Best Of

The job market is truly dire for graduates and people at the moment.

I’m sure the young will come to loathe HR professionals and recruiters as much as I do, from my time contracting.

https://x.com/mcrj1996/status/1955673544807022888?s=61

Most HR professionals and recruiters are both dense and lazy. They don't understand a candidates potential fit unless it precisely matches the JD, and even then they expect you to do all the qualification and work for the role, before taking their 10-20% commission if successful.

I've got all my good jobs through personal references in my network.

After my first contract role which I found via a recruiter the same applies to me. Get in, do a good job, expand your network, rewards will come.

FPT:

I'll believe it when I see it delivered.
If I live that long.

Labour to revive Northern Powerhouse Rail project
Exclusive: Starmer and Reeves expected to announce move before Labour conference, with aim of boosting backbench morale
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/13/labour-to-revive-northern-powerhouse-rail-project-trains

"With the aim of boosting backbench morale..." doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

I thought they had already re-re-re-anounced it?

They announced it without any money being attached - this time there appears to be some money attached...

Now they just need to work out how to sort out a train network because if you are building 1 tunnel you may as well keep them around and build another couple of tunnels at the same time for local trains.

If you finish a tunnel project one week the next tunnel project should be ready to go the following week. Look at how it was done in Norway and the Faroes.

Instead we dither for a couple of years until the contractors get bored and wander off, then wonder why everything now costs 3x as much.

Also look at Copenhagen where a lot of metro has been built over the past 10 years..

That's not really the entire status imo wrt Metros. It's also a failed national politics.

Very little has been built here because we have had 10-15 years of short-termist slash and burn Government, and if funding is not for example finalised until have way through the spending period - then of course it is chaos, chaos imposed from the centre.

Exceptions are where we have longer term political structures with real funding over a period, or Govt involvement. We had that from under Thatcher, Major, Blair, in measure.

And we have a whole series of metro and tram systems in major cities, and London. Just not in the South. Where's the Portsmouth or Southampton Metro, for example? They could have done that whilst Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester were building their light. Why did they not?

But if local and regional government is slashed by a third or so across the board, wtf do you expect to happen?

That's why imo the current version of the Conservative Party needs to die, or to recreate itself as something that's fit to be in our society.

The planning system is not working? Well for years the rhetoric was that such is bad, and it was left to wither on the vine, so of course it is broken. No shit, Sherlock. And they have just had another 15 years and wrecked it all.

Is there a single area of national life that was not flat on its back in July 2024?

Frankly the OSA impact on online porn is nothing. I’m much more upset that by its chilling impact on online discussion on PB where certain topics are verboten. I understand the reasons and support the site owner(s) but it’s a dreadful state of affairs in a country with a reputation for supporting freedom of speech.

Er, we don’t have that reputation any more

We are literally laughed at, online, as the country where you get arrested and jailed for naughty tweets. Laughed at by everyone, worldwide

Not sure we ever did. The last conviction for blasphemy was in 1977. There was never a golden age.

Yes there was. About 1985-2010

And no blasphmeny law in the 20th century ever sent a teacher into hiding, for his life, with his family. Now, it does, de facto

@Fritschner

The guy Trump nominated to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics at January 6, amazing scoop by Ryan Reilly

https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1955788956643233841

Of more concern should be whoever replaces JPow as fed chair.

Bessent is already saying interest rates are 1.5 - 1.75% too high so big pressure on whoever comes in to make a substantial cut. Even if they go 0.5% in September.

Bessent is even talking about issuing US debt in Stablecoins !

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Trump wants to see a big fall in the Buck. He doesn't understand that inflation will cancel most of the competitive gain and that LT investment into the US would fall, especially as the rule of law in Trumpistan is falling apart. The discount that investors will need to buy dollar earning assets is way beyond the potential gain.

So sooner or later the trickle out of USD becomes a flood and a major crisis. The bear is out there somewhere, and the forest is growing nervous.

I think that's a bit too simple.
There is a huge amount of resilience in an economy the size of the US.

It's perfectly conceivable that Trump does a huge amount of damage to it, and that it still outperforms Europe, which has its own set of structural problems.
Also quite possible that you turn out to be correct.

@Fritschner

The guy Trump nominated to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics at January 6, amazing scoop by Ryan Reilly

https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1955788956643233841

Of more concern should be whoever replaces JPow as fed chair.

Bessent is already saying interest rates are 1.5 - 1.75% too high so big pressure on whoever comes in to make a substantial cut. Even if they go 0.5% in September.

Bessent is even talking about issuing US debt in Stablecoins !

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Trump wants to see a big fall in the Buck. He doesn't understand that inflation will cancel most of the competitive gain and that LT investment into the US would fall, especially as the rule of law in Trumpistan is falling apart. The discount that investors will need to buy dollar earning assets is way beyond the potential gain.

So sooner or later the trickle out of USD becomes a flood and a major crisis. The bear is out there somewhere, and the forest is growing nervous.

Frankly the OSA impact on online porn is nothing. I’m much more upset that by its chilling impact on online discussion on PB where certain topics are verboten. I understand the reasons and support the site owner(s) but it’s a dreadful state of affairs in a country with a reputation for supporting freedom of speech.

Er, we don’t have that reputation any more

We are literally laughed at, online, as the country where you get arrested and jailed for naughty tweets. Laughed at by everyone, worldwide

Not sure we ever did. The last conviction for blasphemy was in 1977. There was never a golden age.

2001. The gov't getting back in for the grand loss of 6 whole seats indicates people were pretty content with their lot. Interest rates were a touch higher than now but coming down, houses were actually affordable before the rocketing prices of 2003 odd (In real terms); tuition fees were a thing but affordable and not going to land the holders in a lifetime of debt. University was fun, rents were affordable. The music wasn't quite as good as a few years earlier but festivals were again... affordable. You could have 2002 too or the late 90s (Worse economics, better music) and 2012 was the best year since.
Immigration wasn't a big issue. The whole vibe was just... relaxed..

@Fritschner

The guy Trump nominated to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics at January 6, amazing scoop by Ryan Reilly

https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1955788956643233841

Of more concern should be whoever replaces JPow as fed chair.

Bessent is already saying interest rates are 1.5 - 1.75% too high so big pressure on whoever comes in to make a substantial cut. Even if they go 0.5% in September.

Bessent is even talking about issuing US debt in Stablecoins !

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Trump wants to see a big fall in the Buck. He doesn't understand that inflation will cancel most of the competitive gain and that LT investment into the US would fall, especially as the rule of law in Trumpistan is falling apart. The discount that investors will need to buy dollar earning assets is way beyond the potential gain.

So sooner or later the trickle out of USD becomes a flood and a major crisis. The bear is out there somewhere, and the forest is growing nervous.

I’d love to agree, but it’s not what’s happening in large businesses. For roughly 6 years now (half of Trump 1, all of Biden, and the last few months of Trump 2 save a few weeks during the tariff madness, I’ve seen an inexorable drift of investment and location decisions in multinationals towards the US. That’s not going to change unless Trump really blows it.

The reasons are:

1. Business Tax: the corporate tax cut in the TCJA in 2017 and the vast incentives of the IRA in the last term, and now some further tweaks including the deal on pillar 2, that make it yet more favourable to invest in the US and punishing to do so elsewhere
2. Talent: there is simply the benefit of huge scale and mobility in the labour force that even China doesn’t possess yet, and Europe has not fully managed to achieve despite free movement because of language and cultural barriers
3. Investor dollars: still way more scale up capital and liquidity out there, though that’s a longer term feature
4. Size of market
5. Energy prices, which are way lower than Europe thanks to the fracking boom and a renewables explosion

The only major things holding the US back are political uncertainty, crap infrastructure!and the eye watering cost of labour.