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Another October 2008? – politicalbetting.com
Another October 2008? – politicalbetting.com
What is happening in the financial markets now is as dangerous as what happened in October 2008. Unlike then, this does not relate to one or two failing institutions (though that is a crude summary of what happened). Rather, it is two-fold: on the financial side, the issue of government borrowing, how it is to be paid for and how a path back to some sort of fiscal stability to lay the foundations for growth are to be achieved. Politically, it is whether Britain’s governing and regulatory institutions have the authority to cope.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/11/king-charles-iii-coronation-date-6-may-2023
Whilst the draft of any bill is unlikely to change, as even a Justice pointed out, it seems as though it is the job of the Lord Advocate to take a view on the competence, and she is simply reluctant to do so. If she is not willing to offer a firm view that it is or is not, then surely it falls by default? Why is it the job of the court to provide an answer to a question she is not even willing to answer? (I know there's a whole bunch of arguments about when she is able to refer a matter and what on as well, but at its heart this seems to be her job is to take a view, and she is unwilling to offer one at the moment).
The BBC live text updates also then includes a lot of stuff about how this is important, and a festering sore, which are both true, but doesn't seem like it would overrule matters of legislative procedure and whether that has been followed properly - you see that sort of argument at much much lower levels with things like public sector equality duty, or duty of care, meaning (people argue) any other rules are not relevant. And its the sort of thing the government lost, when trying to argue Brexit was really important and thus little things like parliamentayr consent were not necessary. I hope they go big. It's not as though going slimmed down will turn republicans into monarchists, and being over the top silly is part of the brand.
What about the coronation feast? Do you suppose he'll serve Hawaiian pizzas?
Could save Liz Truss.
Most of sent notifications about it.
What a berk.
bright side, this must trash the Etonian as well as the Tory brand for a generation.
The crowning of the King and Queen Consort will also take a slightly more informal tone, more in suits etc and reflect the modern age more while still keeping the key elements
We come back to the reason that the tax bit of the triad was announced without anything on spending, or OBR analysis of resulting borrowing. Because one or both those numbers is going to be impossibly grisly. Which is why Rishi planned to increase NI and Corporation Tax in the first place.
And saying "but I don't want to" doesn't changes the laws of arithmetic.
For the rest of the month and the weeks already passed, anyone reliant on Universal Credit, on disability benefits, on a functioning education or health system or the myriad other support services has sat there seriously worried.
Not only does this government threaten their ability to live rather than exist or even starve, they do so with a dripping smirking arrogance that makes the Victorians look kind. When Nadine fucking Dorries is made to look moral you really know the cabinet are a long long way out of line.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-in-the-uk-since-1270?time=1848..2016
[SSI - Joe Kent defeated incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler (who voted to impeach Trump after his attempted Jan 2021 coup) in August 2022 WA "Top Two" Primary; she came in third behind Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent.]
Until last month, Kathy McDonald was vice chair of the Clark County Republican Party, describing herself as a die-hard Donald Trump supporter with a long record of activism in the GOP.
But this week, McDonald is co-hosting a meet-and-greet fundraiser for Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, the Democratic candidate for Congress in southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
What’s going on?
McDonald says she can’t bring herself to support Joe Kent, the Republican candidate, citing his extreme rhetoric and plans to focus on ideological warfare against Democrats and establishment Republicans if elected.
Such talk might garner Kent national attention as a flamethrower like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz — both of whom Kent has campaigned with — but McDonald said it’s not a recipe for addressing local concerns, such as replacing the Interstate 5 bridge between Vancouver, Wash., and Portland.
“If you piss everybody in the world off, like Joe will do, you can’t move the ball forward,” said McDonald, who resigned her county party position Sept. 25. “How much is Marjorie Taylor Greene getting done?”
McDonald’s defection, which caught other Clark County GOP leaders by surprise, spotlights the discomfort Kent has generated for a segment of Republicans — and some independents — who backed U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, only to see her ousted in the August primary in a backlash over her Trump impeachment vote.
Kent, an ex-Green Beret combat veteran who has vowed to impeach Joe Biden and refuse to compromise with Democrats, dismisses such defections as few and far between, saying they mostly consist of “Never Trump” Republicans who were never going to back him.
It’s not clear how many Herrera Beutler voters will cross party lines to vote for Gluesenkamp Perez in November. McDonald is among only a relative few who have publicly vowed to cross over.
Another is Julie Olson, a two-term Republican member of the Clark County Council, who strongly supported Herrera Beutler for reelection but is now endorsing Gluesenkamp Perez. . . .
SSI- Personally think that Joe Kent is likely to prevail in the general election, but will be VERY interesting to see what does happen in this part of the world.
On the other hand, the future looked shiny.
Frankly I find your warnings far more worrying than anything I read about WW3.
This is not to absolve the government from blame. They should of course have announced the tax cuts at the same time as fiscal cuts and supply side reform in a proper budget with appropriate oversight, as you say. Not in a period when we were already seeing the QE and rock bottom yields experiment unwinding on both sides of the Atlantic.
The comi-tragedy is that in broad strokes Truss is right. High tax has no doubt impeded growth and low interest rates have been among the most ruinous policies for wealth equality of the last century (special mention to 1990s Russia privatisation process). The Labour Party should have been screaming blue murder for a decade that it must end but perhaps it found it hard because a) it started on their watch, b) they didn’t want to make the hard choices either.
We seem now to be stuck in a loop where spending can’t be cut, tax rises aren’t going to increase the take much, and the bank doesn’t dare raising rates or unwinding QE (in part because of the liquidity crisis it has overseen with DB pensions).
The reckoning from 2008 is almost upon the world and a lot of people are going to be substantially poorer as a result. The only quibble now is how that pain is shared and to make sure boneheaded politicians and officials don’t make it worse than it needs to be.
@Tsihanouskaya
I addressed President Zelenskyy today & proposed to build an alliance between Ukraine & democratic Belarus. To establish political & diplomatic relations. Because the fates of our nations are intertwined. We are ready for cooperation & we #StandWithUkraine🇺🇦
https://twitter.com/Tsihanouskaya/status/1579873938783752192
Trouble is, a cutprice coronation will look crap. But so will an upmarket, ermine vermin laden, one, for different reasons and to different people - or even with an overlap of the two sets. An interesting dilemma to navigate.
Basically, the death of our DB pension system came from artificially low interest rates over very long periods of time which multiplied the capital required to pay those pensions when they became due. Increased government gilt yields will have massively (because they are so highly geared) increased pension solvency.
We have lived with a deeply distorted economy since 2008. We have encouraged debt by making it cheap, we have inflated asset prices benefiting the better off and companies which frankly should have gone to the wall have continued a zombie existence using up assets that could have been put to better use. We absolutely need to get interest rates back to something like normal, that is roughly 2% above inflation. Doing this is going to be very painful for those who borrowed large sums for mortgages on the basis that borrowing was cheap. But not doing this has increased inequality, pulled up the rungs of the housing market for our youth and completely distorted our tax system, increasing the burden on earnings but allowing massive gains to effectively go untaxed.
My grandmother was up and down like a yo yo as the national anthem was played on repeat
Times were very different and having less was not an issue - we were more content
As gilt yields rise many DB funds will find their funding position improve dramatically, will they not?
Surprised @MaxPB has not recognised that in his woe-is-me lamentations about DB pensions.
I would just say though that a forced crash in the housing market will cause a significant recession that will scar the country for a decade or more (and affect all workers whether they are house owners or not).
So the way out is some combination of higher tax rises, lower spending, higher interest rates, and lower pound.
And, of course, the defenestration of Truss-Kwarteng, who have no support from the markets, the public, or even their own party.
Of course those who are highly geared, whether for mortgages or other investments will be in trouble. So there will be many losers as well as gainers. But many savers will welcome a higher return on their money, even if interest rates remain severely negative in real terms.
You can't tell people that your ideology trumps their lived reality. They will destroy you at the ballot box. Why don't KT understand this?
In fact, which not have Coronation Torches from all corners of the nation being run by local heroes to congregate on Buckingham Palace...
... then burn the lot down in a massive republican bonfire?*.
(*For the avoidance of doubt, the last part is a joke.)
I’m serious.
They’ve fucked the country so badly, to take it on board would be psychologically disastrous.
We should have done an Iceland in 2008.
14 stupid, wasted years of financial repression with huge consequences for the young.
As someone who graduated in July 2008, into the great financial crisis, I feel really sorry for my contemporaries - those in their late 20’s and 30’s who have had to swim against an incredible tide, for the last decade and a half and have had to load themselves up with massive mortgages, just to get some kind of stability and raise a family.
They’re now left holding the can.
Political choices have made life very unfair for my generation.
It all could have been so different.
Russia currently has no means to hold back the tide in Belarus. It is focussed on Ukraine.
Maybe we will see the return of the King's Champion to the ceremony? He's still being appointed, he might as well do something in return.
In Ireland, house prices fell 35% and new home loan volumes fell 75%, but Irish growth then decoupled from the UK (and before you blame Brexit, this was evident long before then). We just kept putting off the reckoning.
You either can’t afford to buy a house, or you’ve bought with heavy leverage and even then are unlikely to have been able to afford a standard of accommodation accessible to the generation before you.
Even QCs now live in Archway, not Hampstead. And so on, all the way down the ladder.
The only winners are those who’ve inherited or been gifted by their parents.
If Ireland outgrew the UK in the years after 2008 I would argue it was because it had fallen so far (similar to the UK’s Covid bounce back which flattered to deceive).
The turning point was probably around 2015. A course correction was required, but the UK spent all its energy Brexiting instead.
Because psychologically the only hope the government have is to bluff and fake it in the hope of making it. But that will dig them deeper into their hole...
When you have malinvestment, you need people to take their losses, otherwise you end up with a zombified economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatlana_Tsikhanouskaya
I don’t agree that we should have let the economy crash into depression, and I think Ireland is not a terribly useful comparator for all sorts of reasons.
Also, nobody seriously looking at the UK economy today can avoid Brexit as an major exacerbating issue.
The question behind my question was, is she just a figurehead, and Lukashenko calls the shots? Not much help from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/is Sviatlana_Tsikhanouskaya just a figurehead, and Lukashenko calls the shots?
As for demographics, I’m interested in what this says about European immigration; did it “stave off” a decline in the growth rate? To what extent?
LA City Council President Nury Martinez has stepped down as president, after the audio recording of her making racist remarks surfaced.
LOS ANGELES (CN) — A leaked audio recording of an expletive-filled meeting between three Los Angeles City Council members and a labor leader, who can be heard making numerous racist slurs, some about their City Hall colleagues, has sent shockwaves through LA's political establishment.
On Monday, the day after the news broke, City Council President Nury Martinez announced she was stepping down as president. Many Southern California politicians, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla and both mayoral candidates have called for the three council members — Martinez, Kevin de Leon, and Gil Cedillo — to resign from office, as has the Los Angeles Times editorial board.
The 80-minute audio clip, which has been uploaded to YouTube by the progressive news site KnockLA, provides a rare peak into the coarse, cynical and mean ways in which the city's elected officials relate to one another. The four Latino officials speak openly and cynically about defending their political turf from their enemies — namely, from Black and white politicians.
Referring to progressive District Attorney George Gascón, Martinez says, "Fuck that guy. He's with the Blacks."
Martinez calls progressive City Councilman Mike Bonin, a white gay man, a "little bitch." Perhaps the most shocking part of the conversation is when it turns to Bonin's adopted [Black] son . . . .
"They're raising him like a little white kid," Martinez says. "I was like, this kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then I’ll bring him back.” Martinez . . . describes the child as "parece changuito," or "like a monkey." . . .
"It's the white members on this council that will motherfuck you in a heartbeat," Martinez says, referring to the potential of City Controller Ron Galperin to stop paying suspended City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas' salary — which he did do. "That's what they do."
De Leon agrees, comparing the situation to when his former colleague in the Legislature, Tony Mendoza, was accused of sexual harassment.
"The white folks will cut you in a heartbeat," De Leon says. "And then when it's them, they figure out some shit." . . .
"They get a PR firm," Martinez agrees. "They get the best attorneys."
The council members go on to insult Armenians, a few other City Council members, even a reporter for the LA Times, whom Martinez calls a "fucking little piece of shit."
https://www.courthousenews.com/audio-leak-of-profane-racist-remarks-leaves-la-city-hall-in-disarray/
SSI - Los Angeles Times & many others calling for these clowns to resign. My guess is that they will indeed be forced to walk the plank. Certainly hope so!
Is this really like 2008?
You literally brought him up.
The U.S. says they will seek to extradite him.