Rooney

Quite. The tariff situation is just bonkers. Just reeks of people not understanding the global economy and how things work. Genuinely anyone with a basic understanding of economics could have seen what was going to happen. You can hate the system and want to be disruptive, but I think ultimately it weakens any negotiating hand.

Those World Cup 2010 games were pure torture. England vs Scotland in Euro 2020 was another one dour watch (I’m sure it was then). I’ve seen some truly terrible live games and on TV. Seen way too many that they all kind of blur in to one.

Funding got announced recently. The suns are huge, so it’s beneficial to the clubs from a financial aspect. Think it’s how teams performed in the CL over a 4-5 year basis it could be wrong for European clubs at least.

Starts mid June I think. Ending mid July. That will be one interesting thing to keep an eye on as not sure how teams will cope with having no pre season essentially, or is using August as pre season!

People voted to leave the EU because they had no idea what they were voting for. Yes it cost money to buy in to, but it was mutually beneficial as that's how trade works. The EU was absolutely terrible for business, again, I know this as I work for a business! All it did is increase raw materials cost and decrease efficiency along with meaning we are not a good country to invest in as there was so much turmoil & uncertainty going on. I can't speak for the industries you speak of, but they sound like casual work/zero contracts. There are some unethical practices there, but yeah that's capitalism for you. Certainly in most companies there are pay structures or flat pay rates which prevent an influx of cheap labour. Same principle applies when you're shopping though.. if you can buy the same product in Aldi for £10 vs £25 in Sainsburys what are you going to do? There are still a lot of manufacturing companies in the UK, but like the US, we took to invest in Services as an economy. Now we have certainly gone too far as a country and become London centric as that certainly heavily impacts everywhere outside of the South East. But our Services economy was huge until Brexit of course, as like you say if you are a company and wanting to invest, why would you choose the UK over Ireland when you can access 500m people for the same cost vs 65m. So one of your proposed solutions is to create a complex tax scheme, which will cost millions to set up. That's not going to work. I am not a tax expert, but you've got tons of companies who base themselves in Ireland , Gibraltar, Cayman Islands, Monaco etc. to get around tax. The solution is to close the loopholes.

PSG have the advantage as well though that they can rest and rotate key players in the league. That played a huge advantage in the 2nd leg against Liverpool. Just think PSG are the best team left personally. Suspect they'd dispatch of Arsenal quite comfortably over 2 legs, but a final is anyone's game. Often its the team who just manages the occasion the best. Think Inter could be a great shout if they can hold on. They'd certainly be the team I'd least want to face in a one off game.

Liam, I understand the points you're trying to make but you're wholly inconsistent. For example you early suggested a few pages ago that we're losing companies and not taxing them enough, as well as losing millionaires, but you advocate for people having higher wages and companies paying higher tariffs. There is just an understanding of how free markets and capitalism works. Yes, it is not perfect, but ripping out the entire system over a short period of time means everyone loses out. People have always been nationalist, not sure why you think this a new thing. If you walk round a supermarket why do you think own label produce states 'made in Britain' or certain brands play local heritage & culture. As a country, we made ourselves economically smaller by leaving the EU, cos who wants free access to a customer base of 500m people? Brexit severely hampered our ability to trade and meant other countries within the EU have greater scope for manufacturing without needless bureaucracy that Brexit has created. I guess you've not not noticed the US bond market or that they're odds in favour of a recession though. I appreciate this appears condescending, but amongst this thread there are many people who I can disagree with politically. We all may have different views, but there's a wide range of people who work in industries (myself included) and every single economist who agree that wide spread tariffs are not good for growth. There is a very high risk of stagflation occurring for one.

@Houdini I'm away for the next couple of weeks and have a feeling I may forget or be late with my predictions for the following week so I'm sending them over now! Brentford 2-1 Brighton Crystal Palace 2-1 Bournemouth Everton 0-0 Manchester City West Ham 1-0 Southampton Aston Villa 2-2 Newcastle Fulham 2-2 Chelsea Ipswich 0-2 Arsenal Manchester United 1-1 Wolves Leicester 0-4 Liverpool Tottenham 1-2 Nottingham Forest Manchester City 2-2 Aston Villa Arsenal 1-1 Crystal Palace

PSG the team to beat I think. They swatted Villa away. Not sure Villa can put in the level of performance needed at home. Doue is absolutely ridiculous!

Which begs the question, which country is going to bring all their manufacturing back to the US when the rules change every week never mind every month. Not happening. Who knows what's going on. This will get spun all ways, my view is they did not have a clue and ultimately blinked first.

What China is doing is nothing new. Brands rip off IP all the time, including Western ones. Ever shopped in Aldi? Every single one of their major own label products is a rip off of IP. Yes China can undercut European counterparts and there is a place for tariffs to not flood the market with exceptionally cheap products, but some of these products are actually quite good and innovative? Ultimately as consumers having a choice breeds competition in theory. I am just not sure you understand the complexities of manufacturing. The US and U.K. got rich by off shoring manufacturing. Bringing manufacturing wholesale back is not going to create jobs en mass as technology and automation can run full plants and warehouses these days . And even the jobs it does create, there’s currently not enough people to build the infrastructure or gather the raw materials.

Do you know how hard it is to bring manufacturing back? You’re talking 3-5 years to get manufacturing operations up and running from scratch. That’s without even thinking of where you get the raw materials from. And your whole argument presented just means China fast track their way to becoming the global dominant economic powerhouse. Businesses invest in China and get cheaper products. For all of the dodgy ness surrounding China, they are at stable trade partner. If you can buy raw materials for $100 from the USA or China for $50, not difficult to think what choice a customer would make. The same way if your iPhone costs £800 from Currys or £950 from Amazon.

My advice is ignore the internet, especially social media and trust that it will all make sense in time 😂

Reading the reviews for Season 2 and seems like they've made some narrative changes and it's clear as day where the season ends up! Get ready for a lot of set up.

Oh dear could really do withour Arsenal fans telling us they've just produced the best European performance of all time

@Liam S all of us in this thread can see there are lots of negatives to the current system and how it works. But radicalism is not the answer - with what you're suggesting, everyone loses except the 1% and there's no gurantee the system you re-build is actually better than the one you tore down. Let's take the tariffs too, the 15% extra Nike will pay when they import any products. At this point they will pass it on to the American people. There is no way a company absorbs 15% cost. Of course in an ideal world it would be great if companies reduced their profit margins, but that's not going to happen. An investor will simply withdraw money and find something which pays bigger yields. The consumer ends up losing as they pay more. You touch on a lot of points, government debt is huge and household debt is huge. Now the housing market since the crash is slightly better regulated by the Banks, but all over look at consumerism. People regularly live beyond their means and have their sofa, phone, car, holidays etc. all on credit. You're right in that it creates a bubble and false economy of consumer spending. But try telling people they now have to have a 2015 Fiesta instead of a 25 plate Tiguan on PCP. You also make an assumption there will be a state pension eventually. One good thing the Tories did do is make it mandatory for people to be forced to pay in the Pensions. I'm suspecting at some point the Government will float the idea that it is mandatory Pension contributions must be 10% instead of 8% in DC schemes. You're state pension age is currently 68, I suspect the time most of us retire in this thread it will be 75 or it will be re-formed entirely.

Manchester City 1-2 Crystal Palace (12:30) Brighton & Hove Albion 2-0 Leicester City Nottingham Forest 1-0 Everton Southampton 1-2 Aston Villa Arsenal 1-1 Brentford (17:30) Sunday 13th April Chelsea 2-0 Ipswich Town (14:00) Liverpool 2-1 West Ham United (14:00) Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur (14:00) Newcastle United 2-0 Manchester United (16:30) Monday 14th April AFC Bournemouth 2-2 Fulham (20:00) Wednesday 16th April Newcastle United 2-2 Crystal Palace (19:30)

Think next season I’ll start backing the results at least haha. Unfortunately in all the pools bets and LMS I am failing miserable!

Chicken and egg scenario as the Labour government you don't like so much though. If you increase tax on companies they move to places where someone is likely to undercut. I agree Amazon should pay more tax btw, but it's a naive way of looking at the situation. We don't live in a communist or socialist society. People shop about for the best deals, businessess are the same. If you get used to making a lot of money, then you want to keep making money. All that profit then means those who invest get to profit as so the workers through corporate bonus schemes. The idea that any shareholders or a company is suddenly going to swallow an icnrease of 15% costs is bonkers. All the current strategy is doing is excelerating companies plans to move towards API workstreams, automation & AI to reduce costs, sell off low growth categories/arms of the business. You can quite me as much rubbish from Twitter or wherever else as you like but as someone who works in the industry I know exactly what's happening. I just don't know why you're bringing the state pension in to the equation at all, it's completely irrelevant. How you can concieve the stock market collapsing is good for the middle class is bonkers. Do you know what's gonna happen next? As soon as indexs rise, there will be a sell off again from people trying to recoup losses. That's exactly how I would trade and how traders will be working too trying to call the best time to execute that strategy. In the meantime while all this economic crumble is happening, investment is stifling and we're on the way to a recession.

A company makes less profit, so they either reduce supplier costs, make higher prices, find efficency savings or absorb some of the costs. The reality is companies will do a combination of all 4. I've asked this before, but what secto/business area do you work in? Most companies make billions of profit and sure you can call it greed and I would not disagree with that, but they have a board and shareholders. To entice investment they will promise profits. If a company isn't making good profits an investor/fund will move their money elsewhere. That's without any category/market challenges, inflationary costs or consumer spending habits. To think your suggestion of Nike will absorb 25-50% extra costs is ludacris. They might absorb a portion of it, but the rest will either be passed on to the consumers or they will squeeze The state pension isn't at risk because of the stock market. They are a cost of the State because it's free money. You're regularly critical of the Labour government who have just increased employer NI contributions and again, companies will either absorb the costs or find savings. You seem to be under the impression there's gonna be a mass exodus of jobs which is not going to happen by people moving manufacturing elsewhere. This current economic situation (which is all self inflicted btw) is likely to lead to global economic downturn and in turn bring about a recession which = job cuts. Everyone has a private pension and it is invested in stocks, indexs, currency etc. and over the space of a week its lost at least 10% in value which is disasterous.

And who do you think gains from a stock sell and burn off!? Exactly like what happened with Brexit, the people closely connected her either richer and you end up with an oligarch situation like Russia. Stocks and shares affect everyone and it shows the naivety. For starters you’ll contribute to a pension, which will be invested and currently tanking value. Of course plenty of time to grow again but slightly unfortunate if you’re due to retire in 2025. Likewise if a companies share price dwindles then the company is more inclined to reduce costs and headcount. Likewise people are now forecasting a US recession, which as we know will then spiral globally. People live their entire lives on credit which is not good, but the answer to solving these situations is not a self imposed self destruct button where everyone loses!

Stocks rose as there were rumours of a tariff pause. Now they’ve fallen again as that was fake news. The markets are open to manipulation at the moment which is not good. There’s no global conspiracy. Most people don’t want tariffs as it’s bad for growth. Chances of a recession are huge at the moment and all currently self inflicted.

It’s a complete disaster. If it’s not scaled back things are going to get really bad. Someone is dumping US bonds in the background too, which are usually a safe investment during economic turmoil. Probably going to get even worse when the retaliatory tariffs are announced.

Saw a stat over the weekend that the intensity of the league is increasing and it looks that way. The growth of the Premier League means you have the middle teams having loads of money who can buy exceptional players, which is why they can take points off the top teams and why the bottom teams truly suck.

OK gave in and watched this.. I think the clips going round definitely needed to be shown in full context! Episode 5 was by far the highlight for me. The Stars in your Eyes segment and then speed dating was absolutely hilarious.