Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

No neither did i know about that. Not something i would want anyway.

EU starting to slowly fall apart......

Newspaper round-up

Other EU leaders are ready to copy David Cameron's referendum tactics for their own "egotistic goals", the European Council president has said, as he sounded the alarm over populist politics bringing the bloc to the brink of "suicide". Donald Tusk's forthright warning on Wednesday came as he announced he was clearing his diary next week to concentrate on the "very fragile" talks on a "new settlement" for Britain, which will be discussed at an EU summit next week. - Financial Times

en passant, even the guradian was unimpressed by JC at yesterday's PMQ
here's the opening lines ....
Labour leader, wearing a cheeky badge, was best when he allowed himself to sound angry but PM was effective by engaging properly with questions

JUNIOR DOCTORS
this whole thing looks totally crazy to me ..... even the consultants are supporting these doctors
how can it be so goddamn difficult to sort out a contract that is a bit bitter for both parties?
sure the NHS is effectively unaffordable in its present guise, but to make medicine in uk such an unappetising prospect has to be without any logic that i can perceive

I dont know about the rights or wrongs of the junior doctors case but I do know the NHS is unsustainable as it is. Everyone expects more. More pay, more modern equipment, better working conditions, against a population that now appears to be rising exponentially. Something has to give.

Don't worry iturama we will be out of the EU soon ,then we won't be the International health service any more.

That is part of the problem. Most countries in the EU have a payer scheme. Pay or go elsewhere. Doctors surgerys are being bypassed, particularly by migrants, and they go direct to A&E. No need to be on doctors lists etc, apart from the inevitable wait for an appointment. Add to that the non EU lot that find it cheaper to buy a ticket and use the NHS instead of paying at home.
I still can't fathom out why it is so difficult to have national identity cards when much of europe has. Probably no political will.

all sorts of excuses as to why it would be difficult to collect cash at the door for those who don't qualify for free ....... can't see it myself as any private clinic does it

and yes, i do actually accept that real emergency care should be free to anyone

Emergency care is always given in most countries without asking. But not necessarily free. You get the bill after you have been treated. If your care plan covers it, the insurer pays. Otherwise it is your responsibility. In the case of the NHS, clearly legal residents will be be covered. The problem at the moment is identifying who is legal. The onus should be on the patient to show they are entitled.
It is not difficult to collect cash at the door. It just has to become standard procedure.

can't disagree with any of the above, though how you collect "after the event" is another matter ...... perhaps you re-break the leg!

That is one option, or water board.
The debt is like any other. Most people carry credit cards It appears on your credit report and can be collected in the same way in the case of default.
In the case of indigents the debt may need to be written off. That happens occasionally with conventional debt.

some foreign visitor gets run over by a bus ...... goes into hospital; gets leg set and has to stay there for say a couple of days ..... all set to go and bill is about £3,500 (sounds about right and may be a bit low) ..... he has no credit cards on him ...... now what?

for myself, i rarely carry cards, so not particularly unusual

That is probably low. A standard day-stay key surgery, say a knee arthroscopy, costs about that. Without the prior consultation cost.
If the person can't pay, so be it. Just tattoo the debt on his or her forehead.
Some debt will have to be written off. Like everything else, it is easier to go for the low hanging fruit. Those with assets. Better than nothing at all.

Then do what France does. They take passport details and address and then send bills to you. I damaged my ankle once inFrance and then they kept sending me bills. I ignored them and eventually they gave up. It is similar to parking tickets in France and Italy where I have them and ignored them.

as you say, eventually they just gave up!

Big announcement in Physics today.

Gravitional waves have been detected for the first time. They bend space time. My son watched the press conference live in his physics lecture as his university had prior warning of the announcement.

Just in....

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In this Op-ed published in today’s Guardian George Soros explains why President Vladimir Putin is not an ally in the fight against ISIS—and why he is stoking the refugee crisis in Syria to destabilize the European Union. It is the first of three Op-eds on related subjects that he will be publishing in the coming days. I will be sure to send along the other two when they are printed.

All best,
Michael Vachon

Putin is a Bigger Threat to Europe's Existence than Isis
The Guardian, February 11, 2016
By George Soros

The leaders of the US and the EU are making a grievous error in thinking that president Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a potential ally in the fight against Islamic State. The evidence contradicts them. Putin’s aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood Europe with Syrian refugees.

Russian planes have been bombing the civilian population in southern Syria forcing them to flee to Jordan and Lebanon. There are now 20,000 Syrian refugees camped out in the desert awaiting admission to Jordan. A smaller number are waiting to enter Lebanon. Both groups are growing.

Russia has also launched a large-scale air attack against civilians in northern Syria. This was followed by a ground assault by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s army against Aleppo, a city that used to have 2 million inhabitants. The barrel bombs caused 70,000 civilians to flee to Turkey; the ground offensive could uproot many more.

The families on the move may not stop in Turkey. German chancellor Angela Merkel flew to Ankara this week to make last-minute arrangements with the Turkish government to induce the refugees already in Turkey to prolong their stay there. She offered to airlift 200,000-300,000 Syrian refugees annually directly to Europe on the condition that Turkey will prevent them from going to Greece and will accept them back if they do so.

Putin is a gifted tactician, but not a strategic thinker. There is no reason to believe he intervened in Syria in order to aggravate the European refugee crisis. Indeed, his intervention was a strategic blunder because it embroiled him in a conflict with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which has hurt the interests of both.

But once Putin saw the opportunity to hasten the EU’s disintegration, he seized it. He has obfuscated his actions by talking of cooperating against a common enemy, Isis. He has followed a similar approach in Ukraine, signing the Minsk agreement but failing to carry out its provisions.

It is hard to understand why US and EU leaders take Putin at his word rather than judging him by his behaviour. The only explanation I can find is that democratic politicians seek to reassure their publics by painting a more favourable picture than reality justifies. The fact is that Putin’s Russia and the EU are engaged in a race against time: the question is which one will collapse first.

The Putin regime faces bankruptcy in 2017, when a large part of its foreign debt matures, and political turmoil may erupt sooner than that. The president’s popularity, which remains high, rests on a social compact requiring the government to deliver financial stability and a slowly but steadily rising standard of living. Western sanctions, coupled with the sharp decline in the price of oil, will force the regime to fail on both counts.

Russia’s budget deficit is running at 7% of GDP, and the government will have to cut it to 3% in order to prevent inflation from spiralling out of control. Russia’s social security fund is running out of money and has to be merged with the government’s infrastructure fund in order to be replenished. These and other developments will have a negative effect on living standards and opinions of the electorate before the parliamentary elections this autumn.

The most effective way Putin’s regime can avoid collapse is by causing the EU to collapse sooner. An EU that is coming apart at the seams will not be able to maintain the sanctions it imposed on Russia following its incursion into Ukraine. On the contrary, Putin will be able to gain considerable economic benefits from dividing Europe and exploiting the connections with commercial interests and anti-European parties that he has carefully cultivated.

As matters stand, the EU is set to disintegrate. Ever since the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent rescue packages for Greece, the EU has learned how to muddle through one crisis after another. But today it is confronted by five or six crises at the same time, which may prove to be too much. As Merkel correctly foresaw, the migration crisis has the potential to destroy it.

When a state or association of states is in mortal danger, it is better for its leaders to confront harsh reality than to ignore it. The race for survival pits the EU against Putin’s Russia. Isis poses a threat to both, but it should not be overestimated. Attacks mounted by jihadi terrorists, however terrifying, do not compare with the threat emanating from Russia.

Isis (and al-Qaida before it) has recognised the achilles heel of western civilisation – the fear of death – and learned how to exploit it. By arousing latent Islamophobia in the west and inducing the public and governments to treat Muslims with suspicion, it hopes to convince young Muslims that there is no alternative to terrorism. Once this strategy is understood, there is a simple antidote: refuse to behave the way your enemies want you to.

The threat emanating from Putin’s Russia will be difficult to counter. Failure to recognise it will make the task even more difficult.

That seems a fair summary of ME and EU problems.

Be careful what you wish for!

How does it effect China?

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