Great Idea, Never Happen

Turning Britishland into Singapore?  It’s an intriguing concept, as explained here.  An excerpt:

There is nothing new in the comparison between modern Britain and circumstances in Singapore when it gained independence in 1965. Like the UK following the Brexit referendum, Singapore was involved in a rancorous divorce from a much larger geopolitical entity that left it facing an uncertain path. For one island’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2016, read another’s split from the Federation of Malaysia 55 years ago.
As many a minister has pointed out in recent years, Singapore went on to conjure an economic miracle. In the space of a generation, it has transformed itself from a country where the average citizen was two and a half times poorer than the average Briton, to a hotbed of soaring prosperity where total economic output is now 70 per cent higher than in the UK.

Here’s what the Brits would have to do, though:

In a country where the average monthly salary is about S$70,000 (£40,000), [Singapore] residents pay income tax of just 7 per cent – less than half of the 20 per cent charged in the UK – while a salary equivalent to £46,000 would attract 11.5 per cent tax.
The individual tax ceiling is 24 per cent, payable only by those earning more than 1 million Singapore dollars; the equivalent rate in the UK is 45 per cent, a bracket that comes into play for anyone with a salary of more than £125,140 (about 217,000 Singapore dollars).
The country’s more favorable tax regime extends to corporation tax, which stands at 17 per cent in Singapore compared with 25 per cent in the UK. There is no capital gains or inheritance tax.

Cut and eliminate taxes?  In Britain?

Hence the title of this post.

No Frigging Chance

And it was all going so well.

I was reading an article at American Greatness which shows in detail how California has screwed things up,whether by Net Zero foolishness, taxation, over-regulation and so on, e.g.

If the builder [Gov.] Pat Brown was an exemplar of “Responsible Liberalism,” California’s government today has been ranked by Wallet Hub as the least efficient in delivering services relative to the tax burden. Pat Brown’s son Jerry – who was governor from 1975-1983 and then again from 2011-2019 – and his successor, Newsom, epitomize the triumph of ideology over effectiveness. Theirs is a kind of performative progressivism that shrugs about things like roads that are now among the nation’s worst, a high-speed bullet train plagued with endless delays and massive cost overruns, and a failure to boost critical water systems in a perennially drought-threatened state.
In exchange for all this, the progressive regime has stuck ordinary Californians and businesses with some of the nation’s highest taxes and greatest regulatory burdens.

So far, so good, and the article goes on to show exactly how, why and to what extent California is doomed.  Then, in the very last paragraph, this:

Yet, for all its problems, California is far from hopeless, and its promise is not extinguished. It remains uniquely gifted in terms of climate, innovation, and entrepreneurial verve. Sitting at the juncture of Asia, Latin America, and North America, it can once again become, as Kevin Starr noted, America’s “final frontier: of geography and of expectation.”

Nope.  Unless the CalGov is purged by a mini-DOGE — or maybe even a greater DOGE, given its entrenched Marxism — as well as a 180-degree change in voting patterns, there is no way for the Golden Shower State to survive.  None.

It is a hopeless state, and the mass exodus of Californians to other states over the past ten years reflects just that.

Wallpaper

This one got my attention, so up it goes:

It’s funny:  you think it’s just a rendition, and then you go to London’s King’s Cross or the Gare du Nord in Paris on a chilly misty morning… and it looks almost exactly like that.

News Roundup

…and in even more disturbing news:


...and pretty much to all other kinds of attacks, e.g. illegal immigration, but we won’t go there.


...well, if the Swiss are getting alarmed


...are these the same as the Covid vaccine scientists, Michael Mann, and the “scientists” who designed the Food Pyramid?

But wait!  Stop panicking!


...no kidding.  Never mind:  next week, another group of scientists will call bullshit on this report.  “Ignore all of them,” you say?  Indeed.


...yeah, and fewer children drown in a world without oceans, lakes, floods, swimming pools and bathtubs.  What’s your point?

In International News:


...”until we decide to invade and occupy Siberia, of course.”


...said link is only worth following for a good look at WH Spokeschick Karoline Leavitt’s rather impressive superstructure.

Now we look at a fresh topic:  States Behaving Not-So Badly:


...works for me.


...welcome to the club, guys. But wait till you see what the Mormons are doing:


...excellent.  No freak flags on government property.


...oh stop it, now I’m giggling.


...I like the sentiment behind this one.  It feeds my inner libertarian.
#ScrewBigGummintMandates

And in Sex Wars:


...well, duh, dude — oh wait, “Chapell” is a lesbianist.  Never mind.

In Vigilante News:


...I’ve heard of protective parents before, but damn.

The hills are alive:


...oh FFS, Neil;  like Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, you’re not important enough for Trump to worry about.

Now it’s time for the “I don’t really care, Margaret” news, a.k.a.

 

...no, I don’t know who any of these people are, either.

And in our weekly stroll through the streets of :


...damn, Roller Girl honey;  you definitely need a few more pasta dinners in your life.

Same bikini, seven years ago:

Back to the present:

We should all age so wonderfully.  And that’s all the news worth (un-)covering.