Delicious LiveJournal Links for 6-11-2009

[andrewducker]

• Cartoon Korea
  How the view of Korea that's reported in the UK is distorted. Not that this makes NK a lovely place to visit, but it does highlight the things that aren't reported.
  (tags: NorthKorea journalism UK)
• US brain-plug interface gets live human trials
  Internet in my head, plz.
  (tags: TheFuture technology brains)
• Raw Video: Cop Tasers 72 Year-Old Granny
  Highlighting, again, why the police should have cameras on them at all times. Because then you can watch him taser a 72-year-old half his height, and make your own mind up whether it was reasonable behaviour.
  (tags: TransparentSociety crime video)
• French Three Strikes law thrown out
  Huzzah for them having a constitution!
  (tags: copyright France internet law p2p threestrikes)
• Humans prefer confidence to expertise
  (tags: psychology advice brain)
• The Ducks Are Not Mine
  This is just _hilarious_.
  (tags: funny pets)
• Monster Jellyfish take over the oceans
  Aieeee!
  (tags: nature pictures science globalwarming environment)
• Students call for student tax to replace fees
  Doesn't sound like a bad idea.
  (tags: tax students)
• Gödel and the End of Physics
  A talk by Stephen Hawking. Well worth reading.
  (tags: interview hawking godel physics quantum science logic)
• How chaos rules complex systems and our existence
  Nice tying together of Godel, The Halting Problem and chaos.
  (tags: complexity mathematics programming math philosophy chaos)
• Terror suspects win legal battle
  Government has to actually tell people what they're accused of. Shocking!
  (tags: terrorism HumanRights law UK)

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Students call for student tax to replace fees

Hm. Well, leaving aside that I'm Scottish and therefore don't pay my minimal fees anyway...

I do have a 20 (28 now with interest) grand loan. This loan is taken automatically out of my wages when they reach a certain level at a percentage of whatever I make over that minimum. Functionally that is a tax - I actually used the word "education tax" to describe it just yesterday.

[andrewducker]

See, I thought the current system worked like a tax too - so I'm not sure what they're gaining by making it into an "actual" tax.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Well, it's either worse or the same. If it would be a tax that you pay forever after your graduate, well, you could end up paying more than you would've otherwise. If it's a tax that you pay until you've paid a certain amount then... well, that's the same as it is now.

[andrewducker]

From the article it looks like the gradiation is steeper - so you'd be paying less at £16k than a person is now, and more at £40k. But I don't have the figures to hand to check that.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I can't understand how someone would manage to rack up 40k in student debt, though. I have more than any Brit I know at 28k.

[andrewducker]

Noooo.

People earning 40k would be paying more than someone earning 40k now would pay, while someone earning 16k would pay less than someone earning 16k would now.

From the article:
"A graduate on £40,000 would pay £125 a month, while someone on £16,000 would pay £5."

I believe that students on £16k pay more than £5 at the moment, and people on 40k pay substantially less than that would mount up to over the course of the repayments.

So basically, they want to subsidise the poorer graduates from the richer ones.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. I didn't actually read to the end of the article.

You pay a percentage of whatever you earn over a certain amount. I think the threshold is around 15k right now, so I guess if you're only on 16k you probably won't be paying much per month, but it's probably still over £5. However, given you pay a flat percentage rate (I think 9%) of everything you earn over the threshold the repayments for those on 40k would be... around £190 a month? So they're still paying less than on the current system too.

[andrewducker]

Yup, looks like they want to make the payments smaller, and for 20 years (rather than indefinitely, or until paid off).

Yeep. Just spotted something. This is _purely_ to replace the fees. Nothing to do with the loans for living expenses.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wasn't saying that the scheme they were suggesting actually replaced the current one, only that it was basically proposing the same system that's already in place for loans. Of course, those only hard hit the poor kids who couldn't afford uni in the first place, and I don't know what happens with their fees in the rest of the UK but I'd assume they're covered by a separate loan/bursary scheme which I'd bet is paid off in the same way already.

[andrewducker]

It's just added on top of the student loan in the rest of the UK.

So this doesn't actually make much difference, as far as I can see.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I love these link entries of yours. You find so much cool stuff.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Government has to actually tell people what they're accused of. Shocking!

Does it have to tell them that they won their case? Because I'm thinking, if not, they'll get away with not telling them anything else either. :-)

Fabulous news, and long, long overdue.