where do we get the billions required to buy them back?

Re: Labour has pledged

@strum.

You're just playing the politics of envy there and doing so wrongly. Shareholders are either people who have earned and save money and choose to invest it in the stockmarket, or people with pensions. How does provising money for companies make them scroungers? Anyone with a personal pension (i.e. not state) in this country is almost certain to be a scrounger by your logic.

Re: Labour has pledged

@Peter2.

Perhaps the best bet would be to not just consider one group at a time, but look for the best solution across the board, with everyone gaining something. The attitude of just worrying about yourself and only being concerned about what happens to you is killing good government. I'm quite happy to pay some additional tax (as I can), but in return I'd like to see scroungers dealt with. Problem is, the parties that want to take the additional tax from me won't do anything about the scroungers and vice versa.

Re: Blah blah blah Labour debts

I like the analogy and it's exactly what happened during the 70's.

Problem is, people always compare the absolute amount, hence he got a £10 reduction, but I only got £1. However, what really matters is what percentage they're paying. Even if you reduced each percentage by the same amount, the person paying the most will natuarally get the biggest reduction. When dealing with taxation, it's percentages rather than absolute amounts that really matter. That and understanding that the state should be a safety net and it's far from that now. There are people (you can argue over how many) who see the state as a source of funds and never contemplate earning their own. They're happy to take and take and take without ever giving. It never ceases to amaze me how journalists are able to find households living entirely on benefits who have big screen TVs and XBoxes in every room, getting huge amounts from the state and still complaining about their lot whilst doing nothing to earn money themselves. There may only be 100 of them, or might be 100,000 or whatever, but that needs dealing with, as otherwise anyone paying tax is bound to question why.

Re: Blah blah blah Labour debts

@AC.

The question is not whether they should be paying more, but the percentages at play. Labour put around this idea that everyone who earns good money is undeserving and those who don't are downtrodden victims of some conspiracy and deserving (as Jeremy's recent speeches have said). In reality, there are deserving and undeserving in both groups. If someone works really hard and makes good money, they can be deserving. If someone lives on benefits and doesn't attempt to better themselves or do anything to help themselves, they're undeserving.

Yes, people earning more should pay some more, but it's very difficult to make this point when Labour seem keen to take all this money and throw it at 'deserving' poor people regardless of how they came to be poor. Of course, there are deserving poor people, but there are a load of undeserving as well. If he wants to tax those better off more (and I'm quite happy with that), he also needs to demonstrate a plan to deal with the lazy and feckless. He has failed to do this and by inference, has even called these people deserving.

If anybody tries really hard to better themselves and do well, give them all the help in the world. Those that can't be bothered and just smoke, drink etc. any money they have without lifting a finger (there are some, although people may disagree on the numbers), should get nothing. Effort should be rewarded, laziness should not.

How very true

Running a government is like running your own household, but simply at a much larger scale. When times are hard, you rely on some savings and maybe use loans etc. as well to see yourself through. When times are good, you should pay off the loans and try to build up the savings buffer again. Unfortunately, because politicians don't give a s**t about tomorrow (their life expectency is so short), they never pay off the loans, let alone build up the buffer again. So, next time something bad happens, it's made much worse by the lack of buffer and debts you're already holding.

More recently (last few decades), governments have even got into the habit of almost never running a surplus and actually taking out debt whether times are bad or good. Surpluses have happened, but are the exception rather than the rule. Why? Because the population vote for people who spend lots of money on new shiny bling for the population. Education, NHS etc.etc. Not saying they're not important, but the population needs to realise that all this nice new bling has to be paid for somehow. You can't have something for nothing. We have been trying for years and now it's catching up with us. The population needs to get realistic about what is achievable, stop blaming everyone else (normally anyone with more than them) and making some hard decisions. The NHS, for instance, can't go on as it is. You could throw an almost unlimited amount of money at it and all you'll do is put off the inevitable. We need to have a sensible debate on what is affordable (what people are willing to pay), what we want it to cover and how to achieve that. But, at the moment, that simply isn't happening.

Re: Completely scrapping ADSL then

@Alt C.

Apart from Gordon Brown didn't come up with it. It actually started in John Majors government. Granted they did very little and it was Brown and Blair that oversaw the huge rise in use of it.

Government borrowing (guilts) and PFI are quite different in some ways, but very similar in others. In both, you're effectively getting money now, but paying for it into the future. Of course, with PFI, you never actually own the asset, as someone else builds it, then you rent it back as a service. I agree that PFI is an absolute disaster, but politicians like it because it allows them to show the electorate bright shiny things now, whilst pushing the cost into the future when someone else will have to deal with it.

Government borrowing is also not good though. Of course, you need some to allow for flattening things out, just like people would with credit cards etc. and their household budgets. But, in the long term, you're simply passing debt to someone down the track. You have to pay interest on it, which is variable. The idea that government debt is cheap now, so lets go and borrow a load is mind blowingly stupid. Think of it like a mortgage. You take it out today when interest rates are very low (say 2.5%) and that's great. You might even get a fixed rate for a while (sort of like Guilts which pay a fixed return over a period). But, after that time, the interest rate can change and is not really in your control. It's up to the markets. So, in say 5 years time, what interest rate will you be paying? The mere act of taking out large amounts of government debt actually impacts inflation and also reduces a countries credit rating. This almost guarantees the interest rate when renegotiated will go up.

Of course, all this depends on how much you borrow. Small amounts won't make much difference. But, adding anywhere between £250b and £500b to our national debt will change it. It's way too big a percentage for it not to. So, it is sheer madness and an economically stupid thing to do.

If you do borrow money, there are different things you could spend it on and I do agree that infrastructure projects are the better things to use it for than just cheap tax cuts or whatever. But even so, Labours offering is complete and utter madness in scale.

Labour are effectively taking the electorate for fools. They're offering everybody pretty much everything they could ever ask for. More money for anything you could ever desire. They're offering to re-nationalise some companies (energy etc.), but have no sane plan for doing it. That'll be more borrowing then (confiscation would consign us to the same standing as Zimbabwe). This is also just attacking things that people hate. Not saying they're great companies or maybe no the right longterm more, but it's a cheap populist ploy. Similarly, the tax rich b**tards more (whether companies or individuals) card. History has shown many times that there is a limit and then the more wealthy will simply get round it and tax revenue normally drops. So, short term, gives you more, but long term, you loose. It may or may not be moral, but the objective should be to increase tax take as much as possible and increasing companies taxes too much will drive companies out of business or into tax avoidance measures or moving operations abroad. None of these increase long term tax take. Similarly with individuals. The 70s proved all this very nicely thank you.

The Labour Parties manifesto is populist with no basis in reality. All sounds great, but there's a world of difference between theory and practice and it fails on that basis.

P.S.

Why is it that people think they should get great broadband wherever they live? If you choose to live in rural Wales, one of the trade-offs might be poor broadband and mobile, but the advantage is you get to look at fields rather than the factory across the road. By their logic, someone living in town could insist on the area around them being cleared out and returned to fields as they have a 'right' to a nice view. In reality land, you can choose where to live and there are pro's and con's to each possible location. You simply need to take the right choice for you, with the compromise that entails.

Re: There might just be a market for this

I think there are two aspects to this that differ greatly from the case in hand.

Firstly, it's about openness on the devices capability, what is actually being performed. In this case, there's doubt about what Amazon are keeping and what they're doing with whatever they keep. In your case, you would know and be clear what was happening.

Secondly, in your case, you are giving express permission and defining boundaries to the actions and activities. In the other case, no express permission or boundaries are really defined.

Re: Warrantless mass surveillance is one thing...

@martinusher

"In this case the Echo is being described as a recording device which it blatantly is not -- its a voice recognition terminal."

I think that's one of the points of this case. If it isn't a recording device, Amazon can simply comply by saying we have nothing, it's not a recording device. If it is a recording device, Amazon will need to supply the recordings. At the moment, it's looking rather like the latter (hence Amazon refusing the request and fighting it). At that point, what happens to peoples buying habits and does the maket fall out of this type of device?

Re: The worlds fastest cpu

@ PlinkerTind

I do agree that generation are difficult to define precisely due to the multitude of things that could change. If someone else wants to use a different definition, that's fine, but it's rather missing the point. If a minor change to the chip, say changing PCIe2 to PCIe3 is considered a generation, then simply upping the processor speed could be classed as a generation, which is silly. Something major has to change to be judged a generation and this often means fundamentally, the core. For instance, I wouldn't classify Power X to Power X+ as a generation. Although it has varied, that normally just involves something like a shrink and speed increase.

Although I do look at benchmarks to get some information, I have never said they show performance in a real world environment, whether Sparc, Power, Xeon or whatever. You can deduce some things from them, but when some of them effectively include the performance of the disk subsystem as well and much better results can be got by simply changing to flash storage, this renders them somewhat pointless in terms of processor meaning. So, no, my stance hasn't changed at all.

"You know that four 1.6GHz SPARC T2+ was as fast as fourteen (14) 5GHz POWER6 in official SIEBEL v8 benchmarks?"

Ha, ha. Anybody who has run both these platforms (and I have) knows that this shows benchmarks have no relevance to real world performance. From what you're posting, you don't seem to realise that benchmarks mean nothing in the real world, where real workload actually runs. The early Tx processors could be used, but you had to be incredibly careful of the world, or they were real dogs. Until the T4 and its critical threads implementation, anything requiring decent single thread performance ran appallingly. Of course, using critical threads had the effect of dramatically reducing the throughput of the servers, so the benchmark flies out the window again. I'm not saying these servers were rubbish, just that you had to be very careful when and how you used them and the benchmarks meant nothing in the real world. On exactly the right workload, throughput was great. On the wrong workload, they sucked.

"For instance, one single IBM P595 server with 32 cpus that took the old TPC-C benchmark, costed 35 million USD list price."

Now, this is a really embarrassing statement of yours and shows you don't understand the benchmarks. The cost is actually for the WHOLE setup. That includes disk subsytems etc.etc. Not just the server. In most modern benchmarks of this type, the vast majority of the cost is the disk subsystem, not the server.

"How much slower does POWER8 get when turning on full encryption?"

You didn't read a word I wrote. Both Power 8 and Sparc M7 have encryption accelerators. However, Oracle software is specifically coded not to use the Power 8 encryption accelerator, so of course, Power 8 is slower as it still has to do it in software. However, this is the softwares choice. If on x86 software is written to not use SSEx (take your pick which variant), it doesn't matter if the processor has SSEx built-in or not. It won't help anything.

You really need to stop believing benchmarks and actually try running some workloads across different architectures and manufacturers and then you'd realise the benchmarks are rubbish. It seems clear you either don't actually run workloads, or you only run on Oracle hardware as a matter of faith rather than rational thought process and facts.

Re: The worlds fastest cpu

@Plinker Tind.

Yes, companies choose their statements to suit their needs at the time. Oracle does it, IBM does it, they all do. So what?

However, the point the IBM chap was making is actually valid. For business use, you need the chip that provides the greatest benefit for the lowest cost. This benefit could be throughput, functions or whatever. Benchmarks are appallingly bad at representing real life and have been misused by companies since the dawn of time to try and prove different things. On a typical mixed business workload, often highly virtualised, Power 8 performs very well, is extremely flexible and has a great ROI case. Sparc M7 is a good processor. I'm not knocking it. But, if anybody truly believes Oracle has got something an order of magnitude better than anyone else in REAL world use cases, they're deluded. Genuine order of magnitude advances like that are as rare as rocking hose s**t.

In your final comparison as well, you are actually comparing products from different times as well. Sparc M7 was released in 2015, but Power 8 was released in 2013, a whole 2 years earlier, which in processors stakes is a long time. Also, you've got to compare like with like, which you're not. Given that Oracle licence per core, that single M7 cpu has 32, whereas the four Power 8 cpus would have 48 at maximum (can't be bothered to look at the benchmark to check). So, you're factors are way off. You can't ignore the number of cores. Does it matter if the server has a smaller number of sockets and more cores per cpu, or more sockets and fewer cores per cpu?

Finally, if raw power was really so different as you claim, why has Oracle not succeeded in the HPC stakes? You will notice a distinct lack of Sparc based supercomputers. Fujitsu have one, but IBM have many based on the Power architecture. Also, NVLink being built into the processor could well be a game changer for performance, especially in HPC. Have Oracle put anything like that into Sparc?

Re: The worlds fastest cpu

@PlinkerTind

Oh dear, oh dear. I like your explanation of the T5/M5 observation I posed, but unfortunately, this link to Oracle shows you're completely wrong.

https://blogs.oracle.com/orasysat/entry/sparc_t4_t5_m5_m10

This shows they both use the S3 core. Indeed, so did the T4!! Essentially, Oracle lowered the core count in the M5 (compared to T5) and added a heap more cache. So, they're absolutely the same design and technology. They just added cache to solve problems they'd found in earlier T? servers and needed to reduce the core count to get the die space.

To count as generations, you really have to look at core designs and Oracle has produced nowhere near that many generations of core designs. They've used similar methods as IBM (and others) to produce new CPUs without changing the basic cores. Drop the fabrication size and increase speed for instance. Upgrade from PCIe2 to PCIe3 on the chip. However, the same core design is present.

In terms of performance benchmarking, let's consider that. Benchmarks are a highly convoluted and bad way of trying to demonstrate actual CPU performance. The configurations are contrived and the software is normally specifically configured and optimised to the exact layout of the server and CPU. Factors outside the CPU are often used to provide what looks like enhanced performance (e.g. using flash based I/O on TPC-C). Also, nobody benchmarks against virtualised infrastructure. I'm not going to deny that doing the above makes the Oracle chips look fantastic. However, in the REAL world, where virtualisation and mixed workloads are the norm, these advantages drop away. For instance, Oracle claims you can have a LDOM per thread, but you'd have to be insane to do it. I've used T3 servers which ran like a dog under virtualisation as any search of the web will show. So, benchmarks are fine to a point, but need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.

You've also completely missed my point about encryption and compression. Oracle (in general) writes their software (such as Oracle DB) to specifically prevent it using competitors encryption and compression accelerators. So, Power has for years now had encryption acceleration within the processor. Whether you turn this on or off (hardware level), Oracle DB will simply not use it. They've made a decision on the coding of their software to avoid using a perfectly acceptable and suitable acceleration tool. Why? Because they want their hardware to look better. This is why the benchmarks show such a difference. If Oracle software actually used the available features on competitors hardware, who knows what the story would be. Using hardware accelerators often requires more than just a hardware turn on or off. Just think of the various SSE enhancements to x86 architecture. You can have them turned on or off, but if you never use those instructions, you won't get any benefit regardless. So, my statement is absolutely correct. Oracle actually prevents use of the Power 8 on-chip encryption accelerator whether it is turned on or off at the hardware level.

Re: The worlds fastest cpu

@PlinkerTind.

Wow, he Oracle droids are out in force today and, as usual, spouting complete nonsense.

6 generations in 5 years? Where. Timeline below.

2011 - T4

2013 - T5

2013 - M5

2013 - M6

2015 - M7

2016 - S7

So, by my reckoning, that's 5 processor releases in the last 5 years. However, note that I said processor releases rather than generations. This is because the T5 and M5 are actually the same generation, just slightly different configurations. Also, the M7 and S7 are the same generation. Again, same trick. So, actually, it's only 3 generations in the last 5 years. The T7 servers actually had M7 processors in them, so they don't count.

In terms of encryption....one of the reason the Oracle Sparc processors are better is that the software is specifically written not to use the cryptographic accelerators in other chipsets!! So, although Power 8 has a perfectly good accelerator, Oracle software won't use it. Oracle are masters at limiting the software only to work in a specific way, on specific hardware, using specific configurations to aid their hardware sales. It's completely contrived. Same story is true of compression.

Now, don't get me wrong. The latest chips from Oracle are pretty good and have their uses. They're nowhere near as far ahead as suggested here and I do note that the links are to the usual Oracle marketing FUD rather than anything independent. The latest changes from Oracle to put database accelerators into silicon are also interesting, but the last time I spoke with them, they have no cohesive sales message. Essentially, they're willing to sell you anything you're willing to pay for and even different verticles in Oracle will fight against each other to make sales. Each insisting their product is better and more applicable for your use case.

The reality is that the biggest impediment to selling this hardware is the fact it's owned and sold by Oracle. Their sales tactics, licensing practices and general company ethos and attitude to customers is the problem.

Re: The real reason

@gwd.

"No. If you read the full text under number 4, it goes into more detail about what this is about. XSA-176 was a bug in the way L4 pagetable PSE bits were handled. But when we looked, there wasn't a single operating system (Linux, *BSD, Windows, &c) that used the L4 PSE bits -- so nobody was actually vulnerable. We issued an advisory anyway, because the policy wasn't clear and we wanted to err on the safe side."

That's not what I said at all and I did read the full text. It's you that has failed to understand my point. You cannot possibly know if anyone is vulnerable or not as you don't necessarily know about the whole x86 ecosystem. You can check the big operating systems and variants etc., but there are all sorts of operating systems and variants out there you don't necessarily know about. So, how can you say nothing is vulnerable. Given that the Linux kernel can be modified and rebuilt by people, why could somebody not be making use of this in their variant? So, you can't know nothing is vulnerable. That was my point.

"Or, they could, you know, go and ask for the policy to be different. The blog post is a request for people's opinions, not a diktat."

That's why I said 'If this goes through'. I never said it was a diktat or that it was guaranteed to go through. I merely pondered whether anyone would choose to reconsider their use of Xen based cloud solutions IF this went through.

It seems Xen are getting very sensitive about this given the employees posting on here, who are misinterpreting peoples posts and seem to be incredbily defensive. I made a couple of reasonable points and get attacked for it...........me thinks Xen are too sensitive on this.

Re: From the 27

@AC.

The EU has openly stated its aims. It wants a single set of rules (laws) across all member states and all areas of legislation. It's been slowly and methodically hitting more and more areas every year since it began. Not saying having central rules is a problem, but all....no. The latest openly stated areas are welfare and tax. So, the EU is (in the long run) after central control of everything. They don't try to hide it.

The USA is very different. Yes, there is a load of central rules (laws), but each state has considerable individual flexibility and uses it very openly. They can pass their own laws (and some are very different from state to state) and raise taxes etc.etc. Even individual cities have their own taxes and laws. This is a totally different model to the EU model, which is central control, no variance.

So, the EU is more of a Soviet EU in model than a USA.

Re: From the 27

@nugge

"Even so, most leaders and people in EU wants this over with, so we can go on with our lives, and if they can punish UK (and scare some other member from leaving), that's a bonus."

Ah, the Juncker method. Really good way of keeping things together........scare members from leaving!! As a way of maintaining unity, holding a gun to peoples heads is a pretty poor way. Again, look through history and see who's managed to hold a country together for any length of time using that method. Insanity.

The reason people voted to leave wasn't xenophobia. Not saying there weren't some, but it wasn't that for most. The press and a load of politicians are portraying it as such, but it's much more a rebellion against politicians in general.

Re: From the 27

@AC.

"Such diverse cultures?

Come on!"

Don't know how much you've travelled, but yes, the cultures are very different. Especially when you also count eastern europe and the Med. Just look at financial culture. Northern Europe is strict, with (relatively) good financial management and people pay their taxes. The Med (lets say Greece) only pay taxes when it suits, splash money around like water (especially when its low interest loans due to joining the Euro....after their entry was fixed), build up huge debts and then cry about it when it all comes home. Then, they expect everyone else to bail them out, or they'll crash the Euro!!

Cultures in all sorts of ways are vastly different. Name a coountry of anywhere the same size as the EU that has implemented centralised, single rule government and survived? Don't talk about the USA, as their structure is much more flexible with each state having considerable power of its own. They are nowhere near the same as the EU.

Re: Ha ha

@werdsmith.

Very true. Both campaigns were awful and cited this and that fact when almost no facts existed. How can you determine what will happen when nobody knows what will change if you leave, and that's the point of leaving. So, all the projections etc. were worthless, as were the opinions of experts, as they didn't know what would change any more than anyone else. So, their expert opinion was based on nothing!! The remain camps economic projections to 2030 were just farcical. They can't project for 12 months let alone 14 years......

However, if the young didn't vote, they can't really complain. If they'd voted in the same proportion as older people, then it should have been an easy remain. But, they didn't, chose to not take place in the democratic process, so should stop complaining. Learn for next time.

In reality, there will still be foreign travel, people will still be able to go and live and work in other countries. You'll just need to get a visa.....maybe. Can you imagine what would happen to the Spanish economy if all the Brits living there came home? Life will continue and things will adjust. Yes, some changes will occur and they'll be some pain, both for them and us. Don't forget that although we export a lot to the EU, they export a hell of a lot more to us. So, it's not in anybodies best interests to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Ha ha

@AC.

"Older voters vote conservative:"

Oh, please. Yes, in general, this is true. However, when traditional Labour areas vote leave, it can't be just the Conservative voters, or even mostly the conservative voters. Labour MPs know full well that large numbers of their voters voted out and this has been highlighted many times in reports from these places. The truth is that this is not a party issue, except UKIP I suppose. Liberal (any left?), Labour and Conservative all voted leave in large numbers. You can't possibly get so many areas, including the whole of the Midlands, vote out without Labour voters.

"Sounds like someone wants to delay the inevitable! But the UK Commissioner to the EU has already been replaced with the Latvian one, and treaties are already being drafted as though the UK is not in. Brexit vote cancels some deals, and all 6 months extra does is to hand another 5 billion to the EU."

And the EU wonder why people want to leave? We haven't left yet, we haven't even invoked article 50 yet. In fact, we've only had a consultative referendum. We don't have to do any thing and yet the EU politicians have already started writing us off. Talk about jumping the gun!! Farage stood up and made a speech in Brussels today and accused them of being deluded and was spot on. I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but Brussels politicians are even more remote from the voters than Westminster politicians and he was spot on. They have no idea of the real world and are covering their eyes and ears and refusing to see the obvious. The EU either has to radically reform or it will crumble. It's just a matter of time. Personally, I'd like to see the radical reform and then stay in (an option we were refused), but they are too blinded by their grasping, power hungry ways to see the obvious. They are absolutely deluded.

Much as I hate the idea, this is only going to increase the rise of the right and anti-EU parties and politicians in Europe. The politicians will complain about it, but it will be all their fault for not listening to their electorates.

Re: Ha ha

"Leave vote was older voters in England... i.e. Conservative heartland voters. Take out Scotland and N. Ireland and it was a deeper shade of tory blue!"

Apart from all the staunch Labour heartlands that led the charge out. Saying it was Conservative voters is fantastically wrong. It was older voters (who bothered to vote, unlike a lot of the youth), but from all parties. That's one of the reasons Corbyn is in such trouble.

You're right about the negotiations. Time to play hardball and stand as one. But, at the moment, that means don't invoke Article 50 for at least 6 months if not 12 months. If we play it, we loose it, but not playing it makes the EU politicians sweat. Don't forget on Friday morning, Germany picked up the bill for the whole EU. German voters weren't exactly happy about bailing out Greece, but now they've got to bail out the whole EU!! The Med isn't happy about austerity. This is an EU wide problem, not just a UK one. The EU either has to radically change, or it will fall apart.

Re: From the 27

Unfortunately, this piece is, as one might expect from its source, quite wrong in various degrees...

"which the EU-27 people support according to the polls and which has been in the making for a long time"

According to the polls, this is fabulously untrue. Indeed, the reason why the EU is trying to rush the process is not because of trying to get it done and save uncertainty, but because a lot of EU nations want to hold referendums as well and there's a very large chunk of anti-EU feeling in certain nations right now, even France. The longer this goes on, the more unstable the EU becomes and more likely others will vote out or will return very worrying numbers of people who want out. The EU politicos know this.

"(2) showed clear-headed calm leadership and unity,"

You mean apart from Junckers going off on one (he has calmed down now), the Polish EU commissioner (who clearly has no clue of history) etc.etc. The most sensible sounding ones are Merkel (she knows she's hanging on by a thread) and the French PM (who has twigged what the problem is).

"What exactly have the leaders of the most democratic fantastically sovereign highly effective UK done? In relation to the Brexit crisis, exactly ZERO, except making the damage to the UK (= the British people) and the rest of the world even WORSE by dragging their feet."

That's exactly the point. Action is not always the best course. In this case, inaction is. The more we let the EU population mull this over, the more the EU politicians sweat as they know a large amount of their population are not happy with the EU either. Inaction in this case, is the best action.

The piece is fantastically biased, factually inaccurate and clearly from a rabid remainer. By the way, before anyone comments on my stance. I made my decision for reasons not mentioned by either campaign and ignored them both, as they were equally appalling. Trying to implement single rules across such diverse cultures as present in the EU will always fail. People simply won't tolerate it. So, the EU will fall at some point, it's just a question of when. The EU has a stated policy of more and more centralised integration and single rules for all (taking out all differences across the EU) and history has time and again shown this simply won't work over the size of the EU and even much smaller areas. Extremely tight, inflexible integration (as proposed by the EU) has always ended badly.......it just takes time.